Chevy Corvette C8 Crushes Lightning Lap 2021
If you were wondering whether Chevrolet had made the right choice when it moved the Corvette C8’s engine behind the front seats, take a close look at the results of Lightning Lap 2021. Every year, Car and Driver brings some of the automotive industry’s quickest cars to the track, this time at the legendary Virginia International Raceway, and the C8 did not disappoint.
In fact, the Corvette C8 was arguably the most notable car to lap around VIR this year, a notoriously tricky track that throws every type of challenge you can name at cars and drivers. With a lap time of 2:49.0, the mid-engine Corvette was not just several seconds faster than its front-engine predecessor but also the fastest car that C/D tested with a starting price under $70,000. We have little doubt the C8 would have left VIR able to make the same claim even if the magazine had brought more than just 18 cars to Lightning Lap 2021.
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The next quickest car after the Corvette, with a lap time of 2:45.0, was the Lamborghini Huracán Evo with an as-tested price of $334,969 (a car it matched at the Nürburgring). Nearly four times the price of the tested Corvette, but less than four percent faster. The Corvette C8 was also comfortably ahead of the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4, the Porsche Taycan Turbo S, the BMW M8 Competition, and the Jaguar F-Type R — all cars worth between $115,000 and $205,000.
It doesn’t just impress at the track. The Corvette C8 accelerates from 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds, just a hair short of the $330,000 Ferrari 488 Pista, a car equipped with the fastest production V8 engine to come out of Maranello. Needless to say, the Chevrolet Corvette C8 is a complete sports car success, delivering exotic supercar performance for the kind of money that people spend on souped-up pickup trucks.
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Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.