For my 200th review I return to the dream car of my adolescence, the Chevrolet Corvette. Part of me has always wanted one. Back in college I was once taken aback when a girl I knew insisted that Corvettes, unlike the Alfas she adored, were not true sports cars.

Problem is, she might have been right. The last time around I reviewed a 2001 automatic convertible. (That review can be found here.) I found that car too much of a grand tourer for my taste. It lacked the light, nimble feel I have come to associate with sports cars. But then a manual transmission can transform my opinion of a car. Would the six-speed help here?

Chevrolet Corvette Reliability

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Styling

But by the late 1980s the weaknesses of the C4 (fourth generation Corvette, sold from 1984 to 1996) had become all too apparent to me. Stylistically, the wheelbase of that car looked too short for the length of the car. Put another way, the front and rear overhangs were way too long, giving it an ungainly, overdone appearance.

Then the C5 appeared in 1997. The wheelbase of the new car was over eight inches longer (in part to provide space for a rear-mounted transmission), bringing it to a quite lengthy 104.5 inches. Generally when a model is redesigned the wheelbase might increase an inch or two, so this was a huge increase. Yet the overall length of the car grew only an inch, to 179.7 inches. A drastic reduction in rear overhang and a smaller reduction in hood height yielded far superior proportions. Some people dislike the C5’s large rear, but it's okay with me. The resulting stance is far more purposeful and taut in appearance.

Of the three body styles, the coupe is the most attractive. With the top-up convertible and Z06 hardtop the rear deck is longer, throwing off the car’s proportions and making its big butt look even bigger.

Unlike with the C4, all of the wheels that have been available on the C5 have been tasteful. It’s hard to go wrong with a five-spoke wheel, and most of been of this configuration. A couple years back the standard wheels traded thick spokes for classic thin ones, losing some character but lending a lighter appearance to the car. My least favorite wheels on the C5 are the Z06’s ten-spoke lightweight alloys. A bit frilly and overdone. This car’s clean lines speak for themselves. Even in their eighth year I find them striking and not at all dated.

The next-generation car will not look substantially different based on the drawings and spy photos I’ve seen in magazines. I personally wonder whether it will look as good. The most significant change is a return to fixed headlights—these haven’t been a Corvette feature since the year I was born (1967).

Inside the C5 has been less of a success. Everything is laid out well and appropriately styled in a thankfully not overdone jet cockpit idiom, but the materials look and feel too pedestrian for a $50,000 car. No doubt the C6 will have a substantially upgraded interior given current trends within GM.

Accommodations

Although C5 lacks the C4’s wide door sills, it remains a very low car, so getting in and out requires some dexterity. I have mixed feelings about the driving position. You sit deep in the car—this is no Miata—yet because the hood is so low the view forward is excellent. The view rearward fares much less well thanks to that big butt. The Corvette is wider than most competitors, and one result is class-leading interior room despite the large center console. One of my major issues with the Corvette is its extremely raked windshield. This puts the A-pillar much closer to the face than I like and, in the targa and convertible, greatly reduces my sense of being in an open-air car. I vastly prefer the more upright and distant windshield in Honda’s S2000. I also was unhappy with the shifter, but I’ll leave the details for the next section.

The formerly optional sport seats became standard equipment last year. Good move. I love them. These seats are very comfortable and supportive in all directions. Upper and lower lumbar supports are adjusted separately, avoiding a bulge that is too high or too low. Best of all, the degree of lateral support can be adjusted. Once upon a time a number of sporting cars offered this feature. Where has it gone? Aside from the Corvette the only current cars I can recall adjustable side bolsters in are large BMWs with that company’s “comfort seats.” A 760iL doesn’t really need this adjustment, but many smaller more sporting sedans could really use it.

Interior storage is adequate for this sort of car. Don’t plan on stowing a notebook computer, but others are worse. Owing to the lack of a spare tire (the tires on the standard Corvette are run-flats) rear cargo volume is considerably greater than the class norm (unless the roof is being stowed there). Using that volume is a bit difficult, as the opening is high and forward.

On the Road

The base engine in the C6 will supposedly produce around 400 horsepower, nearly equalling the current Z06’s 405. The current base car “gets by” with 350 from its 5.7-liter V8. Given the car’s remarkably low 3250-pound mass—only about a hundred more pounds than Acura’s all-aluminum, 3.2-liter NSX (yes, they still sell a handful of those each year)—this is plenty of power for just about any off-track use.

That said, I expected the Corvette to feel stronger off the line. It hardly feels weak, but I expected a severe kick in the lower back as soon as I mashed the pedal. This I did not get. Instead, the engine only felt especially strong from 2500 RPM on up. In a competing car this would be a nearly meaningless limitation, but the Corvette’s gearing is so tall for top speed and fuel economy purposes that this transition doesn’t hit until you’re already going twenty miles per hour. Some tire spin would take care of this limitation, but at the great expense of tire life.

To put the Corvette’s gearing in perspective, a Honda S2000 gets to 2500 RPM at 18 miles per hour—in second gear. In first it’s there at 12. This is admittedly going to the opposite extreme, especially since the Honda’s DOHC VTEC four only fully comes alive at 6000 RPM, the same RPM at which the LS1 V8 redlines. The downside of its close-ratio six-speed with short gearing is that on the highway its engine is spinning frenetically. In sixth the Honda spins nearly as quickly as the Corvette does in THIRD, and well over twice as fast as the Corvette does in sixth.

I recall much more low-speed thrust from the automatic Corvette, perhaps owing to a performance-oriented torque converter. The fluid linkage torque converters in automatics, unlike the mechanical linkages in manuals, permit engines to spin a few hundred extra RPM under hard acceleration and further enhance torque at low speeds through an inherent torque multiplication effect. Because of the latter feature automatics effectively have an extra gear (and thus often have one less gear than the corresponding manual).

Another contributor to less-than-expected visceral thrills during hard acceleration is the refinement of the LS1 V8 engine. The engine is hardly Lexus silent, but I expected far more V8 rumble. Maybe in the Z06? The basic Corvette accelerates so smoothly and uneventfully that, as quick as the car does feel, the rate at which the digits on the head-up display (HUD) speedometer grow can come as a shock.

Which is another way of saying that you need that HUD if you hope to stay out of trouble. This display, pioneered by GM in the auto industry, projects information onto the windshield. This information appears to be further away—approximately over the front end of the car. As a result, the driver’s eyes do not have to refocus or even move to use the instruments. Unlike in the Grand Prix, the Corvette’s HUD includes a tach—very useful for timing shifts. I never used the conventional instruments. Highly recommended.

GM continues to go against industry trends by using pushrod-actuated valves in many of its engines, the Corvette’s among them. In the early 1990s a DOHC V8 was a $25,000-31,000 option. That engine was dropped after the 1995 model year, and no counterpart was resurrected for the C5 for a number of valid reasons. For one thing, the extra height of a DOHC engine would have forced a taller hood. For another, the additional power output of a DOHC engine would have been largely counteracted by additional powertrain and chassis weight (over 400 pounds more according to ex-chief engineer Dave McLellan). Third, the Z06 engine matches the LT5 engine in peak power and exceeds it in mid-range power without the use of overhead cams. Fourth, a DOHC engine would have been considerably more expensive. Shockingly, pushrods seem to right choice.

The current engine is also surprisingly efficient, with EPA ratings of 19/28 in both standard and Z06 forms. It seems amazing that a car with this much power could get roughly equivalent fuel economy to a V6 Toyota Camry. But the numbers don’t lie. In the car I drove the trip computer reported fuel economy of 19.1—during test drives. I have heard that Corvettes on the highway regularly achieve fuel economy well into the twenties, and see no reason to doubt this. After all, in sixth the big engine is only turning about 1500 RPM at 70 MPH.

I cannot remember the last time I drove a manual Corvette. Probably back in the 1980s. The shifter in the C5 has a pleasantly mechanical feel to it, with moderate throws (shorter would be nice) and effort that is neither too heavy nor too light. (The clutch also only requires a moderate level of effort, an achievement in such a powerful car.) Sadly, all is not well in this area. The shift lever is far too long and the knob atop it too large and uncomfortably angular in shape. As a result I had to hold my right arm higher than I would have liked and the knob poorly fit my hand. I’m hardly short; this shifter was designed for actual or wanna-be giants. I suspect the aftermarket offers many solutions to both issues.

The Corvette is fitted with very large brake rotors. These enable strong, fade-free braking from any speed likely to be attempted on public roads.

With the 2004 I wanted to check out the new auto-adjusting “Magnetic Selective Ride Control” shocks. Unlike other adjustable shocks, these use a magnetic fluid that permits their firmness to be adjusted up to 1000 times a second—twice as quick as those Volvo brags about in the S60R and (to my knowledge) the quickest on the market. Theoretically, they can adjust to every bump in the road. I had found ride quality in the 2001 with stock suspension surprisingly compliant, but these $1,695 shocks were supposed to significantly improve both ride and handling.

Alas, I could not find a car so equipped on local dealers’ lots. Instead, I ended up driving a Corvette equipped with the Z51 performance suspension. I initially regretted this. In the C4’s first year this option produced an unbearably harsh ride, and even after Chevrolet dialed back the spring rates for 1985 the Z51 remained advisable only for the most hardcore enthusiasts.

However, I was surprised to find that even with the Z51 suspension the 2004 Corvette ride’s amazingly well for a high-performance sports car. Rarely did the ride approach feeling harsh, and I took the car across some pretty chopped up pavement. Only when accelerating through bumpy turns (with the rear wheels chirping as they failed to maintain constant contact with the pavement) did more compliance seem called for.

It has been too long since I drove the 2001 to compare the standard and Z51 suspensions, but looking back at my review I found the former a bit harsh on some surfaces. I suspect that the car’s ride quality feels superior in the coupe, with its stiffer structure. At any rate, I would no longer advise against the Z51 option. Car & driver recently compared Corvettes with all available suspensions, and found that the Z51 posted better numbers than the Magneride suspension, while the Z06 posted even better numbers largely owing to grippier tires.

A bit more on that stiffer structure. The C4 Corvette’s structure lacked adequate stiffness even in coupe form. This led to an insubstantial feel to the car, poor ride quality (especially since the suspension had to be firmed up to compensate), and many rattles as the car aged (at least in the car’s early model years). The C5’s structure is based on an extremely stiff “backbone” running down the center of the car and hydroformed side rails. It is far stiffer than the C4’s, permitting both superior handling and superior ride quality.

That said, the somewhat insubstantial feel endemic to a plastic bodied car remains. Plastic body panels cannot be attached as solidly as metal ones to a metal structure, and the relatively loose fitting can be heard and felt a bit over rough patches. Or maybe it’s not the plastic panels at all. My wife’s Olds Intrigue has a steel body, but even more than the Corvette lacks that “all of a piece” quality found in the best engineered cars. Whatever the reason, I hope the C6 possesses this quality. GM has been making great strides in this area—witness the new Pontiac Grand Prix compared to the old one—so it likely will.

Noise levels in the Corvette are generally moderate. Generally nothing in this class is quiet, and many competitors, especially the Honda, are much noisier. The Corvette’s engine can be loud when pushed—and I would have liked it throatier still—but it is quiet when cruising. On the highway wind and road noise predominate. The latter seemed a bit excessive where the roof meets the hatch.

The noise level picks up much more than it should when the targa roof is removed (and securely stowed under the hatch). Especially with the windows up the air flowing over the windshield seems to catch the rear part of the roof rather than flow over it. Airflow management needs to be much better. A surprising lapse.

Objectively the Corvette’s handling is exceptional. The steering is quick and well-weighted, the chassis is extremely balanced and forgiving. The performance-oriented stability control is intentionally slow to kick in (unlike that in the Cadillac CTS), such that I managed to fishtail a bit accelerating hard out of one turn. But this slide was very easy to catch and not nearly as unsettling as the sudden oversteer I experienced in the S2000. I quickly acquired a good feel for the appropriate amount of gas to give the big V8 in turns and found it very easy to keep the rear end right at the limit of its adhesion.

The traction control came on only once when I was not expected it, likely due to some gravel in a turn. It briefly cut engine power. Like the stability control, this feature was generally unobtrusive.

My issues with the car’s handling are largely subjective. I received very good road feel through the seat of my pants, but not through the steering wheel. I am often disappointed by GM’s steering systems, and while the Corvette’s is among the company’s best it cannot compare to those in the Honda S2000 and Mazda RX-8.

Will the C6 continue to use Magnasteer, which I’ve never liked, or will it use an electrically-assisted system? The Honda and Mazda both use such a system, but GM’s first efforts in cars such as the Saturn ION have been very disappointing. This is the area of my greatest concern.

At highway speeds the Corvette could use more directional stability. Blame is likely due the unusually wide front tires

Finally, even with the Z51 suspension I don’t much enjoy driving the Corvette along a curvy road at legal speeds. It simply does not feel like a sports car should in my book. It might not be very heavy on paper, but it feels like a heavy car. This is likely intentional, as Corvettes have traditionally been big and brawny compared to other sports cars, but I personally prefer a lighter-feeling car. Aside from chassis tuning, the dimensions and styling of the body create an impression of mass. The Corvette is a full foot-and-a-half longer than the much lighter S2000, ten inches longer similarly weighty Nissan 350Z, and five inches longer than the lighter RX-8 (which has a usable rear seat!). The car’s is similarly wider than most competitors. I guess it is what it is, and this pleases many people. Just not me.

As with the Z51’s ride, I cannot evaluate it’s handling relative to the standard suspension, as I drove different body styles and too much time has elapsed. I hope to still drive a Z06 despite my issues with its styling; perhaps it handles closer to my ideal. If not, there’s always hope with the C6. But even that one I suspect will retain the Corvette’s traditional character.

Pricing

The Corvette hatch I drove with the $915 manual transmission, $395 Z51 suspension, and $1,200 option package listed for $47,195, and Edmunds suggests that these continue to sell at sticker eight years in. This is amazing for a sports car, as demand for these tends to go cold for these by the third year, if not sooner. A $750 rebate is currently offered.

Given the level of al-around performance it offers, the Corvette is an incredible value, even without the rebate. A Porsche 911 will set up back at least twenty grand more; anything from Italy will cost at least two to three times as much.

To find a comparably priced sports car, it is necessary to go with the BMW Z4 or Porsche Boxster, which are not nearly as powerful.

To get as much grunt in a much coarser, much less expensive package check out the $35,000 Mustang SVT Cobra (review coming soon). Just be aware that with the Cobra you're basically buying a shockingly powerful engine in an ancient chassis.

Finally, a Nissan 350Z, Mazda RX-8, or Honda S2000 will set you back about $15,000 less than a Corvette. The performance of the first is at best comparable to the above Germans, while the Mazda and Honda feel considerably less quick unless driven in a manner likely to endanger the life of the clutch.

Last Words

In the end the final decision should come down to character, not price. If you don’t care for the unique character of the Corvette, I wouldn’t expect its price to sway you. It’s not a sports car in the traditional sense. But then neither are the Italian exotics it approaches and even surpasses in performance. They’re all too large for this role. What are they then? I said “grand tourer” in my review of the 2001, but a grand tourer is usually a larger car still, with a rear seat and mass in the two ton range. So I guess the Corvette is a sports car after all, if only because no other category fits better.

The above are just my preferences. If you love the Corvette’s big, brash (but not nearly so coarse as in years past) character, then try to scrape together the funds to buy one. If this is not possible, the 350Z comes closest. I strongly suspect Nissan benchmarked the Corvette while developing it, not a bad idea given the GM car’s strong, steady sales. Another alternative is a used Corvette. The car holds its value far better than the average GM product, but with the C5 in its eighth year there are bound to be affordable cars out there than perform much the same as the 2004s.

Looking ahead to the C6, I see just a refinement on the current car, with tweaked styling, a nicer interior, and more power. More a C5.5 than a true C6. I do not expect the basic character the same, which my preferences aside is probably the way it should be.

To learn more about my reliability research and sign up to participate in it, or to perform thorough new car price comparisons, visit www.truedelta.com.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 47,195
Model and Options: Z51, manual