The Chevrolet Corvette, America's sports car since 1953, there’s been eight editions of it since its inception; each bringing something different to the table. Each generation has been a perfect encapsulation of the era into which it was released, a time capsule of the period.
But, putting the themes of each era aside, the Corvette has always stood for as a light, lithe and crude salute to Europeans. It takes an unashamedly American approach in everything it does and still manages to hang with the best sports and even supercars that the rest of the world has to offer.
8 It's An American Icon
Some cars make "why you must drive" lists all the time, and for good reasons. There's typically one generation of the Corvette that always makes these lists, depending on the author's choice. They were the car of choice for a dollar for astronauts. Prince sang about them. It was the pace car at the 2006 Indy 500 and Daytona 500.
If you want to experience the true essence of Americana, a Corvette is definitely a good way to go. Outside of the US, when you ask someone to think of an American car, there are few names that always make the list, the Mustang undoubtedly makes it, but it’s usually followed by the Corvette. It’s cemented in the public mindset as an aspirational slice of the Great US of A.
7 Racing Has Enhanced The Breed
Since its inception, the Corvette has been just as at home on twisting road courses as it has on the road itself. Years of motorsport honing have seen the Corvette go from strength to strength. In 2005, they outlasted the Brits and their Aston Martin DBR9s at LeMans and came home 1-2 in class.
Domination was the name of the game for the C6.R on the racetrack, and it echoes through into the road cars. Both on home soil and in Europe, the brash boy from Kentucky stood toe-to-toe with some of the greats of GT and endurance racing and proved that it could roll with the punches. And that trickled down to the road-going versions.
6 It Can Hold A Candle To Some Of The Biggest And Best
When taken to the limit around the Nordschleife, the C6 Corvette set a very admirable lap time of 7:19.63. In comparison, eight years after that lap time was set, Jaguar, in a fully prepped XE SV Project 8 could only make it around in 7:23.164. That's the two-seat, track-package, race-ready monster still a few seconds shy of America's iconic sports car.
On a smaller scale, when pushed to the limit by the Stig, a ZR1 C6 was able to outpace a Ferrari 599 GTB and a 911 GT3 RS, a certified track monster befitted with a roll cage and wings for days. Even Ford’s GT from 2005 couldn’t get close to the ‘Vette. And the icing on the cake? The Corvette set its lap time in the damp. In the dry, it could have been getting close to hypercar royalty, such as Porsche’s Carrera GT.
5 The LS7
If you get a chance to get behind the wheel of a C6, you might be fortunate enough to find it is a Z06 spec model. Upfront you'll find a hand built, dry sumped, LS7 V8 engine. Packed with smart engineering, including titanium alloy connecting rods, the LS7 in the C6 produced a very hearty 505 hp and a stonking 470 lb-ft of torque. Some crazy science around the LS7 is that it features hypereutectic pistons.
This means that the aluminium used to cast them has been alloyed with over 12% by weight Silicon. The result of this is an alloy that is super stable under high temperatures and more resistant to expansion when it gets hot. This allowed the LS7 engineers to run much tighter tolerances in the engine, producing a healthier, more efficient engine, the final result, more power and a wicked high redline of 7,000 rpm. Although if you’re clever enough, you can take the mighty LS7 round to 11,000 rpm.
4 The Hi-Tech Materials
When you're looking to produce a highly competitive sports car, you cannot just cobble it together from assorted odds and ends of pig iron and duct tape. Corvettes have long been known for their fiberglass bodywork, keeping the weight down. But the floor pan on the C6 is unique in its composition, made from balsa wood and carbon fiber.
The engine cradle is a magnesium alloy and the whole frame is aluminum, as opposed to the standard steel model, saving 136lbs on the frame alone! Go even higher up the spec tree with the ZR1, and the car is littered with carbon fiber and polycarbonates. The brakes are another example of top-notch materials, here being carbon ceramics.
3 This Was The First Corvette With Fixed Headlamps Since The C1
A bit of history, and yeah, the C2, C3, C4 and C5 all had pop-up lamps, but with evolving pedestrian safety rules coming in, the characterful pop-ups had to die. So it was back to fixed units, as we'd seen in the C1.
Not really a big entry, but we love the color coded lining to the headlights on the C6 and think it really helps blend the transition from the pop-ups on previous gens.
2 It Has An Oft-Forgotten Sibling
Raise your hand if you can remember the Cadillac XLR. Hmmm, thought so. That's not many of you. The Caddy XLR was a grand tourer built by GM's luxury arm on the C6 platform, the Y platform.
The Cadillac didn't get the same powertrain options that the C6s got, instead having to make do with the Northstar V8. An engine with a terrible track record. Sales were slim, no one wanted a slower Corvette with a terrible face and after five years and just 15,460 produced over that time, compared to its 5-7,000 per year projections, the XLR was axed. Let’s face it, if you wanted a big, muscly drop-top cruiser, at that price point you were buying a Mercedes SL.
1 The Name Is Cool
Corvette isn't some imagined name from a marketing meeting like Camaro, it stems back to French; a nod perhaps to its European ambition. Work backwards enough, and you'll find Corvette translates to "basket". Which isn't necessarily cool, but that name had a cooler purpose later, becoming a lightly armed fast ship under the age of sail, a light frigate essentially. When you think of some of the most evocative names from the automotive world, Corvette certainly falls into the same camp as Mustang, Charger, Challenger, and Camaro. It’s certainly not a Sunny or a Gloria. More so, it could be shortened to a cool nickname of sorts, ‘Vette.
So if you're looking for a car with heritage, speed, precision, style and substance, look no further than the C6 Corvette. Overlook this generation of Corvette at your peril. It represents a high-water mark for GM, and short of making the C8 mid-engined, they haven’t been able to eclipse the C6. That’s not to say that newer generations are worse, but they haven’t moved the yardstick on in the same way that the C6 did.