The American Icon Is Now An American Supercar | 2021 Chevy Corvette

[Music] this video is all about the metamorphosis of an american icon the chevy corvette it all started back in 1953 with the very first generation back then the corvette followed a pretty typical formula it had an engine up front it was rear-wheel drive and it was a ton of fun that same formula has been applied to every corvette over the decades until now because this corvette is very different this is now a mid-engine supercar in the past you could have considered the corvette sort of a camaro dialed up to 11. it didn't really share a whole lot with the corvette in terms of structure but it followed a very similar sports car formula but this is a very different corvette this actually shares an awful lot in terms of its design and inspiration with something like the ford gt not the mustang gt the ford gt supercar but this is an affordable supercar because this is one-third the price of an acura nsx and indeed you could buy eight corvettes and a chevy camaro for the price of a ford gt i'll tell you right up front that i think the c8 corvette is quite simply one of the best sports cars available in america today and a lot of that has to do with the price tag the price tag of the corvette really surprised me when i first learned that this generation of the corvette was going to turn into a mid-engined vehicle i assumed that the price tag would balloon astronomically and this would be in pricing parity to something like the acura nsx but instead chevy has really stayed true to their form of delivering a powerful vehicle that has a price tag sort of like a camaro dialed up to 11. in fact there are a ton of direct american competitors that are very different kind of sports cars well within the price range of the model that i'm driving right here something like an entry-level shelby mustang or a dodge challenger hellcat is within the base price range of the model that i'm driving today and actually start a little bit more expensive than the corvette does for 2021. when you first approach the c8 you'll notice that something is definitely different than the c7 and every generation before it and that is this incredibly low front end this point right here at the front of that bumper is about 14 inches off the ground the entire corvette is quite low to the ground but the hood is especially low because the engine is back there in the rear and up front we have a storage compartment or a front whatever you want to call it we have full led headlamps over here led turn signals as well a lot of cooling going on up front also one thing that i have noticed however is that the c8 isn't really well designed for having a front license plate unfortunately some states do require that but fortunately this one is not registered regularly in california so it doesn't need to have one up front thank goodness because that really would interrupt the look if you do need to put a front plate on your corvette this is where it would go you can see the little line right there there's a plastic insert right there instead there would be a bracket and the license plate would bolt onto there but i still think it would interrupt the look and the flow through of the character line right there on the hood the front cargo area can be either opened inside or via a button press on the key fob and then we have access to a front trunk that's about the same size as the ones that we find in porsches you can see that it's definitely deeper than the one that we find in a lot of electric sports cars out there so i was able to fit one 24-inch roller bag right up front as with a number of mid-engined vehicles we have a pretty long front overhang in the corvette that's the distance between the front tire and the very front of the vehicle right here this is primarily aerodynamics rather than a reality of the mid-engine design itself because theoretically it could have had a very blunt front end and be right there by the front tires but in order to give it this very long taper and a very low nose they have to stretch out the front end of the vehicle in order to still have the headlights where they are decades ago vehicles that had this kind of profile had troubles with steeper driveways a lot of parking lot situations etc but chevy has the same solution to that that we find in lamborghinis and ferraris they have an adjustable height front suspension so you can lift up the nose to make some of those parking lot maneuvers a little bit easier but those parking lot headstones or tire blocks they're still going to be touching this front end and that's why we find a two camera setup up front to help you really see what's going on at 182.3 inches long this is about six inches shorter than a ford mustang but again it's really not a mustang competitor this is the american alternative to a lamborghini or a ferrari or an acura nsx if you want to look at something that's perhaps a little more affordable in the supercar lineup the only real key difference between the corvette and some of the european competition is that there's no all-wheel drive system available in this generation be sure and let me know what you think about the design of the new corvette down there in the comment section i love the look of the car but i have to say that these wheels look just a little bit 1980s 1990s to me somehow but the tire size certainly isn't these are 305 with tires in the back so these are some crazy wide tires and that's how this vehicle is able to go from zero to 60 in under three seconds another common design touch with mid-engine vehicles are these large air intakes right behind the front doors these are completely functional in the corvette there's a radiator and it also helps cool the engine bay they also hide the door release right here in this area it's an electric door release there's just a button in there and it unlatches the door for you the front end might not look too much like a corvette to some folks out there but i think the rear end definitely does admittedly a different kind of corvette because there are a lot more openings back here in the rear bumper for cooling the engine that is just behind what looks sort of like a trunk lid i can also open that one via the remote it has a soft close functionality and there is some additional storage space back here but most of what's going on back here is the engine it's only a matter of time before chevy jam's a more powerful engine under here but at least for the moment there's just one engine on offer it's a 6.2 liter naturally aspirated v8 it produces your choice of 490 or 495 horsepower depending on the option packages that you get and either 465 or 470 pound-feet of torque power is routed to the rear wheels via an 8-speed automatic dual clutch transaxle now i know a lot of folks out there give me a hard time for calling transmissions like this a transaxle but the term is technically true because the rear axle and the transmission are integrated into one case so most mid-engined vehicles have transaxles interestingly enough the combination of nearly 500 horsepower and the 8-speed dual clutch transmission is good enough to get this guy from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds located immediately behind the engine compartment is another cargo area this one is definitely large enough to put a set of golf clubs you might be able to fit two sets of golf clubs in here and i was barely able to fit two 22 inch roller bags so there's definitely more cargo room going on in here than in something like the acura nsx in my exclusive trunk comfort index i'm going to give this 3 out of 10 points because it is a little tight but there's certainly more storage room than some other supercars likely because this is an electric latching soft closed lid this module right here is awfully large and if you were trying to put larger bags back here this is in the way so i couldn't fit any 24-inch roller bags in this cargo area the primary design consideration for this cargo area seems to be the target top because stingrays all have a removable roof section and it fits exactly in this cargo area when it's in place you really couldn't put any extra cargo back there but at least you can remove it and take it with you if you're looking for a vehicle that proves that general motors has what it takes to make a world-class interior the corvette is certainly going to be in the running i actually think that the interior design in this vehicle is a little bit better than any modern cadillac really at the moment perhaps except the new escalade as you'd expect the corvette is a strict two-seater there are those fixed in place headrests right there again those do hit me in kind of a strange place in the shoulder between the front seats we have a center channel speaker and of course out the back we have the engine compartment you can actually see the engine right through that rear window right there you can also see the struts and everything that goes on for that engine compartment below the speaker we have a wireless charging mat this particular vehicle does have the optional bose high performance sound system as you'd expect out of a performance vehicle the front seats are aggressively bolstered they're also pretty thin although i did find them relatively comfortable these seats are perforated because they're both heated and ventilated we have the available red seat belts in this particular model and as we move on over to the front doors you'll definitely notice the attention to detail here i think that the build quality in this interior really does stand up against some of the performance cars that you could compare this to that are not in the same price range for instance i actually think this interior is better put together than the one that we find in the acura nsx there's a lot of stitched leather going on on the front door stitched panels right there even going down to the bottom of the door as we find a lot of stitched materials and i think that the interior is a little bit more cohesive in terms of its design than what we find in the nsx or even some mclaren products to be pretty honest mclaren does a really nice job in their interior and i do think it is a little bit better but keep in mind it's fantastically expensive compared to the corvette moving on over to the dashboard we find a stitch dashboard upper section right there stitch openings right there around that airbag down here we find some interestingly shaped vents you can see right there in the middle there's a little toggle that controls the flow of the air and then we have some metal effect trim moving right out there the button right there between those two air vents is the release for the glove compartment the glove compartment is a moderately sized bin compartment i was just barely able to fit a 10-inch ipad inside moving over to the center of the dashboard we find the more controversial elements in this particular design the one thing that some people have complained about is this infotainment screen right here on the driver's side it's definitely canted towards the driver but the complaint seems to be that some people find it a little bit small i think with this interior design if the screen had been any bigger it might have looked a little bit unusual to the left of that we definitely find a large lcd that's the instrument cluster over there we'll take a look at that in a bit i do think that the bezels around the screen are a little bit thick they could have been a little bit thinner but i do appreciate the fact that we have a physical knob over here for the volume and power switch and then a direct access home button right there this has as you can see right there smartphone integration we have the same control for this air vent that we found over there on the passenger side the engine start stop button is over there the controls for the dual clutch transmission over here it's a push button shifter park is a button reverse is a pull toggle neutral is a button and drive is a pull toggle we then have a manual mode press button right there the drive mode is changed via a dial right there underneath this wrist rest and then we have some additional buttons here this one raises and lowers the front end of the vehicle this one activates the front camera which again is that two camera setup giving us a really great view of exactly what you're pulling into in a parking lot if you want an even more detailed view you can see those two camera feeds separately and then the image that's stitched together right up on top cascading down the dashboard we find an array of buttons these are primarily climate control buttons but this is also where we find seat heating and ventilation for the driver and front passenger they're on opposite ends so the passenger controls here for the climate and the seats are down here at the bottom and for the driver they were up there at the top to the left of that we find two decently sized cup holders behind that lid and again an awful lot of stitch materials going on here in the dashboard this interior is significantly ahead of the previous generation corvette in terms of build quality and again i think really best in general motors lineup aside from that an all-new escalade between the front seats we have a padded center armrest that opens to reveal a usb input for the infotainment system and just barely enough room to store some of those larger smartphones the design is customizable we can choose from a few different layouts for instance this is the weather design it has much more of a traditional layout right there first design you saw was the track design there's also a sport design you can see we have definite animations there that are attractive this is the tour designs a little bit more like the weather option there you can also choose an option to simplify the display which turns off some of the things on the side the simplify mode works in any of the modes for instance you can simplify the track mode right here and of course you can link the mode to the drive mode selected via that drive mode selector in the middle the steering wheel is leather wrapped and i suppose you could call this a square steering wheel we do have rounded sides here and a slight rounding to the top and bottom but this definitely has a very square oid design i guess you'd say we have metal paddle shifters on the back down on the left and up over there on the right the steering wheel button should be pretty familiar if you've driven any recent gm product on this side we have the buttons for the regular cruise control system not adaptive cruise control we have track up down buttons favorite up down buttons over here on the left you toggle those forward towards the driver volume up down over here on the right there's also a heated steering wheel button voice command button phone hang up pickup button and then the buttons that control that multi-function lcd this silvery z button over here makes the exhaust louder and perhaps a little bit more fun given all of that why did gm decide to go for a mid-engine design with such an aggressive rear weight bias well there are a number of possible reasons the first one is it's simply more fun having a lighter front end again means that the steering is going to be more communicative you don't have to assist the front wheels as much in terms of power steering that's one of the reason that there are mid-engine sports cars out there without electric power steering at all because if the front end is lighter you don't need as much assist to turn those wheels there's obviously the cool factor as well you wouldn't have this profile this really cool shape if it wasn't a mid-engined vehicle then we have performance obviously 61 percent of the weight is in the rear so that means we have more weight on the rear tires for better traction and acceleration that's going to help you launch the vehicle and then as weight shifts to the rear we're gonna have even more weight on the rear when you're accelerating improving the steering feel and of course improving traction in the back you can logically say that the 61 weight balance in the rear is one of the reasons that this has much less trouble connecting than previous generations of the corvette when you're talking about the rear wheels starting a launch and also one of the reasons that this is faster than the previous generation of the corvette now it's not going to be quite as fast at higher speeds as some of those truly insane supercars out there say like a mclaren 720 but in the zero to 30 times it's not going to be that far off because traction is not really much of an issue for this corvette even though we have an insane amount of power the last question a number of you had over at our facebook page was about the driving dynamics and why don't we have the snap oversteer tendencies in something like this that you would find in say classic porsches or perhaps a chevy corvair something with a heavy rear end and a less elegant suspension design well obviously the elegant suspension design is going to be part of that but the big thing is modern stability and traction control systems obviously we didn't have any kind of stability control system in classic porsches or the old corvair that probably could have solved an awful lot of its problems of course the corvair also had a very different rear suspension design which was the biggest part to blame in that particular vehicle but the big thing to know is that we don't have as much of a problem with snap oversteer theoretically it could still happen in a vehicle with a heavy rear end like this but traction and stability control systems really help keep that sort of thing at bay unless you're out on a track driving it incredibly hard at the limit really pushing it and you had all the stability and traction control systems disabled in the vehicle that's when you could have that kind of problem but for the average driver driving this out on their favorite winding mountain road even in trickier slippery situations the stability and traction control system is really what's going to be able to keep this vehicle planted keep it pointing exactly where you want to go and really solve that kind of problem because it can break any of the four wheels independently from one another in response to what the vehicle is doing on the road and what your steering input is calling for bottom line it's the miracle of modern technology and unless you're driving your vehicle like an absolute crazy person with the stability and traction control systems disabled or you're really pushing it hard out on your favorite track you're not going to encounter that kind of situation and assuming you are driving this hard out on your favorite track you're probably professional and you know how to handle it let's get the numbers out of the way up front 0-60 happens in a blistering 2.8 seconds this is a very very fast corvette in fact this is about a full second faster than the previous generation stingray which did it in 3.8 seconds 60 miles an hour back to zero happened in 97 feet that's actually a little bit longer than the previous generation corvette because by all accounts this is a little bit heavier this particular model is just over 3 600 pounds but a 3 600 pound vehicle that can stop in less than 100 feet is definitely very very impressive but what's more impressive is how the corvette sounds and how it feels out on the road you get that classic mid-engine or rear engine lightness up front definitely a strong willingness to accelerate that glorious exhaust note and a naturally aspirated engine so if you want a performance car and you don't want turbochargers this is an excellent option it's not going to have that supercharger wine that you'd find in a comparably priced charger hellcat it's not going to have quite as much power but this is going to get you 0-60 faster and to be perfectly honest the corvette is simply more fun this feels lighter it's tighter it's more nimble it's smaller feeling out on the road than even something like a chevy camaro even the most insane chevy camaro is not going to be this much fun out on the road and oddly enough a base version of this is going to be about as expensive as some of those top end camaros clearly there's an argument that the corvette is less practical because it doesn't have a back seat i realize i haven't talked about seat comfort just yet but i'll go ahead and cover that now while i'm out here on the road i'm going to go ahead and give this seat 8 out of 10 points it's not as adjustable as i would like now it does have a 4-way lumbar support but you can't adjust the bolsters i wish the bolsters were adjustable in this trim and i do find that the headrest hits me in kind of an odd place in the back it hits me right between the shoulder blades if you were a little bit shorter than i am it would be just fine but i don't think that front seat comfort is the most important thing about the corvette it's definitely acceptable my legs aren't falling asleep or anything like that it's not adjustable as i'd like it to be but the most important thing about this seat design is that it's designed to be lightweight because the corvette is a sports car and that's going to be one of the big differences between this and a comparably priced mustang or camaro it doesn't have seats in the back and it's going to be a little bit lighter and then of course there is again that noise speaking of the noise it's really helped out by this dual clutch transmission this is quite simply the best dual clutch i have ever driven i think this is smoother than the dual clutches that we find from mercedes or audi and to be perfectly honest when i first hopped in the corvette i actually managed to forget that this had the dual clutch transmission because if i just take off super slow here from a stop it feels like a regular eight-speed automatic transmission and that's exactly what i want out of a dual clutch transmission i want it to be lightning fast i want it to be very direct and shift faster than a manual transmission possibly could but i also want it to be smooth in stop and go or slow and go traffic this is not a punishing dual clutch transmission so if you're buying a corvette and it's going to be your daily driver and you're going to be sitting in stopping of traffic this is not going to be snapping your head back and forth of course unless you want it to when it comes to handling the corvette is definitely excellent it has that strong rear wheel dynamic and of course the light steering that i mentioned earlier the steering is practically psychic it goes exactly where you point it but it is worth noting that if you have access to a skid pad you may notice that this isn't going to pull as many g's on your skid pad as the previous generation corvette that's actually probably a side effect of a the curb weight and b the weight balance in this vehicle in theory a vehicle with a perfect 50 50 weight balance may be able to pull a few more g's on a skid pad than the same kind of vehicle with different wheels being driven weight balance in a different location but the important thing to keep in mind is that that does not translate into fun factor this corvette is quite simply the best corvette that they've ever made one of the things that i've loved about previous generation corvettes is that they were the practical man's sports car even though they were closer to the ground than a wide variety of american sports or performance cars something like a dodge challenge or hellcat etc they weren't right on the ground like you find a lot of european exotics and that means that if you live out on a gravel road like i happen to live on this is the road that i drive on every single day you can get a corvette and you will be just fine and that's especially the case with this new model with the lifting up front end i can just press that button and i'm not worried about some of the larger imperfections on this road here or speed bumps things like that now obviously if you live really off the beaten path the corvette is not going to be the right option for you you may have to get something like a mustang or a camaro which are going to be just a smidge higher off the ground i suspect if you blindfolded a decent number of semi-professional drivers and you put them behind the wheel of this and a mclaren obviously silly to be blindfolding people and putting them behind the wheel of anything they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this and something like a mclaren 500 or 700 series this has a very very similar feel out on the road the exhaust note however is going to be different because this sounds like an american supercar in my cabin noise testing i got 74 and a half decibels in here at 50 miles an hour that puts this in direct competition to a number of entry-level compact stands in america but what do you really expect out of a performance vehicle with wide 305 with tires in the back and an emphasis on performance not isolation or efficiency speaking of efficiency however i did average 19 miles per gallon over a week of mixed driving in this corvette and that surprised me because i've been driving this relatively aggressively this is a ton of fun to drive out on your favorite winding mountain road but as long as you treat it gently you really will be getting about 19 miles per gallon bottom lining the corvette is honestly pretty easy this is quite simply the best corvette i've ever made and the best american performance vehicle period the corvette is more fun to drive than any mustang available any camaro available any dodge challenger available including those absolutely bat crazy versions of the challenger obviously the really crazy versions of the challenger are an absolute hoot to drive i mean who doesn't want to drive a vehicle with 800 horsepower under the hood but they lack the precision the feel the finesse that we find in the corvette they're definitely fun to drive but they're not the same kind of fun as the corvette here and they will all cost you more than the corvette i know i've already mentioned it but i think the price tag of the corvette is really the important thing to keep in mind so let's dive into pricing what is there really to say about the new corvette other than that it is a ton of fun it is absolutely amazing that general motors made it and there really isn't anything else like the corvette because if you want a mid-engine supercar you're gonna have to pay an awful lot more let's take a look at the options here the corvette starts at 58 900 before tax title license and destination for the hard top model the convertible is going to cost you a decent amount more at 66 400 but that is significantly less than really any of the direct competition you could get something like a porsche boxster or porsche cayman those are going to be about the same price as a starting corvette but the performance is going to be nowhere near in fact even if you were to buy a cayman gt4 which is going to be more than the vast majority of corvettes on the dealer lot it's still not going to give you the same level of performance that we find in the corvette the corvette also has a really surprising level of customization ability definitely different than we find in really any other general motors product including the cadillac lineup there are 12 different exterior colors and 11 interior color combinations a ton of standalone options and obviously dedicated performance options as well i'm sure some folks out there might be considering some of the top end models in the ford mustang lineup against the corvette but that's not really the most appropriate comparison because the vehicle that is most like the mustang in the chevy lineup is going to be the chevy camaro the corvette has a considerably nicer interior it really feels like it came out of a different century compared to the interior that we find in either the camaro or the ford mustang but the format of the vehicle is also very different those are not mid-engine supercars and the corvette arguably is if you want to get this kind of performance vehicle outside of the corvette you could look at something like the audi r8 but it starts at 169 000 you could buy three corvettes for the price of just one base model r8 if you want a ferrari the mid engine options there start at 276 000 and the mclaren lineup is not far off in terms of pricing therefore bottom line in the corvette is really really simple the corvette is an absolute blast it's a hoot and a half it's the mid-engine exotic that you can actually afford the average american in the middle class or upper middle class could easily adjust their lifestyle and decide to buy a base model corvette but that's simply not the case if you wanted to buy a brand new audi r8 or a mclaren or a ferrari the average middle class person in america just couldn't do that and i really love the concept of this attainable uniqueness that we find in the corvette now some would arguably say that it's not going to be as unique anymore because everybody can afford one but personally i'm fine with that let me know what you think about everything down there in the comment section below if you want to check out our new aoa merch you can find shirts right like this one over at aoamerch.com find me over at facebook instagram all those other social places and i'll see all of you next week [Music] you

Channel: Alex on Autos

Views: 116,253

Rating: 4.9040837 out of 5

Keywords: Alex On Autos, Alex Dykes, Review, Detailed Review, Road Test, Driven, Drive Review, car, cars, auto

Id: dSlY4q9Is00

Length: 24min 13sec (1453 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/N0Name117]

Companies and consumers have really butchered the term "super car". TBH, I'd still call this a sports car.

[u/guilleviper]

Checks prices in Spain

~120000€

So affordable! :D

[u/TexasGulfOil]

No don’t say “Affordable Ferrari” - that is a disservice to the Corvette nameplate and its legacy.

[u/ToughCurrent2679]

When it comes to the UK it will be right around the 100K mark and current ones you can get from Clive Sutton wich are LHD are going for 132K. At that price point I hope it can live up cause there is some serious motors around the price point. Especially considering the CS C8 had that awful interior I guess it will be a waiting game

[u/esoterikk]

The C8 is not a super car.