Ok so, time for a new "in depth". And time to raise the power bar a little. Thanks, as always, to JC, we got this red lady for a couple of hours this morning. Of course now the Z06 is pretty close (first ones will arrive in November), but the base model could still be pretty interesting, and despite what some would say, the oppurtunity to have 400 wild horses for such "cheap" price, is tempting.
Untill today I never was in an american sport car, only in rentals and such, which never pretended to be special. Now finally I could have a taste of what everybody talk about... and sadly, even trying really not to be too picky, the interior is utter crap. The C6 might be "cheap", but just a little %age of this price is injected into the cabin. There is plastic everywhere, you already know it, and it's bad, hard plastic, not so well assembled, not so nice to the touch or the eyes. Some details like the part around the door opening button which want to be sporty or cool just look terribly shit IMO. The car had sat nav installed but we didn't tried it. Of course the HUD display is cool and you can put about everything there, but still, all the rest is pretty low grade, sorry. The seats aren't that bad, but while it was not a problem for me, behind the wheel it seemed kinda hard to match the seat to the steering wheel position. Luggage space is kinda huge afterall.
It had a manual tranny BTW. Now, the good part: the engine. It is pretty strong, you can't deny that. You still have a "endless US highway" feeling when you slot it into 6th and you cruise at around 130 km/h and 1800 rpm :shock: but despite 6 liters and 8 cylinders, when you floor it in 6th, nothing happens LOL. Almost nothing at least.
But once you drop a couple of gears, the car start to fly, the engine and its thunderous note invading the cabin!
Pushing hard in 2nd gear brings you beyond 100 km/h in a glimpse, bang, into third and the thrust seems to become even stronger. For sure the 200 come very quickly, no idea after that, but well, that's plenty enough.
The brakes seem pretty strong but we didn't work them really hard, so no idea if they fade quickly or not.
Steering as far as I understood is kinda direct, pretty well weighted, maybe too much.
What I know is that from the passenger seat the car seemed to float a lot on road surface's imperfections. but despite that feeling, the car always seemed well planted and the front never pushed wide.
What can push wide is the back, but even in "sport mode" there is still some sort of traction control, allowing you to powerslide but quickly taking control again. Weird, no idea if you really can totally kill any aid.
All in all, it is for sure a funny car that can be also a great cruiser. It didn't feel totally at ease in the mountains, but still managed to eat the tarmac and other road users very quickly.
Now, the C6 wants to steal customers from Porsche or even Ferrari (afterall JC has a 550 and was wondering if a C6 or even Z06 could be a more sensible option, especially considering trackdays and such too)... well, IMO it will never be able to steal that many. It's a great engine installed into a pretty well sorted chassis, that's a reality, but well, when you drive a Porsche or a Ferrari, no matter what, you still care about the badge, the quality and so on. The C6 might be cheaper to buy and to keep fit, but it's still a big step down the ladder, IMO impossible to be done. Yeh, you can't be as hooling in a 550 as in a C6, but still, the 550 even costing 3 times as much, offer much more that the price seems totally justified.
I am sure many will be charmed but such a car, it's good IMO and not totally wasted money, but if you had a try at its rival, expensive or not, the Vette all of a sudden does look plain boring.. just a mighty engine.
On a side note, if the trip computer was well set, we averaged some 15 liters / 100 km, which is kinda good considering the car was driven above the average rythm you will have on a daily basis!
23 pics can be found by clicking one of these previews
Finges crossed, I might have a Gransport indepth tomorrow
Sept 25th: In depth Corvette C6
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