Despite past experiences, Morley has found a captivating Chevrolet Corvete
I haven’t always been very polite on the subject of Chevrolet Corvettes. Fact is, I’ve driven every model since the C3 and I was often quoted as saying I was yet to drive a good one. Some of them were badly built, some were underpowered. Some rode like drays and others were just gaudy. The C4 was all of those. (Full disclosure: I think the C4 represents a decent value-for-money way into a Corvette these days, if that’s your thing.)
So pass me the sauce while I remove the sweat band and prepare to chow down on my Akubra. See, I’ve just spent a week in the new Chevy Corvette C8 and I’m – well – I’m in lust.
For the first time ever I plonked myself down in a Corvette seat and didn’t instantly think to myself: Jeepers, another plastic shitbox. Nor did I come around to that conclusion, even after six lovely days of thrashing the bastard hither, thither and yon. Mainly yon. In fact, the more I drove it, the more I liked it. Come for the theatre, stay for the ballet.
Just looking at the spec sheet, you can’t help but feel Chevrolet figured it was time to stop messing about and get serious. What else could explain the move to a mid-engined layout when seven generations of front-engined flexi-flyers had kept three generations of banjo-pickers satisfied for the last 70 years?
But, by hell, that’s what Chevy did and the resulting C8 is a masterpiece. Of course, there’s more to it than that. The steering is bang on the money and the suspension (magnetically adjustable donchaknow) is about as perfectly calibrated as anything else with the ability to pull the big Gs. It’s quiet inside and while it’s a big car for a two-seater, its proportions are just lovely. In fact, a lot of people thought it was a McLaren. Except it’s about 200-grand cheaper than the cheapest (er, least expensive) Macca. And at about $160k, I reckon it’s just about the bargain of the century.
What don’t I like? Not much. I don’t think the suede covering on the tiller should have been wrinkling after 16,000km. Mind you, with 500 neddies under your foot, you find yourself hanging on pretty tight some of the time. And that big conga-line of switches on the centre stack (there’s 17 of them, all the same size and shape, all black and all on the same black background) is a bit, er, naff.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the eight-speed double-clutch transaxle, either at first. I guess I’m still not because A: The thing can feel a bit shunty in slow traffic, and B: A car like this needs a minimum of three pedals. But the longer I drove it, the better the tranny seemed to me. The shifts are all but instant and the paddles do actually give you full control over what’s happening. I still think the gearbox ‘hangs up’ a little on part-throttle upshifts, and seems a bit too keen to reel in a handful of ratios in response to small taps on the juice.
But what really gets me is that the Corvette still, somehow, has an American flavour. Some people will not appreciate this, but hey, guess where it’s made? And by the way, complaining that a Corvette feels and smells a bit Yankee, is like complaining about the garlic sauce in a kebab. Duh.
Another element that appeals to me greatly is the engine. Okay, so it has but two valves per cylinder and revs to 6500rpm. Compared with a DOHC, twin-turbo, 8000rpm supercar engine, it would seem off the pace. But I know which one I’d rather be paying for to have serviced. Oh, and I’m pretty certain I know which one will still be chugging around in 50 years’ time.
See, back when the only reliable supercar was a Porsche Turbo, the young Morley was a big fan of the likes of De Tomaso and Bizzarini; brands that built sex-goddess cars but powered them with a big old lump of Detroit iron. The combination was irresistible to me. Then and now. Not that I’m anti-high-stepping Eyetalian thoroughbred donks, but I do love the simplicity and longevity of a small-block making big gobs of unflustered torque, and able to crank a sleek, sexy bodyshell along an autostrada in the triple digits on the mph speedo, all day, every day. And, to me, that’s precisely what the C8 represents. Give me Saint Tropez-waterfront optics against an American Graffiti soundtrack any day.
RIGHT-HAND JIVE
There is one thing about the new Corvette that continues to make me wonder, however. Not sure if you remember, but one of the reasons Holden cited for its total withdrawal from the planet as a brand, was that parent company GM had decided to concentrate on left-hand-drive markets and tailor its production to suit.
Even at the time, it kind of sounded weird for a global player to turn its back on 25 per cent of its potential market, but hey, big companies sometimes do apparently crazy things. The point is, that the new Corvette seems to be bucking that mission statement.
I’m referring, of course, to the fact that the new C8 is the first-ever Corvette, in the 69-year history of the badge, to be factory-built in right-hand-drive form. So what gives? Probably the fact that the Corvette was engineered for a 2020 launch in the USA, a short time before that new mission statement was drafted in Detroit.
Either that or the call that right-hand-drive was off the table was a red herring designed to smooth the troop evacuation from Holden Beach. Nah…
CATATONIC CONVERTER
While I’m waffling on about the new Corvette, let me tell you another thing I really enjoyed, for reasons other than those imagined by the designers. The C8 has a remote-start function which you access by pressing a button on the key-fob. When you do, the indicators flash and the next thing you’ll hear is the starter-motor whirring and the 6.2 bursting into life with a fair old bellow if you have the active exhaust switched from Stun to Kill.
I would imagine this function would be a nice thing to have in Alaska or somewhere really chilly where it’d be nice to be able to get a little heat into the cabin before you actually climb inside and slither down your icy driveway into the path of a 12-ton snow-plough. It’s nice to be comfy while you wait for the ambulance.
However, in my case, I found a completely new use for the auto-start thing that I bet most Corvette engineers have never even considered. Or maybe they have. We don’t know.
Anyway, it is this: My neighbours have a very grumpy, very bossy grey cat. It’s a big bastard, too, and in the dark it looks like a small panther. This cat also enjoys sleeping on the bonnets of the cars I park in my driveway through the day. See where this is going?
At first the bugger was hard to spot camouflaged against the grey of my test Corvette, but the furry grey splodge over the white race stripes gave his position away. Meantime, I’m upstairs inside, reaching for the key-fob and chuckling to myself.
Kitty-cat didn’t see the indicators flash, but he sure as hell heard that V8 burst into life under him. He went straight up in the air, past the power lines, did three full somersaults and began re-entry. In fact, he went so high, he landed in a tree on the way down. Meantime, The Speaker has walked into the room I’m in and completely failed to see why it is I’m now rolling around on the floor, holding my sides.
Now, I’m not one to harm critters and, generally, me and Grey Boy get on fine. But I draw the line at him using my automotive collection as a chill-out room. I also reckon using the auto-start to send kitty part-way into orbit is no worse than throwing a shoe at him or chasing him off with a broom. But it’s a hell of a lot more fun.
Ah, Chevrolet… you’ve thought of everything.
JUST LIKE HORSES
It seems to me that there’s a fair bit of anxiety out there about what’s going to happen to our beloved old cars once the electric vehicle is ruling the world. Personally, I don’t think we have too much to be concerned about. Conventional cars with conventional internal combustion engines will start to disappear from new-car showrooms (Hey, it’s already happening now and has been for some time. The same as the SUV wave flushed away a lot of normal sedans and hatchbacks away a decade ago.) and be replaced by EVs that make 600 horsepower and 1000Nm. To me, that’s okay, because it doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy the old dungers I have salted away at the MBC.
Tesla model S rear drivetrain assembly
But what about petrol prices? And what happens if the government bans petrol and diesel cars from the roads? Both reasonable questions, but both have equally reasonable answers.
In the first instance, even if petrol got to ten bucks a litre, I reckon I’d still lash out on a hundred bucks’ worth of Premium and still go for a squirt on a Saturday morning. And who knows how high fuel prices will go? Even after the world gets the tom-tits with Russia and somebody like Mossad or the CIA puts a deer-slug in Putin’s melon, there’ll just be another bat-shit crazy dictator waiting in line to fill the void and create global anxiety. So I’m not holding my breath waiting for petrol prices to tumble. But do I lie awake over it? Nope.
So what about our government banning ICE motor vehicles from the roads? Well, at the risk of channelling Charlton Heston, they’ll have to take the ignition keys from my cold, dead hands. And anyway, no such ban will be necessary, because the vast majority of folks will happily switch to an EV without – in some cases – even knowing the difference.
Just as the Model T consigned the faithful nag to a default-transport past and a recreational future, so will EVs turn our current wheels into wonderful playthings rather than actual transport. Suits me. And I’ll let you in on something else for free: The idea of having a plug-in parts chaser with more torque than a B-Double as a daily, concerns me not a bit. In fact…
WHEEL TUB TIME MACHINE
Advice to the teenage me this month: Hey Simpleton, don’t be surprised if you mess up. In a world where you get a medal for just being you, I wonder about this stuff sometimes. But it’s fair to say that if you start messing around with cars and engines and what-not, it could take a few goes before you get something right.
Ford model T assembly line
I’m certainly not trying to quell the enthusiasm of the young ’uns out there, but I do know from many years of harsh experience, that stuff doesn’t always work out the way you planned. Anybody who has ever had an exhaust stud break off, a timing-belt jump a tooth during reassembly, or has ever managed to get gasket goo over just about everything but the sealing surface in question will be nodding their heads about now.
Fundamentally, it just doesn’t always go the way you planned. Working on cars does not guarantee you a Certificate of Participation. Get over it, clean up the mess and start again. Because when you do get it right, it feels beaut.
SEND YOUR EMAILS TO: uniquecars@primecreative.com.au Yep, he’s gonna fix you up in no time…
From Unique Cars #468, Jul/Aug 2022