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<lastBuildDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:16:17 GMT</lastBuildDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Corvette ZO6]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Five of the Best - Despite the hype over Aston Martin's wickedly quick DBR9 the thundering Corvettes have kept the British challengers at bay at LeMans.]]></description>
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<pubDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:16:17 GMT</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Chevrolet Corvette C5 (1998 - 2002) : VETTES IN PRACTICE]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Car And Driving - Models Covered: (2 dr coupe, convertible, 5.7 petrol)BY ANDY ENRIGHTThe Chevrolet Corvette doesnt need a great deal of introduction. "Americas Sports Car" has been available in one guise or another since the fifties, but it was not until the launch of the C5 series in 1997 that the Corvette received the respect of European drivers. When General Motors started officially importing the Corvette into the UK in 1999, it was seen as a performance car bargain. But can a used car represent an even better way of getting more bang for your buck?With the steering wheel on the right side and a bigger dealer network, Porsche, BMW and even Ferrari would have cause to worry about their UK revenue streams. As it is, the Corvette is always going to be something of a minority interest. Having said that, there are some compelling reasons for taking the plunge. Aside from that sledgehammer performance, the Corvette is now a genuinely beautiful car in a way, as opposed to merely handsome rivals such as the BMW M3 and the Porsche Boxster. Only British sports cars like the TVR Tuscan and Noble M12 GTO offer a similar visual impact, yet neither has that mass-produced feel to them. For some buyers this will be a perfect reason not to buy a Vette, whilst others will feel reassured by its factory fit and finish. Equipment levels are pretty lavish, with air conditioning, twin airbags, ABS, a full-house stereo, a six-way power driver's seat, electric windows and central locking all fitted as standard. The Corvette's convertible roof, however, is manually operated (astonishingly there's no power option) and folds neatly away under its own protective panel. This has a noticeable payoff in the amount of luggage space you get. Even with the roof down the convertible has 300 litres of room in the boot - enough for two full-sized golf bags. This is partly thanks to the absence of a spare wheel, thanks to the use of Extended Mobility Tyres. Even completely flat, these can run at normal speed for up to 200 miles.Expect to pay around £16,000 for the first of the 1998 S-plate Corvette coupes, and another £1,000 if you hanker after the full Convertible. The most popular option has been the Coupe with its lift-out targa roof, but Corvettes are still relatively thin on the ground, so one of the twelve main dealers may be your best way of finding a decent used example. Expect the insurance quote to reflect the Corvettes performance credentials, i.e. Group 20.Fifty years of constant development have made the Corvette an outstandingly reliable package. Yes, the engine may develop 345bhp, but most of the time youll find yourself burbling around at 2000rpm, with the engine under about as much stress as a dozy librarian. Look for kerbed alloy wheels and check the condition of the steamroller tyres, but above all carefully inspect the condition of the glass fibre bodywork. If you choose a targa-roofed Coupe, check that the roof is easy to fit. If the roof panel has been stored for some time, it can warp, especially if stood on its side and exposed to the sun. The soft-top roof is an honest, no-frills affair, but make sure that it hasnt been ripped, torn or discoloured. Most Corvettes will have been treated to 100% main dealer servicing under the terms of the generous warranty, so you can afford to be as fussy. No, there arent too many Corvettes around, but those that are should all be in tip-trop trim. Negotiate a discount if all is not pretty much as it left the showroom.(approx based on a 2000 Corvette Coupe) Although youll only need to service the big Chevrolet every 10,000 miles, this puts a premium on making sure that you use decent quality consumables. As such, expect to pay around £12 for an air filter, £15 for a fuel filter and a mere £5 for an oil filter. Spark plugs are around £8 each. This is one set of Vettes bills that wont break the bank. Just dont mention tyres.The Corvette has a drama matched by few cars for the price. The interior is well equipped, but lacks visual impact. Still, never mind the quality, feel the width. The way the front of the Corvette rises like a powerboat and the back of the seat tries to drive through you at full throttle is akin to landing on your back after trying to pull off an acrobatic goal celebration. It knocks the stuffing out of you and leaves you wondering whether youre in heaven as all you can see is the sky. Only the Head Up Display speedometer projected onto the windscreen and furiously cranking out ever-greater digits reminds of your own mortality. This 345bhp supercar can make over 170mph, with rest to 60mph in 4.7 gut-trembling seconds. Its hard to believe the 5.7-litre V8 engine pulls over 100mph in 3rd gear! The car's cornering capabilities are just as awesome - in the sharpest bends, it can pull up to .98g; you'll bottle out before the car will. Whats quite odd is the way the choice of gearbox transforms the car. Opt for the automatic gearbox, and youll be content to trundle about with the engine barely above tickover, arm out of the window, enjoying the bass tones of your V8. If you choose the manual, youll want to experience that surge of power, punt the tail of the car out around tight bends and generally drive like a NASCAR racer at any opportunity. Yes, the six-speed manual is heavy and vaguely agricultural, but that just adds to the appeal. You dont slot it from gear to gear; you punch that lever home like an eight-ball pool break. Fuel consumption isnt the catastrophe that you may expect. Driven enthusiastically back to back with, for example, a Subaru Impreza P1, the Corvette will return better figures due to the unstressed nature of the engine. What may take a little time to become accustomed to is the steering. Heres that remaining vestige of Americana that the Corvette cant quite divest itself of. Its similar in feel to that of the Jaguar XK8, itself a hugely popular choice in the US, and feels a little too over-assisted to provide a huge measure of confidence-inspiring feedback. Get in a Corvette after driving a Porsche 911 and youll have new admiration for the guys who race them in the States!If the concept of crushing power, exotic good looks and robust mechanicals appeal to you, the Corvette is about as good as it gets. You should expect to land a genuinely well looked after car for the sort of money you could pay for a mid-range BMW 5 Series, and itll certainly provide more entertainment. If youre aware that certain costs such as tyres and insurance will be in the supercar bracket, the Corvette makes a sound purchase. Its relative rarity has propped up used values quite well, so you wont lose your shirt. Extroverts please form a queue here.]]></description>
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<pubDate>Tue, 17 Oct 2006 01:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Corvette C6 : THE VETTE OFFENSIVE]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Car And Driving - The Corvette Is Back With More Power, Less Weight And A More Focused Attitude. Andy Enright ReportsAdmit it. No matter how floridly I wax lyrical about the handling and roadholding of the latest Corvette C6 model, youre going to harbour some reservations. This is, after all, an American sports car, virtually every prior example of which has tackled corners with as much relish as a salt flat racer. What would it take for you to believe that Chevrolet has cracked it with the latest Corvette? An identical lap time of the Nurburgring to a Porsche 911 GT3? A quicker lap of Top Gears test track than a Lamborghini Murcielago?The Corvette C6 achieves all of that and more. Ask any bunch of committed petrolheads to identify what was wrong with the Corvette C5 and youd rapidly achieve consensus. For all its power, the car was just too big and unwieldy. The interior looked entirely too petrochemical to cut it in an aspirational market and you were forced to sit on the wrong side of the car. Whilst Chevrolet is doing nothing to remedy the last complaint, the other two have been addressed, more or less successfully, in the C6. Most cars pile on the weight with each successive generation. There are exceptions Toyotas third generation MR2 springs to mind but as a rule, the onset of middle age spread is hard to reverse. The Corvette is a far leaner product than its predecessor. It also possesses a far more purposeful stance with the wheels moved out to each corner, helping both interior packaging and handling balance. Combine the weight loss plan with an increase in swept volume to fully 6.0-litres and youve got a very potent car indeed. Not that the C5 was particularly tardy in a straight line. The C6 is in a different league, altogether and now trades punches with cars two or three times the Vettes asking price (£45,850 for the Coupe and £51,850 for the Convertible). With 400bhp on tap, the Chevrolet features a power to weight ratio of 272bhp per tonne. Contrast that with a measly 255bhp per tone for Aston Martins Vanquish and youll appreciate the potential of the C6. It weighs about the same as a Mitsubishi Evo VIII, a car hardly renowned as a lardy bloater. "America's first and purest sportscar is at last pounding British roads"Performance from a standstill is suitably explosive. Manhandle the heavyweight six speed Tremec gearshift into first gear, dial in around 3,750 revs and sidestep the clutch pedal. Get it right and you should get the merest chirp of wheelspin as the bonnet rises ahead of you and catapults the car up the track and through 60mph in 3.9 seconds. Get it wrong and youll be bathed in the acrid aroma of sizzled tyres or clutch plate. The Corvette keeps going until it runs out of steam 186mph. Buyers hungry for even more performance should probably submit themselves for immediate psychiatric assessment and then ask their local dealer about the Corvette Z06 a model that, for £59,000, delivers 511bhp by means of a 7.0-litre V8. Along with the more athletic stance, most will notice the projector front headlamps that have replaced the pop-up items, must to the chagrin of Corvette enthusiasts. Pedestrian safety laws have spelt the end for this design feature. Plus the fact that the latest fixed units are lighter, brighter, cheaper to manufacture and give the Corvettes front end a little more personality. From the front it looks as if the personality it has chosen to adopt is that of a Ferrari 360 Modena but if youre going to ape anything, Maranellos finest isnt a bad start. The interior looks a good deal more European, even if passengers do get a hugely unsubtle Corvette script emblazoned across the airbag cut out in front of them. The fascia features some brightwork to lift it and the materials quality has improved from dreadful to rather acceptable. On closer inspection, the fit and finish isnt really up to snuff, but it at least passes initial muster. What the cabin lacks in quality it makes up in quantity, both in terms of space and when it comes to standard fit features. Choose the targa version and theres plenty of room for flattish luggage, although it will get a little broiled by the glass hatch. Elbow, head and shoulder room is all very good, legroom not quite so stellar. Whats refreshing is that the Corvette isnt trying to be self consciously smart. Sit in a BMW 6 series and you end up intimidated by the impenetrable i-Drive and the myriad obscure minor controls. Sit in a Corvette and you just punch a few chubby buttons and get on with it. Just because its simple to plug and play doesnt mean the Corvette lacks sophistication. The anti-lock brakes, traction control and Active Handling stability control systems all work in concert with one another to provide a welcome and effective safety net. The fascia dials are laudably clear and the head-up display that projects data onto the base of the windscreen may no longer be such a novelty but it works so well its puzzling why it hasnt been more widely adopted. Some things dont change. The Corvette is still one of the few sporting cars that you can get something from at legal speeds, ambling along surfing the V8s wall of torque. Get a bit keener and the car ups its game, the engine note changing from a mellifluous burble to a steely bellow. The brakes and steering are complicit, offering plenty of feel and grip levels are enormous. It feels properly sorted, the body control over typical British roads being far better than its predecessor. Theres no crashing and shimmying, just a muted thud as it sucks up cats eyes and expansion joints. Its a deeply impressive showing. Many of you will still have difficulty reconciling sporting credibility with a Chevrolet Corvette but this is a car that has developed into something a whole lot sharper than the chestwig specials of the early nineties. Pour on the power and it feels like a slice of genuine exotica. When you pause to consider a bloodline that stretches back over fifty years, perhaps its not a moment too soon.Facts At A Glance CAR: Chevrolet Corvette C6 PRICES: £45,850 (Coupe) / £51,850 (Convertible) INSURANCE GROUP: 20 PERFORMANCE: Max Speed 186mph / 0-60mph 3.9s FUEL CONSUMPTION: [6-speed manual] (Combined) 23mpg STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front airbags / ABS / Traction Control System./ Active Handling WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height" tba]]></description>
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<pubDate>Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:33:00 GMT</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Corvette Z06 : THE AMERICAN SUPERPOWER]]></title>
<description><![CDATA[Car And Driving - The Corvette Z06 Offers A Tantalising Combination Of Enormous Power And Realistic Pricing. Andy Enright ReportsAsk any first timer about their first trip to America and its always the excess that sticks in the mind. The food platters that you pick at and leave the remaining half, the enormous vehicles, the eight-lane freeways and the overblown patriotism. Everything is supersized, instantaneously gratifying and crashingly free of subtlety. The Corvette Z06 is possibly the most American car thats ever been built. Extravagantly powerful and unashamedly gaudy, its nevertheless hugely effective and, when you put aside your prejudices, really rather endearing.Think about it. £59,000 doesnt even buy you a base model Porsche 911 with leather seats yet spend that on a Corvette Z06 and youll have a car that can lap Germanys Nurburgring in a staggering 7 minutes 42 seconds. Of course, itll help if youre as handy behind the wheel as ex-F1 driver Jan Magnusson, but this is a car that has set a benchmark time two seconds faster than a Pagani Zonda S and eight seconds quicker than a Lamborghini Murcielago. Even a Mercedes McLaren SLR would be ten seconds adrift. Asking prices for these three stragglers? Thatll be £340,000, £162,000, and £313,540 respectively. Suddenly you begin to appreciate the scale of the Corvettes achievement. This is by any measure an apocalyptically rapid car and one that should forever put to rest the notion that American sports cars just dont do corners at all well. Given that there is a 7. 0-litre V8 lump under the bonnet churning out 512bhp, it is perhaps little surprise that the Z06 is so quick in a straight line. Aiming a car at the horizon and mashing the loud pedal doesnt require a great deal of expertise, however, and this Corvette not only wields the big stick but also uses a lot of high tech engineering to achieve its ends. Take the floor of the car for example. Not always a place to start when assessing a performance car its true, but as an exemplar of the depth of focus in the Z06, its as good a place as any. Most sports cars will utilise a pressed steel or sometimes an aluminium section for the floor but the Corvette opts for a wafer of featherweight balsa wood sandwiched between two slivers of carbon fibre."The Corvette Z06 brings into question the wisdom of paying more than £59,000 in the quest for proper supercar performance"Whereas a standard Corvette has a hydroformed steel chassis, this one uses an aluminium spaceframe. The standard car uses aluminium for its front suspension crossmember assembly whereas the Z06 junks that for an exotic magnesium setup. The front wings change from glassfibre in the standard Vette to carbonfibre in the 06. Both front wings combined and theyre sizeable panels weigh in at 2. 8kg. The fixed roof structure is cast magnesium and adds stiffness without adding weight where its least desirable. All up weight is around 1420kg, roughly about the same as a Ford Focus C-MAX. That 7. 0-litre engine is the biggest and most powerful General Motors small block ever built. Success in the GT class at Le Mans has spawned some race-derived technology and the Z06 benefits from a dry-sumped lubrication system, conrods and intakes made of titanium as well as a forged steel crank and pistons. A manual six-speed gearbox is fitted as standard and requires a beefy right arm to guide the stick around the gate yes all Z06s are left hand drive. You wont need to make a single change to notch off 60mph in 3. 7 seconds, just some steely determination and the ability to pick a point that marshals the 470lb/ft of torque such that it generates a mere chirrup of wheelspin from the 275/35 ZR18 tyres at the back. A top speed of 198mph is claimed for the car, eclipsing cars that cost twice as much such as the Lamborghini Gallardo and the Ferrari F430. A small slot at the front of the bonnet is possibly the first clue youll get that this is no ordinary Corvette. Look a little closer and youll also see a black splitter that runs under the spoiler to aid aerodynamics. The wheelarches have morphed into something a little wider to accommodate the gumball rubber, something worth bearing in mind if youre squeezing the car through urban width restrictors. The interior looks a good deal more European than Vettes of old, even if passengers do get a hugely unsubtle Corvette script emblazoned across the airbag cut out in front of them. The fascia features some brightwork to lift it and some of the minor controls now have some chrome detailing. The steering wheel is smaller than in the standard car, helping to effectively gear the steering effort up a little. The two tone leather seats offer plenty of lateral support but what the cabin lacks in quality it makes up in quantity, both in terms of space and when it comes to standard fit features. Elbow, head and shoulder room is all very good, legroom not quite so stellar. Whats refreshing is that the Corvette isnt trying to be self consciously smart. Sit in a BMW 6 series and you end up intimidated by the impenetrable i-Drive and the myriad obscure minor controls. Sit in a Corvette and you just punch a few chubby buttons and get on with it. If you appreciate a car for what it is as much as what it does, itll be difficult to sell you the Corvette Z06. It cant rival even the most basic Porsche Boxster for handling sensitivity or perceived quality. If you prefer to concentrate on doing rather than having, this Corvette could well be the performance bargain of the year. In short, its capabilities eclipse cars twice, three times, even six times its price. If that doesnt appeal, nothing will.Facts At A Glance CAR: Chevrolet Corvette Z06 PRICE: £59,000 - on the road INSURANCE GROUP: 20 PERFORMANCE: Max Speed 198mph / 0-60mph 3.7s FUEL CONSUMPTION: (Combined) 19mpg [est] STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front airbags / ABS / Traction Control System./ Active Handling WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: Length/Width/Height 4460/1928/1244mm]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sat, 03 Sep 2005 12:49:00 GMT</pubDate>
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