Chev Corvette voted best all around sports car

I'd still rather have a 911 Turbo.

 

I used to believe that 911s were the best all around sports cars. Sadly, I no longer believe that. Although I have yet to drive the latest Corvette, the article's conclusion is certainly plausible.

As far as the 911 Turbo, its AWD disqualifies it as a true sports car, IMO.

 

You are referencing the Road & Track article? It's curious that 5 out of 8 editors chose the new Boxster S as their number one pick. One chose the 911 Carrera S, one chose the S2000, and one chose the Viper. While the Corvette won on points, none of the editors picked it as their first choice.

 

The C6 is awesome its 1 of the few times in the Corvettes history where all the Chevy Execs were really working together to make it a great car. Usually they were trying to kill it.

The Z06 is fantastic I want 2. 1 for racing & one to chop the top for the street

 

Clearly the price difference entered into the ratings results, and I got the impression the personal choices were just straight-up, price no object. I was really surprised at how poorly the Elise did in the track stuff considering it has R compound tires. All that said, I am looking forward to giving serious consideration to the new Z06 as a track toy.

Gary

 

I wonder if it is only a matter of time until the performance of cheaper Japanese (or American) cars supersedes that of European cars once and for all. The history of motorcycles has shown a similar trend. While Ducati (and Aprilia) machines are still wonderful and exotic, they are twice or three times as expensive as today's run of the mill Japanese motorcycles while offering little or no objective performance advantage. On the other hand, cars in Japan have HP limits, and American car makers have to rely on huge displacement to match the performance of their competitors. I know that this is an over-simplification, but does anyone else think about this?

 

I couldn't agree more.
This has been VERY true of the bikes, as you say. There is not a spot on the dyno gragh where the New Ducati 999 touches the current R1. Handling is being caught up on as well.
As far as asthetics, I can make an excellent agrument there too. I love the Italian bikes as well as most rideers do, but what you say really does seem to be the case. BTW- I own an R1.

 

I did the same thing you did. I looked at the editors choices and no selected the vette. The subjective items at the bottom pushed it over the top. That's ok by me. I'm glad the car is as good as it is. Al lot of people have owned a vette at one time or another including me.

 

Yeah that surprised me as well. The Boxster should have won in my opinion, it's the same price as the Vette. Much better driving experience anyways.

 

What are you talking about? The Boxster was ~20% more expensive(I think like 13K).

 

I should Clarify.

I'd still rather have a Porsche Carrera Turbo

 

Whoops, I was looking at the Boxster price, not Boxster S. Anyways, they loaded the Boxster up with 15k worth of options, all seemed to add weight or do nothing... leather seats, navigation, crap like that. As tested... 67k. :|

 

True, but they did the same for the Vette. You can get a Z51 Vette for 47K (MSRP).

A base Boxster S costs 53K. That is with the incredibly ugly stock wheels, add 1.5-2K for the better ones. Porsche Active Suspension Management is another 2K. PCCB is 8K, but I'll assume that isn't bought. Basically you going to walk out of the dealership with 10K less than if you had bought a Corvette which had *more* amenities. *Nothing* is standard on the Porsche.

Much should be said for the Porsche driving dynamics, but being 120hp down on the Corvette hurt it and the Corvette scored very well on 'Driving excitement' despite not handling "as well" as the Boxster S. I really like the new Boxster S and think it's a gigantic improvement over the previous generation but I think R&T made the correct decision for choosing the best all around sports car.

Furthermore, anyone that has they mag, can they compute the average position on the editors lists for the Boxster S, Carrera S, and Corvette?

 

In the March issue of Car & Driver the Boxster S beats the Corvette (2nd), SLK 350 (3rd), and Crossfire SRT-6 (4th). This time the Boxster S undercut the Corvette in price as tested ($59,120 vs. $62,080). Short of a C6 Z06, I would take the new Boxster S over any modern Corvette.

 

I actually agree. A Boxster S, which is only convertible, seems like a better buy than a Corvette convertible. However, the Corvette Coupe makes a very compelling argument I think.

 

Boxster S - 1.9
Carrera S - 2.7
Corvette - 2.2

 

Thank you for computing it.
Wow, .3 difference for 13K, nice.

 

alright, I don't hate corvettes or anything, but it seems as though the C6s have been winning all of the road comparisons and stuff, i think GM has been paying off all the magazines. There is always a fuss when they put a corvette head to head with a 911 and the corvette wins.

 

Or maybe they actually built a nice car for once... SHOCKER! :|

Payne, the thing is the Z51 package is a performance-enhancing package, with close-ratio gears, stiffer suspension, etc. The Boxster's options were 'less ugly' wheels, Stability Management, a special leather... cmon! If you want to make it fair, make it fair. Don't give the Vette a performance enhancement, then drive the Boxster's price up with very expensive and unnecessary options, and use the high price against it.

 

Stability management is not a performance enhancing option? Hell, it's standard on a Vette. Oh, and it makes the Vette faster, does Porsche's setup not do that?

The stock Boxster wheels are easily the most ugly I've ever seen on a performance car within the last 10 years. The car is extremely visually unappealing with them.

I never said anything about leather.

My point about the price is more along the lines of this, for a similiarly equipped Boxster S you will have to pay *much* more than the Vette.

 

Yet there is still a mega long wait to get a 430...

 

No matter the performance, someone will always buy a Ferrari because it is just that, a Ferrari. A beautiful, stylish, fiery, exotic sports car. The Corvette is different. My neighbor has a black 2002 Z06 with 19" HREs and about 8 or 9 thousand in Engine, and exhaust mods. I promise you it will run circles around a stock 360, but the Ferrari will always get more looks and draw the bigger crowd. Just different cars for different people. Or, people with different budgets. I think its great the new Corvette is as good as it is. Everybody is so shocked that the critics like it, I say they've had 50 years to get it right, about time.

 

This is an interesting article, especially if you look closely at the track results. The Elise, with its light weight and R-compound tires, was fastest through sections 1 and 3, which I expected. But then the fun starts. It is only 7th of 9 cars through section 6, the esses, where I would have thought it would have its greatest advantage. And the biggest mystery to me of all the data is the result for section 5, where the Vette has the highest average "g" and highest apex speed, and yet loses 0.9 sec, a very significant amount of time on an 8-sec piece of road, to the Boxster. Can anyone explain that one? The article mentions the Boxster is able to get the power down earlier, but wouldn't that show up in the average "g" and the exit speed?

Gary