Chevrolet Corvette Continues to Win Hearts

Few street legal cars can match that kind of performance at any price.

Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, the Chevrolet Corvette has been pegged by some as America's best sports car, possibly its best car, regardless of segment.

Production of the first Chevrolet Corvette began on a makeshift assembly line in Flint, Mich., in June of the same year. An anemic six-cylinder engine similar to the one used in Chevy pickup trucks of the day powered the original two-seat convertible design. It failed to overwhelm the critics, but was a sales success from the start - all 300 units built that year quickly sold.

The lack-of-power issue lasted only two years, until 1955, when the first small-block V8 engine was introduced, followed a year later by an all-new body style with an optional, removable hardtop.

A long succession of technological developments and improvements followed as enthusiasts campaigned the Corvette in racing programs that only enhanced its storied reputation. Factory-installed fuel injection became an option in 1957, and four-wheel disc brakes were introduced as standard in 1965, the same year a big block V8 was also made available.

The 1963 split-window coupe, the Sting Ray, marked the car's zenith in design, with concealed headlamps and a purposeful body that set hearts pounding and spawned a host of one-off concepts and flights of styling fancy, among them the futuristic and wildly ambitious Mako Shark.

But for all its many permutations over the years, the Chevrolet Corvette has never been better than it is today in C6 (sixth generation) guise.

Chevrolet fell down slightly in Vette production through the 1970s and early '80s, as cars from Japan and Europe overtook it in terms of sophistication, innovation and overall build quality. The cars' frames bent and twisted over potholes and bumps, the fibreglass bodies squeaked and rattled in kind and their buckboard ride and thinly padded seats knocked loose more than a few fillings. And with but a few notable exceptions the Vette lagged in engine output and overall performance through that period. It reached an all-time low point in 1983 when none were built for public consumption, as the company ramped up for the new-from-the-ground-up C4 model, which instantly returned the Corvette to its lofty King of the Hill status.

The current generation C6 merely builds upon the C5's strengths. A visual tour de force, with fixed, recessed headlamps, it is stiff and unbending yet is sophisticated and refined (to a brutish point) with adjustable suspension, prodigious output and impeccable handling. The squeaks and rattles are long gone and the Vette has never carved through the twisty bits with more flair and panache.

And in racing, it continues to dominate sports car series, most notably in the - factory effort campaigned by Canadian Ron Fellows who has driven it to victory in top-tier endurance events from Sebring and Daytona to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The new C6 Z06 model, just released, is the fastest, lightest and most powerful Vette ever, capable of shooting to 100 km/h from zero in an eyeball flattening 3.7 seconds - in first gear. That's faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo and the $260,000 Lamborghine Gallardo. The Z06 retails for $89,900.

Say what you will about feeding the mid-life crises of aging boomers, but the Chevrolet Corvette has thrilled more North Americans, young and young-at-heart, by its mere existence than probably any other car built on this Continent.