CHEVROLET CORVETTE

America’s equivalent of the Porsche 911 has bravely changed tack for its eighth generation. Can it now compete on the global stag

- MATT SAUNDERS

TESTED 8.10.21, MUNICH, GERMANY ON SALE NOW PRICE £ 7 7,15 0

Production of the eighth-generation (C8) Chevrolet Corvette got off to a slow start at the end of 2019. Much of 2020 was also understandably problematic. Other than for mask makers and online retailers, of course, it can’t have been a good year for anyone.

Now, however, Chevrolet’s production lines at the Bowling Green plant in Kentucky are cranked up and running apace, building Corvettes at a rate of some 50,000 per year, most of which are currently being gobbled up by the North American market. Wherever they’re headed, that’s a lot of sports cars: very likely more than all the 911s built by Porsche and all the F-Types built by Jaguar this year put together.

But sales volume hasn’t been enough, thus far at least, to make the Corvette a globally respected player within its strategically important market niche. That, you suspect, is what the car’s new mechanical layout and technical configuration – mid-mounted engine, dual-clutch gearbox, adaptively damped and manually adjustable coilover suspension and right-hand-drive option – is really all about. Not just making the Corvette handle like the pedigree Europeans but making it a much closer notional rival for them as well – and therefore so much harder for badge snobs to dismiss.