Ken
Gone but not forgotten
From AutomobileMagazine.com:
New Sports Cars for 2005
2005 Chevrolet Corvette
By Timothy Ferris
Photography: Tim Andrew
Back when the Corvette was first earning its reputation as a race-hardened American sports car that sold for a reasonable price, enthusiasts accepted that such a proposition involved certain compromises. Like engineering students who get high marks if they can attain any two of the "better, faster, cheaper" trinity, sports-car drivers understood that getting lots of bang for relatively few bucks often meant putting up with the ride harshness of a Roman chariot, the styling elegance of a plastic sex toy, the build quality of a polyester leisure suit, and an interior suitable for Charles V, the Hapsburg emperor who liked to rehearse for his death by sleeping in his coffin. Cars in general have gotten a lot better in the half-century since, owing both to technological improvements and to the fact that Americans and western Europeans, having socked away more than $10 trillion in additional personal wealth over the years, are willing to pay more for them. The Corvette marque evolved through five "generations" (from C1, the original 1953-62 Vette, and C2, the first Sting Ray, to the C5, which bows out with the 2004 model year), improving more or less consistently while holding the line on price and sticking to its original conception: a lusty engine stirred by a robust shifter at cocktail height, teamed with a crude but effective suspension capable of blood-draining cornering grip. While the cost of a Corvette in constant dollars has roughly doubled in the past fifty years, that of a Porsche has tripled; and Ferraris, which used to trade for a couple of Corvettes, today cost three to five of them.
Now the C6 is upon us, and although it does not look startlingly different from its immediate predecessors-the overall effect is of a sprightlier, more modern machine with its wheels closer to its corners-in many respects, it's a very different automobile. Said to retain only fifteen percent (by mass) of the C5's parts, the C6 is five inches shorter and an inch narrower than the C5 yet has a 1.2-inch-longer wheelbase and puts its larger wheels (eighteen-inch front, nineteen-inch rear) even closer to its sides. Weighing about the same as the model it replaces, it delivers comparable fuel economy (an estimated 23 mpg, combined city and highway) while cranking out 50 more horsepower. It boasts improved materials and build quality and offers an all-new, somewhat less humdrum interior and an array of creature comforts-xenon headlamps, keyless ignition, and cabin air filtration are standard-for about the same price as the C5.
In short, it's a better car. But is it good enough to hold up its head in a world where-we're happy to note-good, fast cars have become almost as commonplace as autumn leaves?
We'll be back with word on that in a moment. But first, a blast from the past.
Many American men of a certain age keep barrels of Corvette nostalgia down in the cellars of their psyches, and I'm no exception. The first two cars I owned were Vettes, and in some ways, they defined the extremes of the Corvette spectrum that has existed ever since. In 1961, I bought a '59 convertible, in "classic cream" with red coves and red upholstery. With its 283-cubic-inch engine, live rear axle, and brakes that, if memory serves, required that you mail GM a postcard should you ever want to haul it down from highway speeds, this little cream puff had a performance envelope thinner than a Harvard rejection letter. It was, however, outlandishly fun to drive in sunny Florida, so long as you didn't expect it to negotiate across gravel at speed without spinning into the next county. A few years later, yearning for something with more hair on its chest, I bought a three-quarter racing 1963 split-rear-window Corvette coupe, shortly after watching its triumph in heavy rain at a Palm Beach raceway one stormy Sunday afternoon. "Daytona blue" over a dark blue interior, it had a 327-cubic-inch, 300-horsepower engine, an unflappable four-speed transmission, a 4:11 independent rear end tight as a Timex mainspring, a stiff suspension, glass-packs, a full roll cage replete with fire extinguisher and competition belts, and "sintered metallic" brakes that worked best when hot. Its owner-driver, who was about to take delivery of a '65 with a 396-cubic-inch engine, gave me a good price. (Then, as now, civilian buyers regarded a track-time pedigree with as much enthusiasm as bachelor farmers pondering a bartered bride with a porno career in her past.) Driving the Sting Ray home that night, I was pulled over by a Sunshine State Parkway trooper who courteously explained that, having heard its rolling thunder and taken a gander at its racing stripes and numbers, he "just wanted to see what the hell this thing was!"
What it was, of course, was one of the great road gobblers of its day. In it, I could knock off the 1500 miles from Key Biscayne, Florida, to Evanston, Illinois, in twenty hours and twenty minutes-an average of better than 70 mph overall, more than a third of it on two-lane blacktop-then zip out west as readily as skipping a stone across water. When a friend shared the driving, in which case I would catch a few winks on an air mattress deployed in the rear, with stars shining through the twin rear windows and a thicket of U-joints whirring inches under my head, we could pretty much nail any destination in North America with an alacrity approaching that of a twin Beech. The '63 had its faults-most notable a tendency to motorboat at triple-digit speeds, its skyward-pointing fiberglass hood adding to the illusion that one was streaking across Lake Havasu-but all in all, it was as thrilling to drive as it was to look at, and Chevy dealers serviced it as eagerly as Daytona pit crews. Decades later, when Bob Bondurant blew past my 928 Porsche in a full-race split-window coupe at Sears Point, the sight of it shrinking to a powder-blue dot in my windshield was almost as thrilling as if we'd swapped lap times.
On paper, the sixth-generation Corvettes uphold the noble tradition of diversity within unity exemplified by my '59 cream puff and my '63 street racer. You can specify anything from an easygoing, fun car to a giant killer, confident that you'll be making a cost-effective purchase of a genuine sports car that's relatively easy to service (or even self-service; the engine is pleasingly laid out and some of its parts generously labeled for the benefit of shade-tree mechanics). But how do they hold up in practice, and where-if anywhere-is the sweet spot between price and performance, between sheer speed and street smarts? To find out, I drove the entire C6 lineup on a racetrack and on country roads in rural Virginia, then compared a C5 to a C6 on the rough streets and real-world byways of San Francisco.
New Sports Cars for 2005
2005 Chevrolet Corvette
By Timothy Ferris
Photography: Tim Andrew
Back when the Corvette was first earning its reputation as a race-hardened American sports car that sold for a reasonable price, enthusiasts accepted that such a proposition involved certain compromises. Like engineering students who get high marks if they can attain any two of the "better, faster, cheaper" trinity, sports-car drivers understood that getting lots of bang for relatively few bucks often meant putting up with the ride harshness of a Roman chariot, the styling elegance of a plastic sex toy, the build quality of a polyester leisure suit, and an interior suitable for Charles V, the Hapsburg emperor who liked to rehearse for his death by sleeping in his coffin. Cars in general have gotten a lot better in the half-century since, owing both to technological improvements and to the fact that Americans and western Europeans, having socked away more than $10 trillion in additional personal wealth over the years, are willing to pay more for them. The Corvette marque evolved through five "generations" (from C1, the original 1953-62 Vette, and C2, the first Sting Ray, to the C5, which bows out with the 2004 model year), improving more or less consistently while holding the line on price and sticking to its original conception: a lusty engine stirred by a robust shifter at cocktail height, teamed with a crude but effective suspension capable of blood-draining cornering grip. While the cost of a Corvette in constant dollars has roughly doubled in the past fifty years, that of a Porsche has tripled; and Ferraris, which used to trade for a couple of Corvettes, today cost three to five of them.
Now the C6 is upon us, and although it does not look startlingly different from its immediate predecessors-the overall effect is of a sprightlier, more modern machine with its wheels closer to its corners-in many respects, it's a very different automobile. Said to retain only fifteen percent (by mass) of the C5's parts, the C6 is five inches shorter and an inch narrower than the C5 yet has a 1.2-inch-longer wheelbase and puts its larger wheels (eighteen-inch front, nineteen-inch rear) even closer to its sides. Weighing about the same as the model it replaces, it delivers comparable fuel economy (an estimated 23 mpg, combined city and highway) while cranking out 50 more horsepower. It boasts improved materials and build quality and offers an all-new, somewhat less humdrum interior and an array of creature comforts-xenon headlamps, keyless ignition, and cabin air filtration are standard-for about the same price as the C5.
In short, it's a better car. But is it good enough to hold up its head in a world where-we're happy to note-good, fast cars have become almost as commonplace as autumn leaves?
We'll be back with word on that in a moment. But first, a blast from the past.
Many American men of a certain age keep barrels of Corvette nostalgia down in the cellars of their psyches, and I'm no exception. The first two cars I owned were Vettes, and in some ways, they defined the extremes of the Corvette spectrum that has existed ever since. In 1961, I bought a '59 convertible, in "classic cream" with red coves and red upholstery. With its 283-cubic-inch engine, live rear axle, and brakes that, if memory serves, required that you mail GM a postcard should you ever want to haul it down from highway speeds, this little cream puff had a performance envelope thinner than a Harvard rejection letter. It was, however, outlandishly fun to drive in sunny Florida, so long as you didn't expect it to negotiate across gravel at speed without spinning into the next county. A few years later, yearning for something with more hair on its chest, I bought a three-quarter racing 1963 split-rear-window Corvette coupe, shortly after watching its triumph in heavy rain at a Palm Beach raceway one stormy Sunday afternoon. "Daytona blue" over a dark blue interior, it had a 327-cubic-inch, 300-horsepower engine, an unflappable four-speed transmission, a 4:11 independent rear end tight as a Timex mainspring, a stiff suspension, glass-packs, a full roll cage replete with fire extinguisher and competition belts, and "sintered metallic" brakes that worked best when hot. Its owner-driver, who was about to take delivery of a '65 with a 396-cubic-inch engine, gave me a good price. (Then, as now, civilian buyers regarded a track-time pedigree with as much enthusiasm as bachelor farmers pondering a bartered bride with a porno career in her past.) Driving the Sting Ray home that night, I was pulled over by a Sunshine State Parkway trooper who courteously explained that, having heard its rolling thunder and taken a gander at its racing stripes and numbers, he "just wanted to see what the hell this thing was!"
What it was, of course, was one of the great road gobblers of its day. In it, I could knock off the 1500 miles from Key Biscayne, Florida, to Evanston, Illinois, in twenty hours and twenty minutes-an average of better than 70 mph overall, more than a third of it on two-lane blacktop-then zip out west as readily as skipping a stone across water. When a friend shared the driving, in which case I would catch a few winks on an air mattress deployed in the rear, with stars shining through the twin rear windows and a thicket of U-joints whirring inches under my head, we could pretty much nail any destination in North America with an alacrity approaching that of a twin Beech. The '63 had its faults-most notable a tendency to motorboat at triple-digit speeds, its skyward-pointing fiberglass hood adding to the illusion that one was streaking across Lake Havasu-but all in all, it was as thrilling to drive as it was to look at, and Chevy dealers serviced it as eagerly as Daytona pit crews. Decades later, when Bob Bondurant blew past my 928 Porsche in a full-race split-window coupe at Sears Point, the sight of it shrinking to a powder-blue dot in my windshield was almost as thrilling as if we'd swapped lap times.
On paper, the sixth-generation Corvettes uphold the noble tradition of diversity within unity exemplified by my '59 cream puff and my '63 street racer. You can specify anything from an easygoing, fun car to a giant killer, confident that you'll be making a cost-effective purchase of a genuine sports car that's relatively easy to service (or even self-service; the engine is pleasingly laid out and some of its parts generously labeled for the benefit of shade-tree mechanics). But how do they hold up in practice, and where-if anywhere-is the sweet spot between price and performance, between sheer speed and street smarts? To find out, I drove the entire C6 lineup on a racetrack and on country roads in rural Virginia, then compared a C5 to a C6 on the rough streets and real-world byways of San Francisco.
