2020 Corvette C8 Z51 Track Test! - One Take

Hello everyone, before I show you the video of the c8, I just want to tell you one thing, this is not an advertisement, we did the c8 as part of the rodent

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performance car of the year

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, the great piece written with the beautiful photography which is the most. It's an important thing and I also contributed to that and I hope to see that this c8 is a very important car and many of you will support what I have to say about it in this video, this video in addition to the little tool application only noise video that I made before this is the first time I drove the car ok those those laps plus these laps the first time I drove the car and I just want to say that my thoughts on this trip evolved even more as I drove the car more during the week on the road , so I want you to watch this video, enjoy this video, believe what you hear me say and then I want to explain a few things a little bit more at the end of this video, so if you want to stick around.

For a little more detailed explanation of my thoughts on the c8 at the end and I'll give you a little more, how about that? Everyone, welcome to Thunderhill Raceway West, which is the smaller of the two courses here at Thunderhill in Northern California. I'm very excited, I'm here for a road and

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part of the year presentation, we have a lot of cool cars to drive, but frankly this show is the Vette and everything else, it's the new red, this is it, I'm in it. I'm driving it, this is a very early pre-production build, okay, so we're not going to judge the quality of the materials built, but what we're here to do is drive it on a race track and tell you how it drives, show you how it sounds. and I can tell you right now sitting in it that the seats are really comfortable.

I'm on the larger side of what this seat will fit in, but it's comfortable. I am sitting in the correct position. My head isn't smashed against the ceiling. even with a helmet on the roof that comes off it is a car designed for tall people the cabin is very driver oriented everything comes towards the driver I love how close the touch screen is and the angle it has towards me I really like feeling the buttons I don't want to dwell on that kind of thing because, again, it's not a final production. The important thing to know is that the new vet, this one has the 3 LT and z51 package, so it's pretty much the regular c8 with the best performance and the best quote you'll get.

It has four hundred and ninety-five horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque LT 2 dry-sump small-block V8 in the rear. Well, the sound will be familiar to you. It has a new dual-clutch gearbox built by Tremec. It has eight speeds at the beginning. four Corvettes, this will be a big deal for us, front and rear double wishbone suspension with magnetic suspension. We're combining the best shock system with the best suspension geometries in this car, so it should handle and ride very well. It has electric power steering. Thirteen and a half inch Brembo brakes, four pistons front and rear, although they haven't given us a curb weight yet, the dry weight is 33 something, so it will be like 35, let's go to a manual driving mode.

I'm aware of traction control. It's completely disabled now, frankly there aren't many cars you can buy with a naturally aspirated mid-engine setup, there just aren't many, if any, core left that good. Matt be the one to carry that torch, smooth upshifts right away, holy grapple! At the front, the point that sounds familiar to anyone, I'm sure for me is the front end grip, the steering ratio, they say, is the same as the C7, but move the cabin and I could swear it's more correct, oh hello NSX, and excellent throttle response. linear power delivery Hopefully that redline is capable, here we go, don't break, oh no problem, very light here, you're definitely getting rotation on input, which is a big understeer.

I tried to

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that, oh my god, simple understeer on the neutral pedal but it's not in a straight line, it's not like, oh you know, it doesn't have the crazy turbo, it has a beautifully balanced big power band and then where the real surprise happens , it's right here at the end of a long sweeper where that front end still has grip, that's when you say, oh my god, that's amazing, beautiful through the esses, good strong brakes, it's only four pistons, we don't need further. I love turning, it's very sharp, you know, the engine sounds because of that exhaust. it no longer runs under the cabin, it's almost like when they put a big 351 Cleveland in the Amazo Pantera somehow, that same engine becomes more refined, a nice little balance if you have a little oversteer.

I mean, it smells like a Corvette in here. Yeah, here in third gear, 45 miles per hour, that's where we understeer if you want to easily slide into that hot corner and transfer the weight or you need to accelerate early and then handle the slide, oh my gosh. Guys, I can't believe this again. 485 God, their townships are pretty good unless they don't get enough reps and then they just don't get the team. I wish they'd given them a little bit of a late lead, you know? Not that you should rev too hard, but I wish you'd give yourself some leeway in terms of waiting for those revs to drop because you're braking and you know he knows it.

I wish it, I wish it, but listen, it's still the best gearbox ever. in a 3rd year GM car slides 3,500 rpm lots of torque very good, oh my god I can't believe it's that good, I can't believe it's that good, these guys tore it up though, they tore it up, look this is a beautifully designed driver balanced. beautiful car, look how much room there is - in the engine bay, man, there's so much room in the engine bay for the superchargers, they'll be able to throw an extra 200 horsepower into this thing and it'll be a deadly psycho missile, oh my.

God, but even now, the shock fit and ride are so good. I mean, honestly, it's pretty close to what I would expect from a four or five eight or something like that, going to school, walking back, like once, once, that's, oh, everything. right, I'm going to cool it down now because we're going back in, but oh my god, are you kidding me? friends, it's amazing, I mean, it's amazing, it's amazing, I mean, it's solid, it's planted, it's got incredibly sharp steering, it feels like I'm really right on the axle, it's got great power, but as many brakes as power, Jesus, I mean, if this is what you get, apparently this is what you get for $85,000, that's amazing, I mean, it's got some Corvette na, on the other hand, I don't want to insist that there's some plastic in here and there, but oh my goodness, it's a driving experience that car fans shouldn't miss.

I mean simply shortening, simply extraordinary. Bravo blown. very impressed thanks a rodent track for letting me do this thanks to you for letting me do this and thanks also to the nannies at GM for letting me do this go well hope you liked the video I was obviously having a great time experiencing that car for the first time on the track, which means red line change at full speed, yes, that was the red line. I think it might have said 6,000 rpm in the video, the redline is 68 hundred, which is the lowest revving mid-engine car you can get. buy so we can get started on that properly, the LS or LT engine is now very effective, it has a wide powerband, it's very usable, it can be very liberal with the pedal and it's not like you don't understand that you know like you.

Follows well with big turbo cars, but has low revs. I think it's still the lowest revving mid-engined car you can buy. The Evora Evora GT had 7000, was taller and actually felt like it sounded now that we have this. Mid-engine chassis, the car is asking for a double overhead camshaft engine that will rev much higher, which we have seen in the view. A racing car is promising, okay, but it's fast, okay, it's fast, but it's not. I don't feel very fast, but I think that's just because I'm spoiled with other things and because it's very linear. Well now the styling and cabin were very comfortable.

I still don't love the square steering wheel, but when your hands. They are in it, this relationship is fast enough that you don't have to spend a lot of time and therefore it is not so bad when you look at Porsche or Ferrari or even Lamborghini, they have a kind of confidence in how they do it. it rips, even if it's aggressively styled, it's got this kind of - we've done this before really getting a feel for the Corvette when I put it on the track for the first time and thought ooh, everything leaning towards the driver, this is cool while driving it on the road and More importantly, since I was a passenger on the road, once there is a big wall blocking the entire passenger, then you know that the 911 again has this kind of calm, cool confidence about how it

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s care of business of the interiors.

Quite simple and like stepping back into the past a bit while being modernized and just put together impeccably. The Corvette is like the cockpit of a mid-engine fighter jet. He's on his way to the danger zone. It's like it's a mid-engine car with a Detroit headband. I said Pantera in the video and really the more I think about it it's very Pantera so if you like it you like it if you don't like it you don't like it I found myself in the middle at the end while I was Very excited at the beginning of the video I said this Corvette was a handmade prototype, but in reality it turned out not to be like that.

They said it was factory built on the line and it was VIN number 19, so it's clear. Go up a little on the track, the value is definitely there: do you want to come? Let's go, race. One on the track, the value is definitely there. It's fast, it's balanced, it's a lot of fun, it's direct, you can play. Needed. a beating, it doesn't heat up, it was nice and when the braking threshold and redline change do it very smoothly when I went out on the street and was doing more partial throttle changes, it was clear that the gearbox is not in a final state.

For tuning and for cruising in parking lots and for part throttle, they need to work on the smoothness a bit, although I was impressed with the smoothness and response on the track, except, like I said, if you hit the redline, it kind of dies. and it didn't give you an indicator of what really happened and that can be confusing and because the red line is so low it was easy to hit the red line on the track, the steering felt very direct and B and you could hear the vibration in the video when a girl was pushing it at home and that told me what was going on, but when I was driving on the highway and I was within the grip limits, not on them, the steering felt a little artificial and video games were still very direct and still very effective, but it wasn't as communicative as the Lotus, the 911 and the McLaren I was driving, you know, back to back, probably not a deal breaker, it's better than what BMW/Supra are doing at the moment.

Good, but it's a little artificial, but I think the ride quality on the street is the best in its class. I think it's the best mid-engined car you can buy, it's not a McLaren 720, riding this one everyone wrote on the track. The routine was impressed with the street ride it really was and that translated into good gestures on the track, plus the suspension was very well tuned on the inside. I loved the seat, it was the competition bucket seat or whatever they call it. top seat was comfortable held me on the steering wheel and shifter and the A contact points the materials were excellent the B contact points the materials were well on par with the outgoing Corvette and the C contact points i.e.

The protection panels at the bottom of the dashboard were cheap hard plastic, so when you compare it to the other cars we had at OD's peak, the Lotus, the 911 etc., there was a visible cheapening in both the exterior as well as the interior of the car, you know, by putting the engine in it. the middle doesn't make one plus one equal three, you know, it's still, like I said at the end of the video, it's still a Corvette and I mean in many ways it's built as well as you would expect a Corvette to be built.

It has a small block, sounds like a Corvette II, and many of the things one would expect from a Detroit automaker are present. That said, for GM's first mid-engined effort, it's very, very, very good, they've done an excellent job, you can feel it. like it has more chassis than engine, which is a great place for a mid-engined car. I can tell you I probably don't want to drive the $60,000 one, I mean now that I've driven the z51 car like I do. I don't want to drive one that's worse. I mean, I want it because I want to see what people really get for 60, but I don't think many members of the media are going to drive the $60,000 one anytime soon.

Soon, overall, I was really impressed with the car, but as you can see from this little supplement, I wasn't. I didn't get as dizzy as you know, driving a car on a race track, a new car, the new mid-engine. Million dollar Corvette prototype and I'm sliding on arace track like yeah, okay, a little dizzy, I had a great time doing that, I absolutely did, but the reflection, this is what we're doing, the reflection and the discussion with Sam Smith and Jason. shirt Travis and Husky and all these guys who are great drivers and great automotive analysts.

I think a little bit of the shine wore off after it became a regular car and no, my goodness, this new thing and it's still a Corvette. In many ways and in others it is a huge leap forward and is probably, for better or worse, the most important car of the year, so thanks for continuing with this little supplement, I hope nothing more. Having it then explains a little bit why when I get the chance I like to drive cars for as long as possible. I like to drive a car for a week and then make a video on the last day, but this being my first performance car of the year, I had to do a lot, I didn't have much time, I had to share a lot of cars and resources, so ya you know, you drove for the first time and now you're going to get some afterthoughts from Sun, so thanks for watching.

I'm sure there will be a lot more C8 content as the regular press cars will probably come out early next year depending on when the strike ends, so thanks for watching, see you later, bye.