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The appeal of air cooled Porsches and old Ferraris has nothing to do with performance any longer. And--great as the handling is on a C5--it's not going to keep up with even Camaro SS 1LE or track pack Mustang GT's.....let alone Mustang GT350's and ZL1 Camaros. Hey, can you still have fun on a track day with a C5? Sure, especially if you know how to drive.......that makes up for a lot. Can you still blitz the backroads? Sure. But a C5 will keep up with any modern GT--that's being driven as a GT. It won't keep up with a modern sports car--that's being driven as a sports car.....near the limit.
IM always amazed by the guys who talks of their car as if it is the fastest and badest car on the planet, as If no other car could trash it or show it up.. Every car is in their rear view mirror.. etc. All it takes is money, a 30 year old Toyota with the tight setup can be a 6 sec car. and put box cars on a C5 or any generation.
The real deal is how significant ( or insignificant ) is a stock 20 year old C5 Today over a stock C7.. Since any car can Add horse power.. it's generation means nothing.. for those buying a C5 today, the whole car is 20 years old, and pales in comparison with todays latest technology. Engineering progress ( design )over time is exponential.. The Corvette platform has evolved so much since the C5 was introduced over 20 years ago , they have dropped the concept of front engine design because they have pushed the engineering envelope to it's limits. Since the C5, the C6 and C7 have exploded the design limits far above that found in a 20 year old C5. IM not trashing the C5, IM just telling it like it is from an pure engineering perspective.
Bill
They also added a good bit of pork to the cars as well and I was reading the C8 seems to be a real oinker....
0-60 in 2.8 seconds, with the base 495 hp engine, is nothing to sneeze at! Almost a second quicker than the 700 hp C7.
The base C7 will do 0-60 in the high three second range. The Z06 is rated at 3.2 seconds, and the ZR1 2.9. So no, not a full second quicker than either performance C7.
This entire thread is so stupid that I can’t think of anything to post.
The C5 would be a really obsolete GT car. No heated seats, no GPS, no Bluetooth, no luxuries at all. It barely has a freaking cup holder.
The Z06 is slightly stiffer than the base suspension, but stiffness isn’t directly what dictates a better suspension. My RX7 is stiff as hell, but the c5z outhandles is easily.
And not everything is a tradeoff. That’s ignorant thinking. Some things are just plain better.
IMO, the C5 is not obsolete or outperformed by a large margin (hp being equal).
These newer cars, the C7, the Mustang GT/GT350 thry are fast on a road course but what they really are is easier for an unskilled driver to go fast in, that's it.
Handling computers that help you when you enter a corner too hot, traction control for when you exit a corner and roll into too much throttle, better yaw control for when you get too sideways and lack the knowledge to "drive" out of it vs getting off the throttle, unloading the suspension, upsetting the car and spinning out. All this new "better tech" just makes a bad driver or a low skilled driver better because the car is easier to drive fast at their skill level.
C5 and C6 have the same basic suspension so aside from power, how can one be light years above the other? What's changed on the C7? More computers and chassis tuning.
The point of this thread was to make guys feel good about owning C5's--especially guys with base suspensions. And maybe to get some guys to re-evaluate long held feelings about sport suspensions. When I found a mint C6, some years ago, and it had the base suspension, I initially felt disappointed. But the car was so nice I bought it anyway. A big surprise to me was that I came to like the base suspension better than the Z51's I had driven. It made me see things in a new way. The same thing happened when a friend sold me a brand new condition Saturn Sky Redline 2.0 Turbo. It had a five speed automatic. But--wouldn't you know--after being a guy who would rather eat glass than drive an auto, I came to like it much better than the 5 speed version. Why? After I chipped it--and it was making more torque than a stock C6 Corvette (dyno sheet attached for guys who don't believe it)--all you had to do was put your foot down and it exploded--at any speed. I bought a second Sky and also a Solstice which I chipped the same way. They all made between 27 and 32 lbs of boost, when chipped, and ran high 12's at the strip. I came to like autos in high horsepower cars better, but still like sticks in low powered cars (my Miata and Fiat Abarth). So, I just hope some of you will think again about base suspension cars. We have a suspension that's better for grand touring. And, by the way, the fact that we don't have heated/cooled seats, bluetooth, or more cupholders in no way makes it less suitable for grand touring DRIVING. Those things are for luxury cars......
The point of this thread was to make guys feel good about owning C5's--especially guys with base suspensions.
Sounds more like the point was for you to justify your purchase of a base car, and make people with z06’s or Z51’s cars feel like they purchased the wrong car.
I think your comment says more about you as a person, than it does me. That was not my intent. I've owned two Superformance AC Cobras that weighed 2300 and 2400 lbs and had 550 and 650 hp each, a new 2008 Dodge Viper, and a Porshe 550 spyder that weighed 1300 lbs and had 350 hp--faster than my Cobras even. I don't need to make guys with Corvette sports cars feel bad about their purchase........
Last edited by commonsense; Dec 9, 2019 at 08:05 AM.
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