What lies beneath this little red corvette?

Muscle cars, like this visually violent Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, seek attention and eyeballs in the same way. They’re big and loud, both the visual and aural sense. Or at least so I’d always thought.

Stephen Corby

3 min read

11:26AMApril 18, 2024.

Updated 1:26PMApril 18, 2024

I was genuinely baffled by the split personality of the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. Picture: Supplied

Idon’t think it would be hot enough on Mercury, or even in Satan’s summer house, for me to remove my shirt while going for a run. Even Olympic athletes cover their pristine pecs and annoying abs when competing, but there is a class of men, let’s call them Onanists, who feel the need to expose their rippling torsos while jogging, even at night, in winter, in Iceland.

My wife is an inherently kind person who likes to think the best of people, while I am proof that opposites attract. When I froth and grumble upon spying a man running topless and shout “DON’T show us your tits” as we pass, she points out that they’ve obviously worked very hard on their bodies and just want to show off the results. She also rolls her eyes in a particularly communicative way that suggests I should be more like them.

Muscle cars, like this visually violent Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, seek attention and eyeballs in the same way. Just to be clear, Porsches and Ferraris aren’t muscle cars, though you could argue that most Lamborghinis are. Muscle cars are big, loud in both the visual and aural sense and have at least eight cylinders beneath their vast bonnets – things like hotted-up Holdens and Fords or, in America, Corvettes.

Or at least so I’d always thought. I’d never driven a Corvette, which, I know, seems as unlikely as me never having read one of Jeremy Clarkson’s books, so I was very excited to finally get my hands on this Stingray.

I was very excited to finally get my hands on this Stingray. Picture: Supplied

My pre-loaded prejudices meant I assumed it would be almost as loud as that American couple who always seem to be waiting for me on the courtesy bus to my hotel. And that it would be fast in a straight line, a bit soft and squishy in the ride department, and dangerously tail-happy around corners.

Counterintuitively, though, unless you’re really provoking it, the Stingray could best be described as the Quiet American. Sure, there’s a pleasing volcanic burble when you start up its giant 6.2-litre V8, but after that it settles down into the kind of gentle rumble you might expect from a Toyota Camry. It’s surprisingly polite and pleasant to drive around town, unless you switch it to its wilder settings (which you will do, repeatedly, because each switch is accompanied by a short, video-game style animation on the centre screen of your Corvette hitting a race track, driving sportily and just generally looking amazing) and summon forth all of its 369kW and 637Nm.

I was genuinely baffled by the split personality of this ’Vette, but fear not, because the madness and the wild noises are there, waiting to be unleashed – it’s just that they don’t kick in until you hammer the throttle.

When you do, there’s a wave of acceleration that best resembles the kind of beach dumper that smashes your face into the sand. That silly, sharp nose seems to lurch at the sky before snuffling the road, which it sits just inches above (truly, this thing is so low that even standard driveways are not your friends; happily, it does have a hydraulic nose-lifter).

Unfortunately, to get the most out of the Corvette you have to engage the eight-speed, dual-clutch auto’s manual mode, and that means using the shift paddles, which feel like they’ve been borrowed from a child’s sippie cup. The horribly cheap shift feel, and even the sad little plasticated clicks each gear change makes, really do distract from the sheer smiliness of the surging acceleration (zero to 100km/h takes three seconds flat).

Corvette Stingray. Photo Source: Supplied

Compare those sensations to the ones you get in a German or Italian car with this kind of mumbo and it’s like contrasting cookie dough with Black Forest Cake, and that does make the $195,000 price tag difficult to swallow.

The Corvette Stingray does a good job of balancing thrills and practicality, though. It’s a car that’s pleasantly calm to steer around town, and only wild and crazy when you want it to be.

Perhaps most shockingly, once I’d gotten used to the fact that the Stingray has a steering square instead of a wheel, I found it to be intensely pointy and sharp to throw around bends. It is far lighter on its feet than its immense proportions would suggest and is just generally not at all what I had expected from a car engineered for Americans. This Corvette is much, much more than just a traffic-light racer.

In some ways, though, I did feel like the Stingray was slightly old fashioned, even agricultural in its approach, but perhaps I’ve just been driving too many electric vehicles of late.

I must admit I loved the engine, though, every time I got a chance to make it sing like a heavy-metal frontman. In terms of what muscle-car fans, and Onanists, expect from a vehicle like this, however, I fear it’s just a little too subtle, despite how gloriously shirt-off sensational it looks.