Road Test of the Year: Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible
The Corvette brings a slice of Americana to this year’s test, but what else can it offer? James Batchelor finds out.
Even with a beige Toyota, an Aston Martin with highlighter orange skirts, and a purple SUV adorned with fluorescent yellow scorpion badges, the Chevrolet Corvette I brought to the gathering still managed to look ridiculous. It was a bit of a bizarre car to bring along to Road Test of the Year, admittedly, but there was method to my madness.
General Motors has had a very on-and-off relationship with the UK and its American car brands. One minute they’re here and the next they’ve scuttled back across the pond. At various times over the years the Corvette has been available to us Brits in one form or another. But they’ve either been left-handers sold alongside Aveo and Lacetti hatchbacks in Chevrolet dealers (remember those?), or converted right-hand drive cars from independent importers.
That’s now changed. This eighth-generation car, the C8, is the first to ever officially be sold in the UK in right-hand drive. Plans were laid down for this momentous chapter in the ‘Vette’s history in 2020, but for various reasons, it was delayed. Now, in 2025, there are four dealers signed up with five locations, and these include the might of Arnold Clark and Lookers.
This is no right-hand drive Ford Mustang moment, though. As Chevrolet no longer has a European range of cars, and, more importantly, a dealer network (as a brand), you can’t just stroll down to the end of the road and buy one from a shiny showroom like you can with the Mustang. But that kind of adds to the Corvette’s mystique, I think.
We Brits get a choice of Corvette, too. There’s the ‘basic’ Stingray for £97,760, the E-Ray hybrid from £153,440, and the Porsche GT3-rivalling Z06 from just under £180,000. That alone shows Chevrolet means business because that’s three very different types of ‘Vette – definitive naturally-aspirated 6.2-litre small-block V8 in the Stingray, flat-plane 637bhp 5.5-litre V8 in the Z06, and the E-Ray that uses the Stingray’s engine but adds an electric motor and battery pack that throws 159bhp to the front wheels, giving a total of 634bhp.
We chose the Stingray in convertible form – the core product, if you will, but with the added bonus of some top-down motoring – and upgraded 3LT specification, with this press car having a few choice options. A set of machined-faced bright alloy wheels – 19-inches at the front and 20s for the rear – at £1,509 with £530 yellow brake calipers, £1,134 carbon fibre trim, and that eye-popping Rapid Blue paintwork for £1,040, bringing the total price to a not-inconsiderable £110,103.
I have to be perfectly honest here and say that when the car arrived at my house the day before we all met in Wales, I was rather embarrassed. While the latest Corvette doesn’t look like its big, front-engined predecessors, it’s so overtly American that Born in the USA should be playing on the stereo system constantly. On loop. It was at odds with my respectable countryside village.
Chevrolet has been dabbling with the idea of a mid-engined Corvette since the 1960s, but despite this, it has never deviated from the front-engined, rear-wheel drive, long-bonneted and cab-backward design of the 1953 original. I have to admit that I’m torn here because the switch to a mid-engined layout promises a better balanced car that can better rival European supercars, but the C8 just doesn’t look like a traditional Corvette. And a Corvette that looks like a Corvette is the major appeal for me.
I felt faintly ridiculous whilst caught in a traffic jam in central Winchester on my way to Wales. The lurid blue paintwork and be-winged rear-deck shouted ‘look at me’, but not in a good way. And, with the roof down, passing cyclists could not only see my thinning hair, but also how Rapid Blue had been plastered over the dashboard and seat belts.
But as the queues gave way to a long motorway slog along the M4, the embarrassment gave way to my first surprise. I half expected the Corvette to ride appallingly, but that just wasn’t the case. In Tour mode (one of six different settings), the Corvette just floated along. With the roof up it was surprisingly quiet, too, and the ‘GT2-spec’ seats proved to be amazingly supportive. It was an easy drive: the Chevy small-block even slipped into four-cylinder ‘V4’ mode to save fuel.
The quality of the interior astounded, too – not quite at Porsche’s standards, but not far off. But that long strip of buttons is daft.
Turning off the motorway gave the biggest shock, however. With the rear window lowered to hear the bellow of that atmospheric V8 and a switch to ‘Z’ mode (that’s ‘zeee’, by the way), the ‘Vette turned into a precision tool. I’ve always known Corvettes to be blunt and heavy, but the latest car feels light and sharp. The steering is perfectly weighted, the grip spectacular, and there’s a keenness to dart between bends – in some ways, it felt like a big Lotus. Sure, it’s not the last word in driver dynamics, but there’s a friendliness to it that’s refreshing. It’s very European and not in the least like a traditional Corvette.
