Blown away by a week with a friend's new C8

I can't get over how impressive the new C8's are for the money. I've always been a German guy. My daily is an '05 manual 330i ZHP and my weekend car is a '85 911 coupe. Love both. But a friend offered to loan me his new C8 with the Z51 package for the week. Just turned it back in and I am SHOCKED! That car was unbelievably capable. Took my 11-yr-old daugter out and ripped of 2.8 sec 0-60's with no effort or pucker-factor at all. Could have done it all day. And the sound of that V8 a few inches behind your head is addictive. As many have noted, the interior is too fussy with buttons (weird climate control button "fin") and the non-round steering wheel is not my fave. But interior quality is way improved over the C5's and C6's I'm more familiar with. And the tech is really impressive. 

Anyways, I'm just shocked that Chevy pulled off a car like this for the price they did. My neighbors all thought it was a Lambo and it drove like an exotic. Drove my 911 today and found myself missing the rush of power, sound, and fury that car delivered. 

My canoe does 0-60 in 2.7 sec on one paddle and there was no dealer mark-up.

That's awesome you had that experience, I've not driven one yet but the one I sat in didn't feel right. May e because I couldn't exercise the throttle but whatever. 
 

also, not a canoe...

In reply to RX Reven' :

Good point on dealer mark up - crazy high at the moment. Fortunately for my friend, he owns a dealership, so there was no markup for him. 

TheRev said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

Good point on dealer mark up - crazy high at the moment. Fortunately for my friend, he owns a dealership, so there was no markup for him. 

Hi TheRev, I apologize for calling your post a canoe...new reader promoting something generally = canoe.

I think the C8 is awesome based on the numbers and visuals from various cars n' coffee events...just waiting for the sale prices to be at or below MSRP to have any real interest.

RX Reven' said:

TheRev said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

Good point on dealer mark up - crazy high at the moment. Fortunately for my friend, he owns a dealership, so there was no markup for him. 

Hi TheRev, I apologize for calling your post a canoe...new reader promoting something generally = canoe.

I think the C8 is awesome based on the numbers and visuals from various cars n' coffee events...just waiting for the sale prices to be at or below MSRP to have any real interest.

Ha! I just looked up what that phrase means in this forum! I was really confused by your post before that :-)

Yeah, I'm not trying to sell or market for Chevy or any others in the auto industry. And for the record, I definitely do not think this is the time to buy a C8. As my 16-year-old daily and 36-year-old weekend car prove, I'm terrified of depreciation! I am, however, very interested in watching prices of the C7's, especially something like a manual grand sport. I'm hoping that in 3-4 years as all the advanced versions of the C8's come out, that trackable C7's might become affordable. From what I've read, a C7 GS would be pretty epic on track.

Rev, by chance did you live in Maryland before moving to Texas, possibly within the past two years? 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

Rev, by chance did you live in Maryland before moving to Texas, possibly within the past two years? 

I lived in Northern Virginia in the Herndon area 20 years ago, and my brother lives in Falls Church now. I was actually visiting DC last week.

Based off of your vehicle history, being a Reverend and now working doing charitable work full time, I thought you may have been a previous coworker of mine from a consulting firm I worked for. I'm curious how Fred is doing now and will have to look him up. 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

Based off of your vehicle history, being a Reverend and now working doing charitable work full time, I thought you may have been a previous coworker of mine from a consulting firm I worked for. I'm curious how Fred is doing now and will have to look him up. 

Fred sounds like a guy I'd like to meet! 

I have loved Corvettes since I was about 7. My first Step-dad (passed at 11), had a '63 Split 327 4spd. i thought it was going to be my first car, he was like that. When he passed in '81 my Mother had to sell the car. $8000 FML.

About the same time, I was introduced to the 904 and 914 Porsches and winning Le Mans with a low power, mid-engined car. I fell in love with every mid-engined car out there and endurance racing.

This is the pinicale 'vette for me.

I'd toss both of my mid-engined cars to him to drive the C8. Neither of them run right now but...it's the thought, right?

I wish it had a stick.

In reply to preach (fs) :

I wish it had a stick, too, and a round steering wheel (I really don't like the trend towards square wheels, but maybe I'm just getting to be an old fart). But I will say that the DCT in the new Vette is very impressive for GMC's first major attempt. It was not as good as Porsche's PDK, but not as far off as I expected. It can be a bit harsh at low speeds and low throttle, like so many DCT's. But again, not nearly as much as I cynically expected the first attempt to be. Software updates might fix that, too, as development continues. 

TheRev said:

...no effort or pucker-factor at all.

I'm stuck at trying to wrap my mind around the purported benefits of this.

I feel like if I drove one I might like it more (or at least not feel bad for judging it), but so far it's just not for me. I've seen them autocross a lot, and they have yet to look like a car I'd want to drive (in fairness, there's multiple other popular cars that make me feel the same way...the first one that comes to mind is the M2). Super soft suspension (in comparison to their competition, at least) and it seems like even the best drivers end up fighting with the transmission at least a little bit. They're capable of putting up some good times and have some gearing/thrust advantages versus the other cars in their class, but that's about where it ends. Of particular note, this weekend at the toledo prosolo, the C8 guys were fast overall but were struggling with launching the car. Apparently the tire/surface combination was making launch control unhappy and it would allow too much wheelspin. The solution was feathering the throttle to ~80% after taking off, and the result was 60' times that were indistinguishable from the rest of the class - a 991 GT3 whose drivers weren't even using launch control and two 997.2 GT3s which, at least based on their stated 0-60 times should be giving up a bunch of time on the launch. Probably a situation (in fairness not at all uncommon these days) where everything is tuned to the stock tires and a somewhat limited set of conditions and changing any of the variables substantially completely ruins the system.

I think though for a fun unique semi-versatile performance street car they're a great deal...at least if you can manage to buy one for under $100k ever again. The $60k base price is impressive but any version of the car you'd actually want ends up being at least $70k, still impressive but not as much so.

In reply to Driven5 :

Benefit is that I could take my 11-yr-old out and do a 2.8s launch without scaring her or earning my wife's disapproval. 

dps214 said:

I feel like if I drove one I might like it more (or at least not feel bad for judging it), but so far it's just not for me. I've seen them autocross a lot, and they have yet to look like a car I'd want to drive (in fairness, there's multiple other popular cars that make me feel the same way...the first one that comes to mind is the M2). Super soft suspension (in comparison to their competition, at least) and it seems like even the best drivers end up fighting with the transmission at least a little bit. They're capable of putting up some good times and have some gearing/thrust advantages versus the other cars in their class, but that's about where it ends. Of particular note, this weekend at the toledo prosolo, the C8 guys were fast overall but were struggling with launching the car. Apparently the tire/surface combination was making launch control unhappy and it would allow too much wheelspin. The solution was feathering the throttle to ~80% after taking off, and the result was 60' times that were indistinguishable from the rest of the class - a 991 GT3 whose drivers weren't even using launch control and two 997.2 GT3s which, at least based on their stated 0-60 times should be giving up a bunch of time on the launch. Probably a situation (in fairness not at all uncommon these days) where everything is tuned to the stock tires and a somewhat limited set of conditions and changing any of the variables substantially completely ruins the system.

I think though for a fun unique semi-versatile performance street car they're a great deal...at least if you can manage to buy one for under $100k ever again. The $60k base price is impressive but any version of the car you'd actually want ends up being at least $70k, still impressive but not as much so.

What is interesting is the thought of where this platform may be after 5 years of both factory and aftermarket development. It's not bad for GM's first production mid-engine Vette and DCT, in my opinion. Give them a couple iterations of DCT control and customization, combined with the aftermarket bringing improved performance suspension and tuning options. 

The stock wheels do that bodystyle such a disservice. 

In reply to Carbon (Forum Supporter) :

Yup.