Corvette Delivers Incredible Value For Money For Australian Supercar Lovers

• The Corvette E-Ray, part of the updated MY25 range, is the first all-wheel-drive Corvette and achieves 0-100km/h in 2.9 seconds.
• The mid-engine layout and advanced aerodynamics of the C8 Z06 make it a track-honed supercar with impeccable handling and acceleration.

A silver and blue streak whistles towards us down the long front straight at Sandown raceway. It’s low, sleek and coming fast, but it’s still indistinguishable. A Ferrari? A Lamborghini? Perhaps a McLaren? Suddenly it’s upon us and gone just as quickly, leaving a wash of churned air and the bull-roar bellow of a high-performance V8 in its wake.

Heads turn in unison in pit lane, like fans at the tennis, to catch the angry red glow of brake lights followed by the bap-bap-bap of rapid-fire downshifts as the land-bound Exocet washes off 230km/h-plus for the tip into turn one.

Minutes later the streak is back, ticking, pinging, radiating heat from every orifice and cloaking the pit lane in the pungent aroma of red-hot brake pads. In a moment, it’s our turn to head out on the track, but not before we take in every angle of the stunning Corvette E-Ray, the ultimate weapon in GMSV’s newly expanded MY25 sports car range.

The big news in the updated range is the arrival of the Corvette E-Ray, the first-ever all-wheel-drive Corvette and the first to combine traditional V8 power with modern electric assistance to deliver a blistering 0-100km/h time of 2.9 seconds.

That’s actually one-tenth of a second faster than the famously wondrous Corvette E-Ray, but a glance at the specs panel and the price list confirms there’s no debate within GM as to which of the two carries the biggest stick.

Priced from $336,000 AUD versus the E-Ray’s more modest $275,000 AUD, this variant holds a vaunted place in the 70-year history of this iconic American sports car brand, thanks to its competition success against some of the world’s great sports cars, including Porsche and Ferrari. Apparently, this thoroughbred racing pedigree and focus have informed practically every detail of the sleek coupe’s development decisions.

One of the most crucial calls that literally shaped the entire eighth-generation Corvette range is the location of the engine. The C8, as it’s known, is the first Corvette ever to mount its engine behind the driver – something that’s been a goal of Corvette engineers and designers for decades.

Changing from the brand’s stoically front-engined/rear-drive layout to the mid-mounted rear-drive location favoured by practically every supercar worth its salt since the Lamborghini Miura, has fundamentally altered the Corvette’s proportions, such that stylistically it does a very passable impression of a Ferrari 296 GTB.

The low and wide American supercar is not, however, a classically beautiful beast, thanks to pragmatic engineering decisions designed to make this thing as fast as mechanically possible.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised with the new Corvette E-Ray. A lot of car for the money.

Luc Wiesman – DMARGE

The Z06 and E-Ray include almost comically wide rear haunches that fan out from behind the cabin to house massive 345/25ZR21 Michelin Pilot Sport tyres. The tyres are staggered width, too, with smaller 275/30ZR20 doughnuts up front. 

Wander around the back and gaze through the rear screen and you’re treated to an eyeful of the Z06’s beating heart, Chevrolet’s all-new 5.5-litre LT6 V8, the most powerful naturally aspirated V8 ever fitted to a production car (a sentence that must really anger people at Ferrari).

Punching out a mighty 475kw/595Nm it’s no coincidence our GMSV minders have chosen Sandown Raceway to display the E-Ray’s wares. The 3.1km track is known as a power circuit, with front and back drag straights connecting its 13 turns.

You sit low and snug in the shapely GT2 seat, gripping a square-top-and-bottom steering wheel finished in gorgeous suede microfibre. Elsewhere, there’s real carbon fibre and aluminium trim, real leather on the instrument panel and doors, and suede microfibre on the A-pillars and headliner. It may be race-bred but the E-Ray doesn’t forgo creature comforts.

Ahead of the driver is a digital dash with prominent tacho and central speed display, offering selectable modes including Touring, Sport and Track. There’s also a full colour heads-up display which changes as you change the modes and a bunch of other information in the dash pod. 

To the left and angled towards the driver is an 8.0-inch colour touchscreen with Gran Turismo-style graphics and all the usual climate, infotainment, and navigation systems.

We didn’t have time to go deep into the menus but noticed a Teen Driver mode, which allows restrictions to be placed on how the car operates. Even so, the thought of throwing the key fob of your 475kW Ferrari-eater to some pimply-faced hormone factory is just a little terrifying.

A stern-faced professional driver accompanies us as we accelerate out of the pit lane for a sighting lap, noting that the unremarkable lumps and bumps towards the end of the main straight will feel very different as we turn up the wick.

A lap later, with the velocity set to warp, he’s proven right. It feels terrifying, the lumps threatening to kick us sideways into the scenery right at the point where we’re standing hard on the E-Ray’s vast Brembo Performance brakes to wash off speed for turn one.

Despite the buffeting, the E-Ray darts from apex to apex as if glued to the road, surgically sharp in a way its front-engine forebears never were, its phenomenal engine hurling it between bends with brutal intensity. 

The acceleration down the straights is insane, the wail behind our head from the flat-plane crank V8 rising to a crescendo as it strafes the 8600rpm redline. The soundtrack is at once deliciously intoxicating, and a bit terrifying – like a swarm of giant killer bees trapped in a jar strapped to the back of your head.

Drop the hammer from a standstill and the E-Ray will summon every one of its 475kW and 595Nm, pinning you relentlessly to the seat as it nails the benchmark 0-100km/h sprint in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 3.0 seconds.

Yet despite the prodigious horsepower and eye-watering 313km/h top speed, the engine, gearbox, brakes, steering and chassis all feel incredibly well developed and integrated, ensuring the car feels balanced and forgiving rather than twitchy and unsettled. There’s no need for fancy heel-and-toe downshifts, either, thanks to the terrifically responsive eight-speed twin-clutch gearbox that fires home shifts with millisecond precision.

The Corvette is more than a repository for a great engine. It’s a track-honed supercar in the true sense, showing the benefits of decades of motorsport experience and thousands of hours of engineering development to arrive at a point where it incorporates every trick in the performance car book to deliver the ultimate in supercar thrills.