Car Show Corvette Concept Cars Video

Here's 2 years old video of Corvette concept cars from the Corvette 50th anniversary held at the Nashville Coliseum, which I accidentally found on the youtube.com. It appears to be interesting:)

Chevrolet Corvette C6 5th Gear Extended Review

In continuation of the subject Chevrolet Corvette C6 Fifth Gear Review I present this post with extended description of the Corvette C6 features.

STYLING

Sharp, classic looks give the Corvette an imposing road presence. The most recent 2008 C6 styling has barely changed from the old version but that's probably a good thing.

HANDLING

It's easy to assume an American sports car won't suit UK roads, but the latest Corvette deals with curves ably. It's easy to drive hard too. Enter a corner too fast and the front-engined Corvette just washes predictably into understeer - from there you can get the tail out if you like with a bit more throttle. The C6 always feels like a heavyweight, though, compared with lithe European rivals.

COMFORT

European-spec Corvette's are more stiffly sprung than their American counterparts, which helps control the body movements of this 1500kg sports car. That does mean the ride's firm, but bump absorption isn't completely compromised. And the driving position is good too. There's an adaptive Magnetic Selective Ride system on the option list, but it's not worth the premium.

QUALITY + RELIABILITY

Cabin quality is akin to a mid-range French family hatchback - if you've ever owned a modern Renault or Peugeot you'll know what we mean. The Corvette's a million miles from a 911, but most people could live with it. Although annoying niggles like a failing electric boot release has been reported on some test cars.

PERFORMANCE

Masterful straight-line speed and the roaring symphony of Chevrolet's V8 engine ensure breathtaking excitement. An abundance of torque means you never doubt that the C6 would be capable of 190mph plus.

ROOMINESS

There's a very useful amount of space in the Corvette, even when it's compared to genuinely useable sports cars like the Porsche 911 or Audi R8. That's because the Corvette's built to meet the demands of the American market, and its no bad thing. The cabin could be packaged more cleverly though, freeing up more storage space.

RUNNING COSTS

A Corvette would not impress your bank manager. Thirsty American sports cars like this tend to depreciate very quickly, and that's before you consider how much petrol the 6.0-litre V8 uses. Or how much a left-hand-drive car with this sort of performance costs to insure.

VALUE FOR MONEY

Chevrolet will sell you a generously specified Corvette C6 for under £50k, and it will comes with a proper warranty and full dealer support. That's excellent value for a bona fide supercar. Annoyingly, if you lived in America, you could buy a Corvette for half that price.

STEREO / SAT NAV

High-end electronics come as standard on the Corvette C6. The sound system is particularly impressive.

ENVIRONMENT

Buying a Corvette is about as environmentally friendly as dowsing a polar bear with petrol and setting it alight: the C6's V8 emits a whopping 316g/km CO2.

Chevrolet Corvette C6 Fifth Gear Review

Here is Chevrolet Corvette C6 review from Fifth Gear. To read Extended Review by 5th Gear click here.
Recommended. The latest Corvette C6 is raucous, rapid and relatively cheap to buy. It's still flawed, but its powertrain is much improved making it more exhilarating to drive. You'd have to really want one to forgive the sky-high running costs, but the noise from that V8 alone is almost worth it.

This is the sixth generation of the Chevrolet Corvette, America's long-standing sports car icon, now revised for 2008 with a host of new technical enhancements. It's the Yank's equivalent of the Porsche 911, a high-performance legend that's stuck to the same basic rubber burning, V8-power, rear-drive recipe since 1953.

But, The Times They Are A Changin', as Bob Dylan once sang, so now the GM small block V8 that's at the heart of the modern Corvette has been upgraded to offer better fuel economy, cleaner exhaust emissions... oh, and bucket load more power.

In fact, as global oil prices reach record highs, Chevrolet's gone and made the Corvette's LS3 engine even bigger, increasing its capacity from a wimpy 6.0-litres to 6.2-litres. This means this latest Corvette C6 puts 435bhp at the mercy of your right foot - nearly ten percent more than the outgoing C6 - so it'll shove you from standstill to 60mph in 4.3 seconds and on to 186mph if you really let it flex its muscles. That's faster than an Audi R8.

The revised C6 also has a new smooth paddle-shift auto gearbox with shorter ratios, which combined with the engine's extra urge to markedly improve acceleration and, happily, make the Corvette a more refined drive when you're not trying to break land speed records.

The Corvette C6 is available with a targa roof and lighter, harder, track-derived variants like the ZO6 can also be imported for a premium. On the basic C6, the optional exhaust pack we had fitted to our test car is an absolute must. It frees up a further 9bhp and provides the Corvette with the thunderous, raucous soundtrack it deserves.

Yet despite the extra glut of performance, the 2008 Corvette C6 really is more economical to run than before. It'll achieve over 20mpg in town if you're light-footed, according to Chevrolet. We weren't, to be honest, but the C6 didn't drain the tank quite as quickly as we'd expected. That is relative to other supercars with massive V8 engines, mind you...

OK, so through the bends the Corvette still feels like a blunt instrument compared to a Porsche 911. And high-tech Japanese tools like the Nissan GT-R are on another planet. But criticisms about the previous Corvette's wooden steering have at least been addressed; it's now much more feelsome than before. And the standard C6's chassis set-up has benefited from the hardcore ZO6 version's Nurburgring development programme too. It handles a challenging road perfectly adequately but, even so, the muscular Corvette's feels at its best bashing up straight, wide stretches of asphalt.

Reasons to run a mile? Well the Corvette's cabin quality is wide of the European mark, it'll depreciate quickly and it's available in left-hand-drive only.

But, buying a new Corvette is not as crazy an idea as it used to be. It's got a decent sized boot, is relatively comfortable day-to-day and you can import one through official UK GM dealerships, with a three year warranty. The latest 2008 powertrain enhancements make the Corvette a more useable, more realistic ownership proposition too. But its bargain basement price remains its strongest asset - you won't find a genuine supercar icon for less than £50k anywhere else.