Corvette C7 Stingray Review - Everyday Driver

here at everyday driver we work hard to show you cars in amazing locations sometimes though the weather just works against us over the course of this shoot we had 60 degrees clear and sunny and 30 degrees with snow and the car has summer high-performance tires so the result is probably the slickest dirtiest Corvette review you'll ever see there's so much heritage riding on the next generation of the Corvette that it had to be done right everybody has polarized about this car I wasn't convinced at first this car has a lot of presence and once you see it in person who becomes striking very aggressive styling it almost looks like it's made out of origami in some places I mean there are ton a very sharp creases throughout this entire car there are nine different styling creases on the hood but follow these lines around the car there's beautiful sculpting and surface transitions on this car and that takes us to the rear taillights at first I was kind of thinking uh-oh they didn't put the traditional round lights in the back the story goes that when Chevy was designing the revised retro Camaro they were told to make the Camaro taillights look like the c6 Corvette well now it looks like somebody told the person styling the Corvette to make the taillights look like the chopped' versions off of the retro Camaro I don't think it's a bad thing to go away from the all circular taillights I mean this is such a new redesign of the car why not take the lights with it everybody that still wants those round taillights is stuck in the past and that's not where this car is going more I look at this car the more I'm impressed by it the only thing I really don't like is this chrome strip in the front fascia it makes this car look like it's wearing a retainer it has heritage it has history but GM is looking forward and the interior reflects that of course one of the most common critiques of the Corvette has always been the interior and amazingly Chevy has really listened here the interior has to be new and good that it's got to be intuitive and it just needs to work and be well screwed together if you look at this shape that starts down at the door goes over the top of the instrument and all the way over to the passenger side this smacks a little bit of r8 and that's perfectly okay with me howdy does some of the best interiors and stylistically this is a cockpit over all the materials in here are remarkably improved one of the only places it seems to reference the plastic of old is the piece around the nav screen and it frames the gauges that actually is still one big piece of Chevy plastic but otherwise there's of course a touchscreen menu with good navigation and integration with your phone all the stuff you've come to expect is also in this interior pretty much anything you'd like to see this Center gate will show you in the heads-up display duplicates almost all of it may I just say finally the seats are good they did well they paid attention to a lot of criticisms the amount of features that are on this car there's no longer an excuse here this is absolutely a fifty to sixty thousand dollar car interior the car we're driving has the z51 the performance package and this is something you absolutely have to get it includes the availability of the magnetic ride suspension it's got the dry sump oil system the electronic differential larger slotted brake rotors this is the one you have to have but get this it doesn't add a whole lot to the bottom line to the price of this car why would you buy a Corvette without this performance package interestingly this is just the base core event this is not any special variation which means the prices start about $52,000 and go up now I like you have been reading a lot of things up to this point about the new c7 I've been reading about how good it is and I gotta be honest I've been a bit skeptical we have driven a lot of variations of the c6 the only one we didn't review up for the show wasn't cr1 but this is an all-new Corvette for example this is a carbon-fiber roof a carbon-fiber hood they've used some of the carbon-fiber prowess that they gained making the zr1 in making the c7 it's not that the c7 is so much lighter than the prior c6 generation it's how it manages that weight as a matter of fact when I turn in I'm still expecting that heavy front corner weight to just kind of reveal itself and it never has on this car from the first time I got in it it's felt lighter and smaller than any prior Corvette I've ever driven the performance of the c6 was always impressive but it continued to feel like a large car the c7 somehow doesn't anytime I throw this part corners I'm amazed at how small and light it feels it is hundreds of pounds lighter than both the zl1 Camaro and the gt500 and it's similar good weight to the current 911 now the c7 has a variable-ratio power steering and at first it felt too light but this car grips so hard through the corners I cannot believe it you throw it in and expect it to come loose and it doesn't now credit some of that is the really intelligent traction control system you certainly can turn the systems off and get it as loose as you like you're gonna want to become a better driver it's coaxing you to become a better driver but it's not gonna do it for you all the tools are there though I have to admit I'm used to a little bit more information in the steering wheel so many cars have gone to variable electric steering that it's just becoming commonplace now and the same things are true here is everywhere else and that is there's not a lot of tire information this has a smaller steering wheel which makes you feel more involved in the driving experience and the steering ratio is tighter than a Honda s2000 the weight is good it's actually very precise I cannot believe how well this car tracks to the corners I didn't think GM could build a precision instrument and they have this car corner so flat it is available with a similar magnetic shock system that of course was in the zr1 is also now in the CL one in the 80s the CTSV GM has figured that out well body movement is so well controlled I'm having fun already god that's a good noise and then there's the engine if there was ever an argument that you cannot drive a statute it is the c7 Corvette on paper it doesn't look like it makes that much power but this thing is fast think about this the zl1 Camaro has a hundred more horsepower than this the gt500 has two hundred more horsepower than this but when you drive it gets as fast as those it's every bit as fast as the 911 but the horsepower number doesn't seem that brand this car puts its power down so well it feels like it's got far more than it does this 7-speed transmission feels so well matched to the power that this makes this 7-speed gearbox can allow you to go 80 miles an hour in for that about 3500 we can go 80 miles an hour in seventh at 1600 the engines barely turning over now the c7 also has something called rev-match it uses the steering wheel from the automatic transmission cars they've got these leftover paddles why well because it's a parts been steering wheel they didn't want to design two steering wheels till they designed one with paddles in the manual with huh what to do with the paddles Oh we'll make a rough match so if the gear indicator is white that means it's off but if it turns amber you just pull the switch and it turns it on it smoothes your ships both up and down in fact it's kind of keeps you from learning the clutch as well as you could because once you use it a few times it really is great I love to heel toe but it's really hard to argue with what a good job this system does especially if you were on a track yeah it's gonna make you lazy here's the thing the pedals are already so well placed you need to start learning yourself you need to do it yourself so welcome to our debate before the press card even showed up we've been talking about Horvath's signature thing is just a whole lot of performance for your money the gt500 Mustang the zl1 Camaro the Cayman S and the Porsche 911 all these cars the base price is more than the Corvette and with the GTR now be well over a hundred grand you can buy a new one of those even the Viper is now a hundred thousand dollar automobile the Corvettes kind of left in a class by itself all of its competition is left I can no longer tell you in good faith to go buy a 911 because they're now a hundred grand they're brilliant and I love them but after driving this the only thing I can liken that to are the intangibles you're just a Porsche guy like me and you just want the Porsche but I don't think anybody buying a 911 is really tempted by the Corvette and vice versa I mean they really are different car buyers now the 911 still feels more refined than this but again it's almost twice as expensive think of it this way the 911 is like a limbic decathlete it does everything really really well this car is more like a CrossFit champion both of our amazingly versatile athletes they just go about a little bit different and as I Drive this I'm struck by the fact that the Corvette may be the best performance bargain on the market right now I'm not suggesting 60 grand isn't a good amount of money but you're 40 to 50 grand less than everything this is supposed to compete with that's the debate that's what we're endlessly debating it's also very debatable that there's other cars that are more fun to drive I'm not a Corvette guy I never have been and this is the first car I would consider owning and I say consider because yeah I'm a Porsche guy at heart but that's not an excuse that's not an argument you got me the 911 is your high class and probably high-maintenance girlfriend I mean you can go anywhere and be proud to be with her the Corvette is a little dirtier and that's okay you want something with more power great you're gonna pay more for it you want something better handling sure you're gonna pay more why would you do that when you can get such a brilliant car the gauntlet has been thrown and I cannot tell you why you shouldn't buy a Corvette I'm not really a Corvette guy I like them I've never lusted after them that changes with the c7 once you get for this price everything they've given you on this car I can't believe it but I really want one Oh Oh

Channel: EverydayDriver

Views: 792,574

Keywords: Corvette, C7, Stingray, ZR1, Camaro ZL1, GT500, video, review, Everyday Driver, Todd Deeken, Paul Schmucker, epic, Top Gear, USA, MotorTrend, Drive, Automobile, Edmunds, Chris Harris, Autoblog, affordable cars, film, Chevrolet Corvette (C7)

Id: RmfKDOOv1OA

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2014