      2013 Chevrolet Corvette 427 Convertible. Click image to enlarge |
Then again, I imagine a special edition like this is a car that owners can store through the bad weather for warm summer night cruises or trips to the track. Please, owners, take it to the track, because even though I could not, it felt like the car was begging to be driven like every corner is an apex to clip, every red light a braking zone, and every straight, um, a straight. And we all know what to do on straights, right?
The steering itself is almost an oxymoron, because it feels loose and gummy at times, but in corners, when g forces are in play, it seems to lock in and latch onto the actions and grip of the tires. The balance is also deft when pushing through turns, thanks in no small part to the V8 nestled up against the firewall and almost entirely aft of the front axle, helping weight distribution achieve that perfect 50/50 split over front and rear axles. Oh, and those brakes? Forget dinner plates, these are platters: six-piston calipers clamping on 355×32 mm in front (14×1.3 in.), and four-piston rear calipers on 340×26 mm (13.4×1.0 in.), cross-drilled rotors at both ends. Braking power will rarely be an issue, only the grip of the tires.
Being in the car for so short a time, and so rarely having driven one, and the chassis unrelated to any other cars we’ve driven, the steering was unfamiliar and the feel remote, but seemed like the chassis would fill in all the necessary info to build and improve on your performance over time. If anything, that chassis was almost overcommunicative, sound insulation a welcome omission, hearing every bolt and brace flex and every moving part clunk and whirr. At times, it felt like it was going to fall apart, because of all the crashing and creaking going over rough roads, and when you really get on it, the violence of any bump is almost enough to discourage any hooning. Almost…
But it’s not, because the gas pedal is connected to a fount of divinity, and your hand rests on a manual transmission, whose genuine mechanical feel had me rowing gears at stoplights, the clutch a middleweight and quick on the take. Another favourite exercise was dropping gears on the highway to announce its epic-ness, especially when approaching tunnels and underpasses, which echoed that 3,000-plus rpm howl and ensuing off-throttle guttural barks.
Now, there are two schools of thought about the Corvette. One is that it is a great sports car with a crap interior, and the second is that it is a great sports car and they don’t care that it has a crap interior. You may hear people moaning about its interior quality, and we have some exhaustive threads in our forum about the seats, but while the market for sports cars and Corvettes is small compared to sedans and crossovers, the amount of performance you acquire for its relatively cheap price is rare and prized. Put me in with the latter school of thought—I would gladly live with the seats whose head restraints only reach the middle of my head but were never specifically uncomfortable, the retro head-up display (which, like the touchscreen nav, suffered from Galaga-generation graphics), and ignore the rest of the interior, except for the Alcantara-wrapped steering wheel and shift knobs. In this respect, GM has it right, because those are the two parts you will be touching and appreciating (shall I go on?) during every minute of every trip.
