2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray – Redline: Review

[Music] yeah yeah the Chevrolet Corvette easily one of the most hotly anticipated cars uh last year when the C7 was introduced I've been eagerly awaiting to show you guys a full in-depth review of this car you guys have seen my first drive that I uploaded a couple weeks ago in the yellow corette however today I have a 2014 Corvette Stingray convertible and this one has the six-speed automatic transmission and let's be honest here there's a lot of people that will still consider getting a Corvette with an automatic transmission so I am looking forward to showing you guys what this car is like to drive but that will be shown later on the video first let's talk about the Corvette in general now this car has a lot of history for General Motors it was first introduced back in 1953 This Is The Seventh Generation that's why we call it the C7 vet and when this car came out it instantly was a hit with a lot of Corvette faithful and buyers who never really considered the Corvette I'm previously one of those people I never really was all that impressed with the styling the interior quality of the vet however when I laid my eyes on this thing at the New York auto show I was just blown away at the front it's basically got the look of a Ferrari in fact a lot of people will end up mistaking this vehicle for a Ferrari and it looks like 150 Grand as opposed to uh the $70,000 price tag that my particular tester has you can see uh the headlights of this vehicle every Corvette will have the LED daytime running lights you have LED turn signals and HID headlights um looking at the front of the car it still has that low wide stance um and it kind of gives the Corvette more of a superar feel to it as opposed to just a sports car I mean this is definitely a class above a Mustang a Camaro a 350Z stuff like that now looking at the side profile of the vehicle the vet is a very low slung sports car um it's about 177 in Long about the size of your average compact car the wheelbase is about 107 in long and the width of this thing this thing is incredibly wide it gives you that plant to the road field it's about 74 in wide now looking at the back of the vehicle this is probably the most controversial styling element uh Chevy got rid of the traditional um oval tail lights in the back however you do have these LED tail lights I'm just not so sure I'm a fan of those black fins that extend uh down toward the tail the down toward the tail lights now what I am a big fan of is the performance exhaust that my particular tester has it literally sounds incredible uh and you can actually change the pitch of the exhaust through this little controller knob on the interior I'll show you guys the differences between the sound it's just an incredible sounding vehicle it also adds about 5 horsepower when you guys go for the performance exhaust now uh every C7 Corvette actually comes in three trims uh and they all have the stingray badge Chevy brought back the stingray badge for The Seventh Generation Corvette um and it comes in either 1 LT uh 2 LT or 3 LT my particular tester is the 3 LT it also has a z51 performance package you can get that package on each trim level it's about 4,000 bucks to upgrade to that my convertible is about $55,000 more than the coupe I highly recommend the performance package and I highly recommend at least a 2LT that rolls in the head-up display uh the your Bose sound system the ventilated chairs and a convertible like this having ventilated seats is a huge bonus but overall I'm really impressed with the styling of this car it really does remind you of a Ferrari and it has it gives the Corvette a new presence that the previous generations just never had one of the biggest improvements of the all new C7 Corvette happens to be its interior now you guys have known I've shown you guys a C5 and a C6 vet wasn't really impressed with the interior however they really have rectified that flaw for this all new Seventh Generation now looking at the interior of course it's very low to the ground so you pretty much have to fall into the car and uh you will have to get used to this View and it's one of the reasons why I think the Corvette's more of a superar in the way it feels just because it it's so low to the ground you have this this view of the hood it's it reminds me of a Supercar when you get in as opposed to just a regular sports car now um here's the key for the vehicle it's a GM's traditional key it's not like that nicer key that I showed you guys in the CTSV sport but nevertheless um to start the car this one does have push button start it's standard basically on every Corvette so to start it just put your foot on the brake and push the button to start the engine and every time you start it up you're going to hear that wonderful exhaust note from the Quad Outlet exhaust and it uh it sounds fantastic uh right now I have the vehicle in sport mode that basically opens up a butterfly valve in the exhaust to make it sound even louder and again your neighbors will pretty much know every time you come and go in your Corvette now looking at this interior um it actually reminds me of the C6 Corvette not a bad thing everything in here is very driver focused it's centered around the driver as it should be in a sports car SL Supercar like this however the materials really have just gone completely upm Market um you can see the entire freaking dashboard is leather Stitch it's all leather Stitch soft touch padded even you know everywhere the entire Dash if you look at the door panel it's also the same soft touch material with leather stitching love the the accent red stitching that matches the seats uh the door panel here uh the armrest is padded of course you have automatic up down for the driver and front passenger window it's kind of expected this is just a two-seater it has two doors now looking at the center stack here Corvettes have never really been known for their technology and the C7 really takes it up to a new level I mean this is basically the same Chevrolet my link head unit that you're going to see in uh other Chevy products I've shown you guys that in the Silverado Cadillac Q system is a little bit different you can see the screen actually pops open or it slides down to reveal a little storage compartment it's not lit up in that blue LED like the CTS was or like Cadillacs are but I mean they got to sa something for the Cadillac brand you can see you have some faux carbon fiber trim here uh one thing though I'm not really a fan of is this plastic here it does feel a little bit sheap but you know the fit and finishing here is pretty solid you do have some aluminum trim accting here if you notice this car has actually two grab handles here for the passenger cuz it pretty much knows the driver is going to be having fun while the passenger will be holding on for their lives you guys have seen me do that with Rob um when he was driving me around in that yellow Corvette now the Chevrolet my link uh it works pretty much like my Ford touch you have the homepage here where you have audio phone um navigation weather Pandora uh you can scroll over here and it'll take you to other submenus and stuff like that now if you go to audio of course you're going to have your regular audio sources here you'll have XM um FM AM um HD radio stuff like that you'll have your Bluetooth streaming Pandora if you look in the center console here your USB outlet is in there um and that's really the only place you could store like sunglasses you have another power outlet here some cup holders right there now uh unfortunately I have the six-speed automatic transmission you guys who actually go for the 14 vet this is the only year to get the six speed Auto next year Chevy will be replacing it with the 8-speed unit that's basically I want to say the same one out of the CTS now when you put it in reverse it does give you a nice backup camera with some distance and trajectory no parking sensors but then again this car is about the size of your average compact D um now the Chevrolet my link the navigation system it works pretty much like all the other ones it's a little bit laggy it doesn't give you the haptic feedback that the Cadillac Q user interface gave you but GM also says that um you can scroll in and out kind of like a tablet the graphics don't look quite as nice as The Cadillacs that I showed you but again they have to save something for Cadillac and again it's pretty laggy pretty annoying um there is a dedicated back button here I constantly kept turning this as the knob the volume knob but that's actually over here so or you can use the wheel right here now speaking of which this is the drive mode selector this car does have the z51 um package and it has the performance exhaust and the Magnetic Ride Control suspension Now to turn this wheel here you just kind of click it over and it will cycle between track mode which will again change the instrument cluster you'll have your track times right there uh sport mode is basically the mode that I have it in all the time I really like the way the exhaust sounds and I like this gauge cluster touring Mode's kind of like Comfort when you switch it to touring you can hear the exhaust kind of quiets down you have this um rather interesting looking display I'm not really a fan of it that much uh there's actually an eco mode in this car you can see I actually actually I've actually only been averaging about 13.2 it's kind of hard to get the 19 or the 1729 this thing when it's got all that power and then of course there is a weather mode for the bad you know rain snow stuff like that honestly touring and sport mode is my favorite mode again going to sport you can sort of hear the exhaust uh note pitch you also do have that nice head-up display right there uh similar to the one in the Cadillac it is interchangeable via these uh controls right here if you push the info button here you can cycle between what kind of setting or what kind of you know look you want it I prefer that one as well and you can also adjust how high and how low you want it based on you know your height now um the steering wheel is also quite nice Corvettes in the past really I've never really lik the steering wheel the C6 even had a a wheel that looked like it came right off of a Cobalt uh but this one's very nice bolstering extension is good leather stitching paddle shifters here for the six-speed automatic you have your steering wheel audio controls cruise control stuff like that there is no driver assistance Tech available on this car don't expect that it's a Corvette you know if you're going to buy this thing uh Chevy expects you to be able know how to drive now there are actually three different ways you can see your speed you can see there's a speedo digital Speedo there digital Speedo there I actually didn't really even notice the analog speedometer there it goes all the way to 210 mph you really don't notice it you really only pay attention to the Center ones and then of course your fuel uh your temperature gauge is there you also have oil pressure and uh um oil temperature um when you switch it over to sport mode you know overall the seats of this car as well much improved the Corvette in the past had horrible seats they really didn't hold you in place these hold you in place and they're very very supportive so I'm really glad to see Chevy up the interior quality in this car um everything from the Bose audio the way all the buttons work it feels pretty much like it goes with the exterior look of the car as opposed to feeling like it was half the price uh in the previous models now there is a little hidden release under here just kind of touch right there it does open the trunk to access the trunk uh and you can see here even though this is the convertible model uh you have decent amount of trunk space this isn't as hopelessly and practical as you expect most modern supercars to be uh you're going to look at about 10 cubic feet of space go for the convertible which actually offers you I'm sorry go for the coupe it actually offers you a little bit more about 15 cubic 3 space pretty good amount of storage you can fit a couple of golf bags here I I stuffed all my camera equipment here and it's it's ridiculously large the opening is large and it's nicely well finished so so Bravo [Applause] [Music] Chevy coming to the heart and soul of every Corvette is when you lift up this slick clamshell style hood and it's another it's another element that adds to the Supercar status quota is the fact that the hood opens up like that every Corvette will have a V8 engine they haven't luckily down siiz to v6s with twin turbos or anything like that although it would be interesting to see the CTS V Sports 3.6 L twin turbo V6 Under This Hood however you're going to find the familiar 6.2 L V8 this is kind of an updated version from the C6 uh the C6 vets motor it does have direct fuel injection variable valve time timing and variable cylinder management so this thing will essentially run on four cylinders to SA fuel which is how Chevy gets the great numbers the the actual horsepower and torque numbers are pretty good as well the standard vet will have 455 horses uh if you add the performance exhaust like my tester it UPS it by 5 to 460 torque is either 460 or 465 depending on the exhaust remember this is a 3,300 lb uh sports car it's pretty lightweight 0 to 60 times there are like around 4 seconds to under three under 4 seconds is depending on the transmission and which body style you go for um fuel economy is also pretty impressive Chevy rates the seven-speed manual at 1729 go with the automatic it drops it by one like 1628 uh there will be an eight-speed Auto replacing the six-speed Auto so expect fuel economy numbers to go up from that I mean overall I'm going to get this thing on the road and show you guys how it drives it's a phenomenal motor it's a really great sounding motor that performance exhaust is just amazing I highly recommend going with that option and it's probably the best feature still the best feature of the vet is what's going on under the hood let's take a look at how it all works together I'll admit it's not every day that you get to drive around a brand new 2014 Corvette uh as your daily driver for a week and uh I was eagerly anticipating this car and I really was excited to show you guys however I was a little disappointed in fact when I saw that this was the uh automatic transmission however I'll keep an open mind cuz I have driven the vet with the seven-speed manual it's absolutely brilliant but uh the sixspeed automatic is a transmission that really doesn't get much love Chevy's actually replacing it with the 8-speed Auto next year so let's see how this car does um performance wise with the automatic [Music] now as expected the Corvette has a very very rambunctious exhaust note um and it's actually exuberate even more when you put it in sport mode I did have it in sport mode there and you can hear the exhaust it's incredibly loud incredibly in your face especially with the top down surprisingly I've got the top down now I'm going about 40 m 45 mph and uh there's not much noise in here it's a little bit bumpy but uh surprisingly the ride quality in here is quite good this is the same magnificent Magnetic Ride Control that I had in that Cadillac CTS and it's interesting cuz I had the CTS first and then I started driving this car and this car rides pretty much just like that Cadillac so I'm really impressed with the uh ride quality of the C7 Corvette now as an automatic transmission this six-speed automatic it works just fine uh it is eager to get in its Top Gear Chevy tune this uh transmission for fuel economy I mean when they're trying to claim them as much as 28 MPG on the highway it's got to upshift early I am curious to see what the 8speed auto will drive that's essentially the unit that's coming out of the CTSV sport that I showed you guys which is a fantastic transmission I do find it very annoying how this thing does want to stay in its Top Gear uh it does it does feel a little bit lethargic I'll switch it into the touring and Eco modes later on in the test drive but for right now let's leave it in the sport mode and let's see let's hear some of the noises it does actually shift relatively quickly uh when you have it in its performance settings now I love that little bural fart noise that the exhaust makes when it shifts gears I mean it will make that noise on a hard shift and that's one of the wonderful aspects of this Corvette it actually almost sounds kind of like a dual clutch when you get it like that now even though this does lose a gear compared to the manual it's still pretty quick uh there's not much test data but I I I estimate this car will hit 60 in about 4 seconds flat uh the manual shaves about2 seconds off of that time so it's still relatively quick car now this car does have a manual mode with paddle Shooters here and when you put it into the manual mode here and you blip the paddles it will blip uh or blip the throttle on your downshifts and the gearing is also quite interesting in this car sometimes I do feel a little bit of a rubber bandness to it I'm not really a fan when I am using the paddle shifters and there's that nice little crackle from the exhaust when you get hard on the gas and in terms of handling Corvettes have always been a very good handling car they can be a little bit of a handful however this C7 is quite impressive the steering offers lots of feedback especially in sport mode I warn you guys put it in the Eco or touring the steering lightens up and it just feels awful it feels so numb and devoid a feel however when you leave it in sport mode which is what I leave it in most of the times or all the time actually uh it's just an incredible feeling steering the suspension very very stiff it stays very flat in Corners I mean this is a car that you really want to take to the track uh it deserves to go on a track but you know in everyday driving it's an incredible incredible feeling machine this is seriously one quick quick car and you can see here Highway off ramps are going to become your new best friend you literally are going to want to go through these very very fast I mean we're talking 20in wheels in the back on 285 rubber this thing has an incredible amount of grip this particular z51 package Corvette has the uh Michelin sub Super Sport pilot super sport tires and they just have an insane amount of grip it's incredible [Music] now again that amazing ride quality in this car the Magnetic Ride Control suspension it translates into a pretty comfortable ride I have no problem taking this thing on the highway the only thing you really have to deal with is just people staring at you especially with this tester I have it's red on red people think it's a freaking Ferrari and it gives you the presence of a super car I mean when I'm sitting here behind the wheel it feels like I'm in a superar not a sports car just with how low it is to the ground and in terms of driver assistance Tech the Corvette really doesn't have any don't expect to find it this is a this is a driver's car you should know how to drive if you're going to freaking drive this thing and you're not going to find stuff like blind spot monitoring forward Collision warning anything like that and that's okay with me that truly is okay with me now visibility in this thing is also really good especially with the top down um you literally can see everything however I will warn you guys you can't when the top is up be careful you cannot see anything in terms of your blind spots the mirrors are also pretty small there's no blind spot monitoring I kind of think it actually needs it when the top is up you can hear there the exhaust or the transmission actually did downshift for you and that's that sound is just intoxicating this car driving this freaking car is just intoxicating [Music] honestly I would never get tired of doing that and that's probably why the gas modage in this thing at least what I've been getting has been uh below well well below the EPA numbers uh I've been averaging about uh 15 miles per gallon um I did struggle to get the highway numbers Chevy says this will do almost 30 the best I got on the highway was about 25 26 um that was with about a 65 mph Cruise so I am wondering how they are going to get that number that higher number I mean it has it really has to do with a lot of factors so I'm not really surprised this is the kind of car that you're not really going to care too much about in terms of fuel economy it's all about performance now for all this performance looks power and the interior is really nice now finally how much does the Corvette cost well the coupe version starts at $53,000 and that's a freaking bargain the Corvette has always been a performance bargain but you always had to make excuses for its cheap interior that's not really the case anymore this convertible model that I'm driving which by the way the Corvette was designed first to be convertible so the structure is very stiff I barely get any um towel shake when I go over bumps it's incredible so I would highly recommend the convertible version $5,000 more for the convertible so this starts at 58 Grand which is a pretty hefty chunk of change um the 3lt with the z51 performance package that I've got uh is about $65,000 you need to add $1,400 for the automatic I'd skip it go for the 7-speed manual uh wait until the 8speed auto comes out if you must have an automatic the performance exhaust uh that's another 1,200 bucks for 2015 Chevy is making the performance exhaust standard with the z51 package so that's nice that they're upping the value I mean Allin um the 3lt gives you the nav the upgraded leather the premium bows I mean this thing is pretty a pretty good value it's it's $76,000 it's a lot of money don't get me wrong it's a lot of money but it's still a bang for your buck in terms of performance and you finally have prestigious looks uh nice interior fast speed I mean this thing is just incredible and that glorious V8 no exhaust note I mean if you're going to go for a comparable Porche 911 uh you're going to look at spending at least over $100,000 so this car still offers a lot of value and for those of you who are in the market for something like this make sure you check out the new C7 Corvette it's incredible an incredible car uh it has incredible looks to back the performance and you'll be really glad to find this thing in your garage to take out on weekends or even as a daily driver anyways hope you guys have enjoyed my overview of this 2014 Corvette convertible thanks so much for watching guys I'll catch you all [Music] later hey heyy hey [Music] hey

Channel: Redline Reviews

Views: 467,183

Keywords: Chevrolet Corvette (Automobile Model), 2014, 2014 Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, Stingray, C7, Corvette C7, Corvette Stingray (Automobile Model), 2015 Chevrolet Corvette, Corvette ZO6, ZO6, Porsche 911, Jaguar F-type, Chevrolet Camaro, Nissan GTR, BMW M3, BMW m4, Audi R8, Lexus RC-F, Lexus LFA, BMW Z4, BMW Z4 (Automobile Model), Audi RS5, Mercedes-Benz C63, Redline, 2theredline, redline productions media

Id: 9WYiIYp7MBc

Length: 21min 31sec (1291 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 30 2014