Chevrolet Corvette C8 Stingray arrives to take on Europe’s finest

The Chevrolet Corvette C8 arrives – and revives the Stingray badge – as a new 495bhp mid-engined car aimed at Europe’s finest road cars.

If you want a Chevrolet Corvette you get a big V8 up front under a bulging bonnet, don’t you? Not any more.

Chevrolet reckon the Corvette has gone as far as it can with the engine in the proper place, so the new Corvette Chevrolet C8 gets its engine plonked behind your head as the first mid-engined Corvette arrives to deliver a taunt to Europe’s domination of the mid-engined supercar market.

The engine Chvvie has put behind the driver’s head is a naturally-aspirated 6.2 litre LT2 V8, sending 495bhp and 470lb/ft of torque to the back wheels through an eight-speed dual-clutch auto.

Fit the new Corvette with the Z51 Package – which adds stuff like sports exhaust, tweaked final drive and bigger brakes – and it will get to 60mph in 3.0 seconds, making it the fastest entry-level Corvette yet. And it’ll be dubbed Stingray.

But despite impressive performance, you’d expect the Corvette to fall over in a bend, wouldn’t you? It would seem not.

The Corvette gets 180kg of downforce thanks to a front splitter and rear wing, an electronic back diff, magnetic adaptive suspension (although that’s optional), and a dry sump system so you don’t loose lubrication when you get daft. Sounds promising.

Under the skin, Chevrolet has gone for an aluminium chassis instead of a carbon fibre tub to keep prices sensible, there’s a plethora of ‘modes’ to play with – Weather, Tour, Sport, Track, Z and MyMode – toys like BOSE Sound, on-board cameras, wireless phone charging and even a his and hers boot.

The interior even looks up to the job too, with a big 12″ digital instrument display, a row of Porsche-style buttons, leather and a cockpit aimed fully at the driver.

Best news of all is that the new Chevrolet Corvette will be heading for the UK in RHD.