Is Corvette’s E-Ray, the cheaper Ferrari of your dreams?

The new electrified all-wheel-drive V8 supercar can outsprint the US brand’s halo model, the Z06, yet will cost you less, both at the dealer and bowser.

Stephen Corby

Corvette E-Ray.

4 min read

13 hours ago

For red-blooded lovers of the internal-combustion engine, the mere mention of electrification can be enough to trigger a spluttering spray about the “alleged” benefits of the technology.

It can also lead to misty-eyed reminiscing about the heyday of homologation specials, when Ford Falcons, Holden Toranas and Commodores, driven by legends such as Dick Johnson and Peter Brock, thundered around Bathurst to the Braveheart-like roar of Tooheys-fuelled Mountain Men (and a few very brave women).

But what if electrification could be somehow seamlessly married to the meaty goodness of a 6.2-litre V8 and packaged in a sleek, carbon-fibre body that looks a bit like a Ferrari yet wears a badge beloved by Holden buyers of yore? Would that pass muster with the naysayers?

Behold the bold Corvette E-Ray, which recently landed in Australia, many moons after enthusiasts started begging GM to put the steering wheel on the proper side and sell us the legendary Vette.

The Corvette line-up now includes the Stingray, described by GM as the “everyday supercar”, the track-focused performance hero Z06, and the E-Ray, the first all-wheel-drive Corvette and also the first to combine a traditional V8 with modern electric assistance.

This is also the first car in the American legend’s 70-year history to place its V8 engine behind the driver; a goal of Corvette engineers and designers for decades.

That shift has fundamentally altered the Corvette’s proportions, allowing this US supercar to pull off a passable impression of the lovely Ferrari 296 GTB.

It is, of course, a lot cheaper than an Italian screamer. At $275,000, the E-Ray is pitched below even an entry-level Porsche 911, maintaining Corvette’s long-held status as one of the greatest bang-for-your-buck performance vehicles on the planet.

The E-Ray sits between the Corvette Stingray 2LT Coupe ($182,000) and the range-topping Z06 Coupe ($336,000), which is interesting given that the E-Ray’s blistering 0-100km/h time of 2.9 seconds is one-10th of a second faster than the Z06.

It’s also slightly faster around Melbourne’s Sandown Raceway, at least according to the professional driver who accompanies us on our recent hot laps in both models. Perhaps that’s because Sandown, with its twin drag-strip straights, is renowned as a power circuit and the E-Ray not only has power to burn, but the grip.

How much power? Try 369kW/637Nm sent to the rear wheels from the 6.2-litre V8. Then add an extra 119kW and 169Nm sent to the front wheels via the electrified motor for combined outputs of 488kW and 806Nm.

WISH Magazine cover for May 2025 starring Alex Schuman. Picture: Nic Walker

We got to sample the wares of the top two Corvettes on one of the half dozen or so dates a year that rowdy race cars are permitted to use the 3.1-kilometre circuit, which these days is closely hemmed in by suburban homes.

But first we spent some time taking in the sleek, low-slung lines of this American thoroughbred, which looks every bit the purpose-built supercar. Huge haunches accommodate vast side ducts that look capable of swallowing small children but are in fact designed to gulp enough air to keep the V8 fed and cooled.

Wander around the back and tempered glass viewing panels ensure there’s no need to lift the E-Ray’s lightweight engine cover to view the beating mechanical heart of the beast.

At just 1234mm high, climbing into the E-Ray while wearing a helmet requires some limbering up. Once there, however, you settle easily into the cockpit with its pleasing mix of carbon fibre, suede and leather.

Out on the circuit, the E-Ray sounds and feels more like a fighter jet than any hybrid. The proximity of that V8 to your ears means the cabin fills instantly with an angry metallic snarl as we surge out of the pits and onto Sandown’s bumpy main straight with instant acceleration. My eyeballs pop out on stalks like a Beetlejuice character at the first corner as I stand hard on the carbon-ceramic brakes, which work with race car-like precision. By the time we’ve threaded the first few corners, it’s very apparent that the E-Ray is not only fast in a straight line. The low-slung coupe’s relatively light weight, sophisticated aerodynamics, and that new, mid-engined balance, coupled with the added instant torque of its electric motor powering the front wheels, mean the hybrid Vette punches out of corners ferociously.

After sampling both the E-Ray and Z06, I’d agree with the professional driver’s analysis that the former feels a touch faster around Sandown, but I felt equally thrilled and exhausted by both.

Without the extra weight of the E-Ray’s hybrid bits, the Z06 has the sort of Katana-blade handling purity that ensures it will retain its status as the sharpest tool in the Corvette shed. Just.

But the E-Ray feels like yet another pointer to the future of supercars – think McLaren Artura, Ferrari 296 – hybridisation simply makes them better.

Positioned as a touring supercar, the E-Ray would arguably be the easier of the two to live with, thanks to softer and more forgiving suspension. And then there’s the small matter of that $61,000 saving, which will pay for quite a bit of the premium fuel you’ll still be burning.