Ken
Gone but not forgotten
From Times Online:
April 10, 2005
Corvette C6
By Jay Leno
Hey, it's the supercar you can fix with a hammer
The new Corvette C6 is kind of like Las Vegas. Years ago Las Vegas used to be steak, chicken and potatoes. It was as American as you could possibly get. As they open up the world markets, it’s still the most American place there is, but you can get proper Italian food, proper French food, all kinds of different cuisines. It’s the same thing with the Corvette; it’s still American but it has more of a European flavour.
As far as cars were concerned, Americans used to feel: “If you can’t see it, don’t worry about it. If you can see it, chrome it.” Well that’s pretty much changed. Those days are gone for ever. I think the American designers have taken a look at what the Europeans are doing and realised that this is the future.
Chevrolet has made a real effort to produce a European car and is officially importing about 100 to Britain (in left-hand drive only) from the beginning of next month, although early arrivals are on show in the recently opened Cadillac Corvette showroom in Park Lane, central London. The European influence is easy to spot. At a time when Americans’ asses are getting bigger and wider and fatter and every other American car is getting bigger, the new Corvette is smaller than its predecessor, which is a huge step in the right direction.
I’m told that it’s an inch or two smaller than a 911. Visually, you think it’s bigger, but it’s not. The Porsche comparison is important. A Corvette has always been half the price of a Porsche or even a third of some equivalent cars. And you could not only get it cheaper but you could build it up and make it handle, make it do the things you wanted it to. Unlike other supercars, this is one the working guy could afford. It’s one of the true supercars you can own. And that’s been true from day one.
My 2002 Corvette Z06, which has 514bhp and lots of modifications, is only 60lb heavier than my Porsche Carrera GT, which is all carbon fibre. There’s a $39,000 (£20,000) price difference and only 60lb difference in weight. If I skipped a few lunches I could probably get that down even more.
Exclusivity is cool, but when you can mass market something you can get it right. One of the great secrets is the Mazda Miata or MX-5. It has one of the best transmissions out there. It shows that once you have made 700,000 cars you can get the gearshift just right.
Right now the Corvette is the greatest value sports car in the world. I didn’t always think like that. When I was in high school we had the Ford guys and the Chevy guys. They were like rival gangs. Like Manchester United v Liverpool. The father of a close friend of mine had a Ford dealership, so we had access to all the cool stuff: the Falcons and the Mustangs.
I also worked at a Ford dealership in high school. I was in charge of mileometer recalibration. A car came in with 80,000-100,000 on the clock. I was told to change the “corrective mileage” to 15,500. This I did with a Black & Decker drill hooked to the back of the mileometer, running in reverse for four hours. The loyalties you make as a kid are hard to break, so I never paid much attention to Corvettes.
In fact I got my first Corvette almost by accident. I drove the Chevrolet Monte Carlo pace car at Indianapolis and did some other promotional work, too, and GM was pleased with the publicity. I wanted something shiny rather than something green in return so I said: “Oh, that Corvette over there looks pretty good.” So they gave me the Corvette. It was a 1999 C5.
I fell in love with that C5, so after that the C6 feels quite familiar. It’s a bit like going out with your girlfriend’s twin sister. There’s a family resemblance, which is what I like and is one thing that makes the Corvette successful. It’s the same thing that makes Harley-Davidson successful. It’s an evolutionary process. The one you have is not a piece of crap just because the new one came out. The new one is just a more sophisticated version of the one you have.
Right away you know you’re in a Corvette. If I were blindfolded I would know I was in a Corvette. It feels like a Corvette. There’s a directness to it that you don’t have in almost any other American car, save for maybe the Ford GT. That is saying something. I think it’s that good.
The great thing about the car is probably the liveability of it. You can pretty much do anything with it. We’ve had some terrible rainstorms here in California and I find myself having a great time turning off the traction control, hitting the gas, getting a little bit sideways in corners and sliding around with it. I’ve been using it to go to the market and run errands. It’s not fussy, you don’t bottom out in it, and it gets pretty good mileage — 26mpg on the highway.
I know a lot of magazines had taken the interior to task so they’ve made a few improvements there. To be honest, it never bothered me. As American cars go, I thought the interior was okay.
Obviously, the German stuff at twice the price is going to be a little bit more sophisticated, but that’s okay. In the Corvette the money seems to be in the drivetrain, and although it’s a pushrod motor I would defy anybody to say it’s crude or anything of that nature. If something works, keep doing it. Sometimes the cashier at the mini-market is sexier than a supermodel.
It’s almost bulletproof. You can’t really hurt it. I find myself doing things with the Corvette that I would not do with some of the more sophisticated European stuff, like constantly popping the clutch and doing power shifts and burnouts. Doing things that, at least to my American mind, would stress European machinery. It’s like I always say: “It’s a Chevy; you can fix it with a hammer.”
In an American car you know there’s torque. They always say horsepower sells cars but torque wins races. That’s what this kind of does. You’ve got plenty of torque no matter what gear you’re in.
There were a few things that niggled me about the new Corvette. I’m not much for electronics, keyless entry and all that kind of stuff. When you shut down the manual Corvette, you have to put it in reverse and turn off the key and that powers everything down. Except, using every conceivable form of logic I’ve had since I first drove an automobile, I put the car in neutral and pulled the handbrake. So when I came out the next morning the battery was dead. Well, that’s all wrong! That doesn’t make any sense!
I was given the car so it was my fault: I didn’t read the manual. But manuals are pretty much useless. They are designed to protect you from yourself. They say things like “Do not drink the battery”! They don’t tell you how to use the car in case you sue them. All this doesn’t make me like the car less. It’s just different; cars now don’t have mechanical problems, they have software problems.
I’m glad the Corvette is coming to the UK. Apart from not being right-hand drive, which is a tremendous disadvantage, it’s value for money. I don’t think there’s anything in Britain that can equal it for the price. It gets good mileage, it’s fast, it handles, it stops. And most importantly, it’s pretty much indestructible. There’s nothing finicky. It’s not a high-stressed, high-revving motor that one has to pamper. It will work okay on British roads, because most importantly it’s a good-handling, properly sorted car.
Right now there’s a lot of interest in Corvettes. Corvettes are one of those American things that even people who do not know cars go: “Hey what’s that? Is that a Corvette?” When I read European magazines they praise the new Corvette. GM really does seem to be trying to make it a world car. Now I think the rest of the world is starting to believe it. And it does seem to be making an impression. I’m not a big jingoistic guy, but whenever I see British magazines testing the Corvette and saying it’s good, it’s like one for the home team.
But here’s a final thought about the new Corvette. The standard base model is now more powerful than the fire-breathing 427, the legendary car of the mid-1960s with big side-pipes and all that nonsense. The standard car, the “here honey, take the Corvette and pick up the kid”, is more powerful than that.
Having said that, as much as I like this one, I’ll wait for the new Z06 when it comes out later this year. The Z06 has 500bhp, plus it’s an aluminium chassis, not steel. From what I hear I believe it’s faster and will handle better than the new Ferrari F430.
April 10, 2005
Corvette C6
By Jay Leno
Hey, it's the supercar you can fix with a hammer
The new Corvette C6 is kind of like Las Vegas. Years ago Las Vegas used to be steak, chicken and potatoes. It was as American as you could possibly get. As they open up the world markets, it’s still the most American place there is, but you can get proper Italian food, proper French food, all kinds of different cuisines. It’s the same thing with the Corvette; it’s still American but it has more of a European flavour.
As far as cars were concerned, Americans used to feel: “If you can’t see it, don’t worry about it. If you can see it, chrome it.” Well that’s pretty much changed. Those days are gone for ever. I think the American designers have taken a look at what the Europeans are doing and realised that this is the future.
Chevrolet has made a real effort to produce a European car and is officially importing about 100 to Britain (in left-hand drive only) from the beginning of next month, although early arrivals are on show in the recently opened Cadillac Corvette showroom in Park Lane, central London. The European influence is easy to spot. At a time when Americans’ asses are getting bigger and wider and fatter and every other American car is getting bigger, the new Corvette is smaller than its predecessor, which is a huge step in the right direction.
I’m told that it’s an inch or two smaller than a 911. Visually, you think it’s bigger, but it’s not. The Porsche comparison is important. A Corvette has always been half the price of a Porsche or even a third of some equivalent cars. And you could not only get it cheaper but you could build it up and make it handle, make it do the things you wanted it to. Unlike other supercars, this is one the working guy could afford. It’s one of the true supercars you can own. And that’s been true from day one.
My 2002 Corvette Z06, which has 514bhp and lots of modifications, is only 60lb heavier than my Porsche Carrera GT, which is all carbon fibre. There’s a $39,000 (£20,000) price difference and only 60lb difference in weight. If I skipped a few lunches I could probably get that down even more.
Exclusivity is cool, but when you can mass market something you can get it right. One of the great secrets is the Mazda Miata or MX-5. It has one of the best transmissions out there. It shows that once you have made 700,000 cars you can get the gearshift just right.
Right now the Corvette is the greatest value sports car in the world. I didn’t always think like that. When I was in high school we had the Ford guys and the Chevy guys. They were like rival gangs. Like Manchester United v Liverpool. The father of a close friend of mine had a Ford dealership, so we had access to all the cool stuff: the Falcons and the Mustangs.
I also worked at a Ford dealership in high school. I was in charge of mileometer recalibration. A car came in with 80,000-100,000 on the clock. I was told to change the “corrective mileage” to 15,500. This I did with a Black & Decker drill hooked to the back of the mileometer, running in reverse for four hours. The loyalties you make as a kid are hard to break, so I never paid much attention to Corvettes.
In fact I got my first Corvette almost by accident. I drove the Chevrolet Monte Carlo pace car at Indianapolis and did some other promotional work, too, and GM was pleased with the publicity. I wanted something shiny rather than something green in return so I said: “Oh, that Corvette over there looks pretty good.” So they gave me the Corvette. It was a 1999 C5.
I fell in love with that C5, so after that the C6 feels quite familiar. It’s a bit like going out with your girlfriend’s twin sister. There’s a family resemblance, which is what I like and is one thing that makes the Corvette successful. It’s the same thing that makes Harley-Davidson successful. It’s an evolutionary process. The one you have is not a piece of crap just because the new one came out. The new one is just a more sophisticated version of the one you have.
Right away you know you’re in a Corvette. If I were blindfolded I would know I was in a Corvette. It feels like a Corvette. There’s a directness to it that you don’t have in almost any other American car, save for maybe the Ford GT. That is saying something. I think it’s that good.
The great thing about the car is probably the liveability of it. You can pretty much do anything with it. We’ve had some terrible rainstorms here in California and I find myself having a great time turning off the traction control, hitting the gas, getting a little bit sideways in corners and sliding around with it. I’ve been using it to go to the market and run errands. It’s not fussy, you don’t bottom out in it, and it gets pretty good mileage — 26mpg on the highway.
I know a lot of magazines had taken the interior to task so they’ve made a few improvements there. To be honest, it never bothered me. As American cars go, I thought the interior was okay.
Obviously, the German stuff at twice the price is going to be a little bit more sophisticated, but that’s okay. In the Corvette the money seems to be in the drivetrain, and although it’s a pushrod motor I would defy anybody to say it’s crude or anything of that nature. If something works, keep doing it. Sometimes the cashier at the mini-market is sexier than a supermodel.
It’s almost bulletproof. You can’t really hurt it. I find myself doing things with the Corvette that I would not do with some of the more sophisticated European stuff, like constantly popping the clutch and doing power shifts and burnouts. Doing things that, at least to my American mind, would stress European machinery. It’s like I always say: “It’s a Chevy; you can fix it with a hammer.”
In an American car you know there’s torque. They always say horsepower sells cars but torque wins races. That’s what this kind of does. You’ve got plenty of torque no matter what gear you’re in.
There were a few things that niggled me about the new Corvette. I’m not much for electronics, keyless entry and all that kind of stuff. When you shut down the manual Corvette, you have to put it in reverse and turn off the key and that powers everything down. Except, using every conceivable form of logic I’ve had since I first drove an automobile, I put the car in neutral and pulled the handbrake. So when I came out the next morning the battery was dead. Well, that’s all wrong! That doesn’t make any sense!
I was given the car so it was my fault: I didn’t read the manual. But manuals are pretty much useless. They are designed to protect you from yourself. They say things like “Do not drink the battery”! They don’t tell you how to use the car in case you sue them. All this doesn’t make me like the car less. It’s just different; cars now don’t have mechanical problems, they have software problems.
I’m glad the Corvette is coming to the UK. Apart from not being right-hand drive, which is a tremendous disadvantage, it’s value for money. I don’t think there’s anything in Britain that can equal it for the price. It gets good mileage, it’s fast, it handles, it stops. And most importantly, it’s pretty much indestructible. There’s nothing finicky. It’s not a high-stressed, high-revving motor that one has to pamper. It will work okay on British roads, because most importantly it’s a good-handling, properly sorted car.
Right now there’s a lot of interest in Corvettes. Corvettes are one of those American things that even people who do not know cars go: “Hey what’s that? Is that a Corvette?” When I read European magazines they praise the new Corvette. GM really does seem to be trying to make it a world car. Now I think the rest of the world is starting to believe it. And it does seem to be making an impression. I’m not a big jingoistic guy, but whenever I see British magazines testing the Corvette and saying it’s good, it’s like one for the home team.
But here’s a final thought about the new Corvette. The standard base model is now more powerful than the fire-breathing 427, the legendary car of the mid-1960s with big side-pipes and all that nonsense. The standard car, the “here honey, take the Corvette and pick up the kid”, is more powerful than that.
Having said that, as much as I like this one, I’ll wait for the new Z06 when it comes out later this year. The Z06 has 500bhp, plus it’s an aluminium chassis, not steel. From what I hear I believe it’s faster and will handle better than the new Ferrari F430.
.
