Should I get a new C7 Corvette?

I think Vette owners do their share of tossing out stereotypes at Ferrari, Lambo, and Porsche owners. Both sides have a lot of chutzpah IMO.

 

The vette crash video is very telling for many of these cars get modded because the drivers like to spin the rear tires too much. While I have owned quite a few vettes and no ferraris, I would state the primary difference is that ferraris are a driving experience where the drive train is an essential part of the whole package whereas vettes are historically a motor first experience whcih gets many in trouble when they mod it and push the motor beyond their control and how it should relate to the car itself. The problem now is that the vette is moving in ferrari's territory by combining great handling and overall performance. Fewer and fewer new vettes are being modded - they don't need it and the experience is changing.

 

I disagree. The Corvette has been a true sportscar for decades(not some unbalanced, all motor musclecar). They have done well in their race classes since the 50s. The 60s Corvettes had no difficulty running with contemporary street Ferraris, nor did the 70s, 90s and all since. The C4 easily outhandled/stopped most of the Ferraris of the day.

 

I don't disagree with the corvette's race heritage but I do find the average joe out there using the vehicle for a straight line performer more often than not. I just find most owners enjoying the display of power versus actually using it. The crash video often shows the owners either accelerating into a curve or having so much rear torque that any change of direction causes an uncontrolled slide which most did not recover. As a matter of fact, many didn't even lift to get things under control. Really shows a disconnection between foot and mind, IMO.

 

if you want to be fair and objective,

Well with the exception of the 458 new ferrari designs suck. By almost any design standard a C7 is infinitly nicer than the F12, but neither of these have an elegance to them or would be called superlkative. These are designs to stun more than delight, yes the vette cribs from others, but it doies it better. I have no doubt that if the F12 had been the vette design people would be swooning all over it. I have also no doubt that if the vette handled like the F12 people would swoon too.

As to owner image, most new ferrari's are owned by people with a lot of money and zero clue about driving or cars, these are trinkets to them, hence the need to make ferraris drive like a daily, they are purchased because of image heritage and whatever other BS goes around.

Porche has almost completly lost it with the new 911 which is larger than a vette and looks like a bloated frog. Itrs lost its one primary usp steering feel and tactility. Yes a porche is the quinteseesntial dentist car. What we do know though is a boxter or cayman is a superlative drivers car and handler. It would be nice if the vette had say the same handling dynamics as a boxter.

The criticism of the vette witll boil down to dynamics at the limit, the tactile experience and build.

If a Hyndai genesis can have superlative build so could the vette, in fact even my equinox has above average build, lets see, but so far build on a vette has always been below grade. Whatever anyone says of the new vette interior, and no one here has seen it in person, it does not look like a really isnpired design. I have also yet to see any GM car that has a fantastic interior, there are always letdowns with Gm products. I can say the same for a number of new mercedes too.


C7 has electric steering so we know it cant be superlative there, hell even the cheif engineer says this. The motor will put out power, but will be more about torque, which for really serious road work is not ideal. I drove extensivley back in the day a calloway C4 and a Zr1, on paper the calloway had more power and was faster, but it had a relatively narrow power band and ran out of breath. The ZR1 was pure soprano and with its high redline ran and ran in any chosen gear. I haver also driven extensively my neighbours 10 ZO6.

You know a new suzuki GsXR 1100 is a really fast bike. But people go for ducatis because they offer a lot of other benefits, like style build, more vice free handling and a motor which does more than just make power. Even the new BMW sportbike is a great seller, and its format is pretty much the same as the Japanese. When you get into high performance cars these days, like bikes people look to how switches feel, does everything you touch feel quality, what the numbers say, but also how it feels going down the road.

I dont believe that the C7 is the groundbreaking car that the FI C2 was. If you look at a C7 and C6 picture side by side, you can see that the C7 is really an evolution and reinement of a vette starting with the C5. Evolutions are great and sometime superlative, a 355 was infinitly better than a 348 on which it was based. Or a better example is a 430 is a very good evolution of a 360, and a 997.2 porche is a very good third iteration of a 996.

So yes the C7 may really be good, it might even be better than a lot of the newer cars which seem to have gone backwards, but its not the second comming.

 

I agree. Just go to Corvette Forum. A common theme of many threads is drag race performance and rear wheel horsepower; not many F-car owners care if the car will run a particlar ET in the quarter mile or what dyno numbers it produces.

And far too many performance car owners have terrible skills; Vette owners have more visible drivign gaffes because there are more Vettes and let's face it, more Vette owners are interested in street racing than Ferrari owners so more Vettes will be caught in losses of control.

But I see plenty of Ferrari, Lambo, BMW, etc owners show up on track with the silly notion that the car is fast and therefore they must be, too.

The Corvette has the ability to outperform most any other production car on track, and certainly run with basically all of them on a road course. Percentage-wise, I think fewer Vette owners than say Porsche and perhaps even Ferrari actually have any desire to use their cars in that way.

 

I'd agree that Corvette owners enjoy the straight line speed of their cars-why wouldn't they? The cars are fast, respond well to mods and rarely break and when they do, they don't require a second mortgage to repair. Sadly, the "exotics" don't enjoy these advantages. Besides, its fairly easy to own a Corvette that will reliably lay waste to most any Ferrari in a straight line. I would disagree that vette owners don't take their cars to roadcourses. There are Corvettes in strong numbers at nearly every track day I've attended-they do very well and are often FTD for those that care. You do see the occasional F or L car at these events-usually not going too fast. Nothing wrong with that, but, unfortunately, many don't bother because they don't want to be the premier "kill" for less expensive cars. A friend of mine stopped taking his 550 to track days after being ribbed for being passed by Subaru WRX station wagon. Sily to be sure, but some folks have easily bruised egos.
My observations record that Porsche owners attend more track days than any other pricey cars, followed by the Corvette crew, the Viper crowd, Fcars ...

 

Actually, torque is everything! In fact the hot ticket in NASA ST racing which is a power to weight base is to make torque monster motors which are class killers. That's why a more fair way to set a class up is to use Hp + torque/weight.

The 355 used to be twice the cost of the 348. As both chassis have aged and all the bugs have come to frutition the cost between a good 348 and a decent 355 is about 5 grand. That does not spell infinitely better in my book. Each of those models have pluses and minuses and if I were in the market for one today it would be a tough call on which to buy when you factor in all the issues. The C4 to C5 huge leap. The C5 to C6 almost just styling and more motor though out the line. The C7 seems to be a much larger gap. We will see when they start hitting the streets and the tracks where the men will be separated from the boys. I think we racers caught GM by surprise when we started blowing up the C6 LS3 powered cars in less than 5 laps. That put a big hole in GM's sails and a big driving force that became the C6 gransport. In a way it was a good thing maybe delaying the intro of the C7 for corvette's 60th. I have a lot of high hopes for the new C7.

 

Corvette's have close to a 50/50 weight distribution. Your point is invalid.

 

They've been that way since the C5, too, when they went to a transaxle.

 

Close to 50/50 is not the same thing as 60/40. Also the way weight transfers is different in a front engined car. We know for example that on the opposite end of the spectrum a 911 is great at powering out of turns. Its all a charateristic of the car. We know going all the way back to Zora thye would love to have done a mid engined vette, for a number of good reasons.

What is a pity is that the vette did not split into a sportscar range. In the time of Lutz there was talk of doing a mid engined vette as well. The transaxle and many suspesion bits could have been shared between the front engined car and the mid engined one or so they said. That would have allowed for a performance range not possible with the current layout. If you gave the vette engineers the $$ they would still love to do a mid engined car in addition to the front engined one. the solstice would have made agreat basis for a junior vette too.

In any event numbers dont lie, there are more new vettes sold than pretty much any other sportscar model.

fact is if youre talking superlative world beating performance, the recent american car in that range is the Ford Gt. It woudl eb great if Gm or ford made something like that again, and with a Zr1 coming in close to 130K it cant be that price is a barrier.

 

Agreed! In fact I have raced a mid engined 348 and still race the C5Z06 in SCCA club racing. While real racers may want midengine this nationally licensed clubracer really likes the front/rear layout of the vette. You see what is twitchy is not the vette but the midengine cars like the 348. A midengine car is center massed. A vette is like a dumbell weight on either end. It is easy to rotate center mass but hard to rotate a dumbell. So for me at the clubracing level I can do much more in a vette because it is slower to respond and take much more stupidity to loose control. The 348 being a midengine platform was much easier to get in trouble with and "feel" like you were going faster. I can get much closer to limits with a slower car because it talks to me instead of slap me upside the head.

 

What you mean to say is "40/60" as in 40 front 60 rear. By the way, those drivers in the video all make the rookie mistake of getting a little sideways under heavy throttle and then immediately backing all the way out of the throttle.

 

My skills have faded partly from age, partly from lack of use, but mostly from not being fearless anymore. But if you ever pushed a 360 too hard you will know it can get away from you pretty fast. I agree most high end cars probably spend their time being looked at or driven at 40 mpg on a sunny day some their owners can show them off a be noticed. I doubt many of them ever hit triple digit speeds.If everything about the C7 I have read turns out to be true it will be a truly amazing machine and anyone who does not believe that probably has their head stuck up some other part of their body. Will it have the look at me stuff a Ferrari or a Lambo has nope does it need it nope. I doubt GM think anyone will trade in their Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Porsche for one even if it outperforms those cars. The current C6 is a pretty good drivers car and the ZR1 is still winning comparison test in the rags and the Z06 is still doing pretty well in the best drivers car things they do. I am certain of one thing though people buys cars for many reasons does anybody really need a Ferrari to drive to the bakery or to drop of their dry cleaning I don't think so. Whatever your reason to buy a car it should be yours and you should not need to explain it to anyone just own up to it yourself. After all the cars I've owned and the money I spent changing them I am now in that been there done that stage of my life when it comes to cars and cars like the Jag XK or the DB9 do more for me than a 458 which I would never want just because I truly HATE those paddles.

 

You just don't know what you're missing.
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Beautiful car but still no manual available! WTF????

 

I agree about the paddle thing. Tried a 458 and a MP4, they both left me underwhelemed. Really an auto car with a powerful yet peaky engine. Even going round corners on the street the feedback was so minimal and the grip so high that it really felt like it required not much more effort than typing into a keyboard go round that bend. The same speed in my boxer was fully engaging and already well into jail time territory. So what do you do with a 458?

Personaly I like car you have to drive, cars that require concentration. Sadly there are few places left on earth where you can freely drive cars freely on the road at pace, you know getting into the harmonic of a particular car on a particular road. Traffic and traffic laws negate that in most places.

So the options are to make cars that can drive in everday slow traffic, that have "performance" numbers that people find attractive, so most mderns drive like any other car, and can put out great numbers for a few l;aps on a track but are anodyne at less than 10/10ths pace.. A frew cars like a Gt3 maybe a 458 and some vettes Vipers etc, can be run hard on the track, but that is once again a different performance enviroment to a open mountain road, and as a street car I find that only the GT3 is fun with precison at streetable speeds. But then I live in an area of twisties.

BILLYBOB If you have ever had the pleasure of running a coastal road unfettered for say 30 mins, then you would understand why a analogue ferrai/porche might be slower than a vette on track, but why it is infinitly more enjoyable on a fast road pace. By tha same token crossing borad straightish sections of territory is great in a Bently Arange. Its horses for courses, and if ultimate lap time is not the consderation then there are a number of fast cars to drive that may be more fun and engaging than a vette. Hence my driving a lotus elisie on track.

As to track driving from what I see the people with the fatest cars are usualy held back skill wise by using the crutch of the power and grip, so they never really advance driving skill wise past a certain point. Its not just how fast you go, but also how you go fast.

On a track a ZR1 vette may be faster than a 458, but I think the 458 would be more fun and entertaining, if you could afford the bills, and for most decent drivers the difference between the two is really going to be more one of skill. But for that matter a GT3 is technicaly slower still but its the one I would choose, it would be in my opinion far more engaging, and certainly make me a far better driver than say if I were in an even faster GTR. Yes if youre racing then the podium is all that counts in the end. Plus as we know an exotic gets really pricey to run on a track regularily. But to me a fast car must be engaging and feel like an extension of yourself, like a good motorcyle, vettes to me dont excel when it comes to this, but then I can say that about most moderns.

My hope is that wheile other manufacturers, porche most notably, are abandoning the conceptr of a car being an engaging drive, the vette team claims to be moving more in that direction. We shall see soon.

From what I have read of the latest crop of newer cars if you want something really fast and engaging the viper is probably tops, we shall see about the vette soon. If Porche drops a fast engine into the cayman as rumoured that is certainly a contender, then there are the other options like a rossion or spf GT40. Fun valls road cars are something like the Aston V12 vatnage, various mustangs mabe the zl1 camaro, amg merceds c class black, 1 seies m Bmws. As it is most modern fast cars are video game extensions, or jus a whole lot of power and tires missing all the other tactile and sensory bits that make sports cars as opposed to fast cars so much fun..

 

Boxerman:

I pretty much agree with your previous post, especially the lack of a clutch. My wife's Audi has the Tiptronic on the wheel and shifter, and while it's more fun than the standard auto phase, it just doesn't bring the same excitment nor work that driving with a true stick brings. Not everyone can drive a stick and many that do aren't very good at speed with them, so when you are it's that more of an accomplished feeling. In regards to the ZR-1, they appear to be more of high speed road rocket than track car, and several magazines felt the Z06 was much more comfortable on the track, even if it was a tenth or two slower, it didn't require the same effort to get there. It's a shame that Porsche appears to be headed down the road of "dumbing down" their cars for the masses, with the exception of the Gt-3 and Caymans (perhaps a few others). I saw two GT-3's run in the HPDE session during our SCCA National at Beaverun (PIRC) and I was very impressed with the performance of those cars. The drivers we're nose to tail the entire day, quick and seemed to be really enjoying themselves. The cars can be built but do the manufacturers have the desire to provide us with challenging and/or enjoyable cars?

 

There are Corvettes, and there are CORVETTES!!! and there has always been a huge difference between the two. While outwardly similar, the performance versions of the Corvette has always been a very different animal than the boulevard version. Unfortunately many people take a Corvette for a test drive, and come away feeling that it is basically an "old mans car".

Nothing is further from the truth, you just have to know the code. In the 4th generation the code was Z07, which got you stiffer springs, suspension bushings, different shocks, quicker steering, bigger front wheels and tires, and different gearing. In the 5th generation cars it was pretty much the same thing, the C5Z06 had all of the above, as well as lighter weight and a slightly different body. The 6th gen cars had the big motor Z06 which added a much bigger motor, and an alumnimum frame, lighter weight fenders.. and on it goes. Chevrolet sells a boatload of mundane Corvettes. That gets the production numbers up to where the car is affordable, but it never really used to sell a lot of the high performance models, since that market is pretty limited. In the C4 years they used to sell only about 800 Z07 cars a year. In more recent times the Z06 has been a bigger part of the production but selling all of those cars to the "average" buyer isn't a bad thing, since it makes what we like a lot more affordable.

Bottom line is that there are really several Corvettes, and the differences between the "waxer" cars and the sporting cars are huge. A C5Z06, like Billybob races is actually very much a "hair shirt" sports car with minimial sound insulation, and if you align it right, is VERY responsive on the track and very satisfying to drive on that proverbial winding back road. Lots of folks take the test drive in the boulevard version and never understand what a real Corvette can be. Properly tuned and set up for what we like, a Corvette is more than just a effective tool, you just have to know the code to get into where you want to go....

 

I have driven a C6 zO6 quite a bit. In my opinion its limited by the layout, youre essentialy sitting just in front of the rear wheels with a long hood. The steering was direct and tight but pretty devoid of feedback. The Motor really put out power but lacked that feeling of total refinement and the power was unlinear, I like a camy motor but this was different. .

In general a great car should have feedback, each control whether light or heavy shoudl be a delight to operate, most importantly steering and throttle should be able to be meted in micro increments, with each input of throttle or steering corrosponding exactly to a change. In my opninion the vette lacks in this area. Its more Nascar meets trackcar than truly sublime. Which does not mean its not a fast cool car, but it is more of an ax than a rapier.

As to tuning, I have no experience with the change in feel to a tuned vette. I can belive it makes a big bdifference though. My M3 seemed so soft to me, the motor was lazy and the power tapered off to soon, plus the steering felt a bit too marshmellow and there was little feedback. Yes it put out the number but I really did not see the point.

Different tires and a alignment woke the front end of the car up, it became sharp where it was blunt and talkative where it was dead. A motor flash and the power now builds all the way to redline, the engine is smoother and far quicker to react. None of this cost a lot, and I saw the car within. in fact itwas like getting a totaly new car.

So yes I can see how some tuning could really alter a vette. But the C6 was never really considered super stiff chassis wise so how far are we going, and "the" vette motor to me was the LT5. Also the shift was not exactly that rifelbolt feel.

Someone once described a vette as a collection of parts traveling in the same direction. Those parts are much tightehr together in a C6 than previous versions but the statement still felt rue to me. Maybe C7 which is supposedly 50% stiffer, much better built etc will change the game. But to me a pushrod motor will always have a narrower powerband, and feel rougher, although the zO6 was strong enough to overpower its drawbacks.

While the interior will be better built GM always puts some cheap gimicky bits in its cars, they just cant help themselvs. Will the C7 feel as if hewn from granite, and will it still feel that way 20K later, I have my doubts. Even if all those hurdles are crossed, your still going to feel as if youre sitting in front of the back wheels, with the front rotating somewhere in the distance ahead of your feet. Whereas on a mid engined car you feel the machine rotate around you, as you sit literaly just behind the front wheels at the point of action. I also dont beliebve that a mid car gets so squirily when power is heavily applied comming out of a bend, but yes losing it there is more driver eror and electronics take care of that these days anyway.

None of this critcsm or comentary means the vette will be a bad car, I am sure it will be a very good car, I am not so sure it will be one of the greats. To me for the vette to be one of the greats it would need a smooth reving motor(that is my opnion) It would need to feel hewn from ganite as others do. Its interior could be simpler if need be, but it would need to feel solid with each control and everything you touch feeling quality, I bet there will be some signifiact letdowns here. but would love to be proved wrong. It should also have superlative steering feel and feedback, by its own admission chevy says it has eps and is not the greatest, but then I can level the same charge at pretty much every other
exotic modern.

If we look at the aventador it does not have the best performance, in fact the rags criticise it, but its sold out for two years because it really is exotic and awesome. Maybe the new ZO6 or ZR1 will be so awesome that we will happily also overlook its faults.

My Gripe with Gm is they always try to make it a few grand cheaper and compromise too much in some obvious places, its like a corporate culture they cant overcome. Audi by contrast does not necessarily make the best performing cars, but they apparently feel quality even though they may not be.

I well remmebr the 88 toyota celica, the doors closed with that german thunk, and every control had that smooth well oiled feel. Its not just about the numbers, its alaso about the feel of the thing and the details. I would rather pay 5gs more for a vette that had all those parts right.

In any event I hope they really get it right. Now that porche has turned the 911 into a bloated frog with a rumored PBK only GT3. And as the 458 is a car that is all about looks and sound more than feel, and as the MP12 feels slightly remote with a non linear turbo motor, and as all three will be PDK only and too expensive to really track the choices are like this...

A vette or a Viper, being the last true out the box drivers cars. If the vette really has moved the game on with quality and handling feel, then objectively and subjectively it may have eclipsed the other offerings. I hope so, because there appears little else to buy in a street car that is fun to drive, engaging at all speeds, has a sense of ocasion and can be seriously tracked. Unless of course you go componant car route.

 

LOL!

 

It's a stylistic mess.

The C5 was the last attractive Vette.

The C7 is just origamigoofy.

 

I wouldn't disagree with any of this, a mid engine, slightly smaller package (more like a slightly wider Cayman with a mid mounted V8) would be an awesome car.. But that's not gonna happen any time soon.

The Corvette won't make the leap to supercar status until it goes that way. And i agree that the package is pretty much been developed to the best that it can be and that the package is limiting the performance. Right now the front engine package can't put down any more power in first gear, which limits the zero to sixty times, and the ability to put power down coming off of corners.. Loading more power (ala the ZR1) is quickly reaching the point of diminishing returns.

I do disagree with the comment that it's more of a axe than a rapier... I've used the comparison that it's more like a broadsword than a rapier.. Small difference, but it's not as heavy as an axe, and it can carve pretty well, but it isn't light in the hand, but it's very effective weapon.... Subtle difference...

 

I believe they wanted to move to a mid-engine set-up with the C7, but the recent
financial issue's with GM prevented the allocation of those funds needed to make the
change. Hopefully they can head that way with the C8 in 7-8 years?

 

I own a C5 and I think its one of the least attractive vettes. The front looks like someone left it under the heatlamp too long. I prefer the style of the (late) C4 and the C6 over it.

Just pointing out how design is very subjective.