COLD FUSION

CORVETTE’S RADICAL MID-ENGINED RIGHT-HOOKER IS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW BUT CAN IT FACE DOWN THREE TALENTED EUROPEAN RIVALS?

-  ALEX INWOOD

IT BEGINS, as the best conversations tend to, over a bacon and egg roll. We’re gobbling breakfast in a small-town cafe, peering through the window at the swoops, curves and bright colours of the cars assembled for this group test when photographer Brook pops the question: “That Corvette… is it a muscle car, a sports car or a supercar?”

There’s a pause, some puzzled expressions, before we all talk at once.

“Definitely a muscle car; the Corvette has always been a muscle car.”

“But it’s mid-engined now. And look at it! It’s a proper wedge.

That’s a supercar!”

“Nah, it’s like a 911.

A sports car that can mix it with supercars.” It takes another 15 minutes, and some granular theorising – “isn’t a muscle car based on a regular production model?” – before we finally agree: GM has changed the recipe so radically for this C8 generation that it requires further exploration to properly pin it down. That’s job one for this comparison test.