Corvette Z06

What's new? You don't need to be aware of the Corvette steamroller that has rumbled through international GT racing in recent years to be excited by this car. Just digest the specification for a moment: a new development of the classic small-block Chevy V8 that revs to 7000rpm, titanium rods, forged steel crank, 506bhp and 470lb ft of torque.There's a backbone chassis formed from aluminium, not steel like the standard car’s, a magnesium roof section, carbonfibre wings, carbon-fibre/wood sandwich floors and six-pot 355mm front brakes. A kerbweight of only 1418kg – 33kg less than the standard car – provides a power-to-weight ratio of 357bhp per tonne. Serious stuff.What's it like? The Z06 certainly looks like a Le Mans refugee, with its extended wheelarches, wide front air dam and black Gurney flap. It is fast, too – Corvette claim 0-62mph in 3.9sec and a 199mph top speed – but it doesn’t grab you in the way you might expect. Over the final 2000rpm it really flies, complete with a mighty V8 roar courtesy of a bypass valve opening in the exhaust, yet below 5000rpm it doesn’t punch with the authority you’d think it should. The industrial Tremec six-speed manual ’box doesn’t help proceedings with its heavy and slow punctuation of motion.This Corvette might be smaller than previous iterations, but it still feels big from behind the steering wheel. This is a car that demands concentration: the steering is light, not terribly feelsome or linear off-centre, and the transition from neutral to either understeer or oversteer can happen very quickly. The suspension – a transverse leaf spring at either end – is very stiff, and the ride correspondingly unyielding with a crudeness in its reactions, even on these mainly smooth French roads.Should I get one?Let’s be clear: this is a storming amount of poke for £60k, and on the right road – on this limited evidence a smooth, fairly straight one – a vivid and engrossing experience. But not one, perhaps, to seriously challenge Europe and Japan’s best.Adam Towler