Clios
BMW M cars
, unless you've been living under a rock for the last few months you'll have picked up on a degree of
soul searching
about what we want out of our fast cars. And in particular how to balance a nerdy delight in high tech with a desire to not be relegated to mere passenger in a gizmo-laden, digitally enhanced four-wheeled missile.
The basic ingredients look good for starters
Well, maybe I'm just high on a dose of pro-American sentiment after a few days at the
New York show
but I reckon it may be time to turn our backs on Europe and embrace a more Stateside attitude to fast cars. In particular, the
new Corvette Stingray
which, for my money, might just be the most PH-worthy mainstream sports car I've seen for a long, long time.
An American friend also admitted to being impressed with the new 'vette, while saying "to scratch that itch I may need to lose some hair and invest in some gold chains", suggesting there may be some emotional baggage to buying a new Stingray in its homeland. Unencumbered by such prejudice, though, I'm a huge fan, especially after meeting project chief Tadge Juechter at the show and chatting over the new car.
Now, following the above stereotype you might expect Juechter to be the George 'Blood'n'guts' Patton of automotive engineering, all pearl-handled pistols and slapping anyone meekly suggesting they should downsize to something smaller than a 6.2-litre V8. Nothing could be further from the truth. Steely, intelligent and quietly spoken, Juechter is the equal of Porsche GT3 man Andreas Preuninger, Audi RS boss Stephan Reil or AMG development head Tobias Moers. And he'd seem to have a very sharp focus on what fast cars should deliver - fun. Not a word you'll often hear from his German peers.
Track mode display same as race car's
Admitting that, industry-wide, manual gearboxes are going the way of the starter crank and wind-up windows and that the Stingray will be available with an auto he nonetheless boasts "if you want a traditional three-pedal manual we have the best one that's ever been done!" Which sounds like marketing hyperbole but he does a convincing sales job, the redundant paddle shifters on the manual's wheel now used to toggle rev-matching on up and downshifts on the Tremec seven-speeder as and when you want it. "It can tell which way you're going with the shifter so if you're going up a gear, down a gear, down two gears it knows what you're doing," he says. "You dip the clutch and you can try out two or three different gears, pick the one you want, dump the clutch and it's perfectly smooth. We played around with turning it on and off to find out if we could do it better and there points on the track with certain shift conditions where we could. So we wanted very quick access to the system, rather than burying it in the menus." And Porsche moving to PDK only for
the GT3
? "Music to my ears!" he says, with a grin.
The 'fun meter' according to Tadge Juechter
Same with the safety systems. Sure, the Stingray has 12 adjustable parameters for steering, throttle response, dampers, stability control and the rest of it. So it's on a par with any European rival in terms of technology. But Juechter refers to the five-stage mode dial as the 'fun meter' and says "we put our money into technology that enhances the driver experience." Hence carbon panels and other weight saving over lane-keeping assist and other gizmos. "We figure that if people want to buy this car they want the experience of driving it."
It even feels quite neat and small from the inside and nothing like as unwieldy and oversized as the C6, fast as it was. Narrower tyres, a 45kg weight saving from the aluminium structure and further savings on body and suspension components all suggest it'll be lighter on its feet too. While packing a 6.2-litre V8 with 450hp.
Dramatic looks and smaller than you'd think
And if you really are keen on driving your Corvette on track there's a Z51 pack, which gets you a dry-sump oil system, chunkier Bilstein dampers, coolers for transmission, diff and oil system, additional cooling ducts, forged 19-inch wheels and a proper fully active locking diff. Imagine speccing a 911 up with that kind of kit and then scoop your jaw off the floor when you hear that lot - all of it - will cost "about $3,000" as a single tick on the options list. A quick hop over to the US market 911 configurator reveals that would score you - just - a sports exhaust. A Powerkit upgrade on a Carrera 2 S? $17,800.
This on top of the fact that a 2 S, in base spec, would set you back double the circa-$50,000 the Stingray will cost in the US. Sure, by the time it reaches Europe that gap will narrow considerably and it won't be the bargain it is on home turf. Left-hand drive will put many off too. But will make European road trips more viable, whether that takes in one-way toll roads or not.
Snobby European attitudes would have you believe the Americans are only interested in - and capable of - building ever bigger V8s. A few could be in for a nasty surprise when the Corvette lands. I, for one, will be flying a stars and stripes when it does.