Chevrolet Corvette (C8) | PH Favourite Cars 2025

What do you get when you follow up a trip to Texas with Le Mans? A newfound appreciation of the C8 Corvette...

By Sam Sheehan / Thursday, 1 January 2026 / Loading comments

The best pizza I’ve eaten was in America, downstairs in some swanky San Francisco restaurant run by a family of Italians that had lived there since the '30s. The flavour of the toppings, the texture of the cheese and, to be frank, the accompanying beer made for one of the most pleasurable food experiences of my life. And yet it felt wrong. This wasn’t a pizza in Naples, where I’ve been lucky enough to scoff down dozens of slices over the years. This was a pizza on the West Coast. It was like when I discovered fish and chips are better Down Under. My world was turned upside down.

It was like when I had my first go in the C8 Corvette. Not in the literal sense of putting it on its roof, but how a long-time-coming go in America's icon caused a factory reset of my assumptions. My experience of fast American muscle before this had always been the same - often exciting and definitely not short on character, but a bit, well, crude. Jumping into a Detroit or Dearborn special was like chomping through a microwaved Chicago Town pizza, if you will. It’s tasty enough and very filling, but heavy in your hands, and not full of flavour like one from Naples. Or, erm, San Fran.

The C8 Corvette is obviously very different to what’s come before in an engineering sense, because the engine is behind, rather than in front of, the cockpit. But to my shame, it’s taken me this long - so long, that there’s now an E-Ray hybrid version available in the UK - to experience how those technical changes amount to far more than just a shifting of mechanical mass rearwards. This is coming from someone with recent experience of another Chevrolet product as well, as I rented a Camaro during a late 2024 road trip across Texas, where I discovered that torque converter automatic V6 sports cars from America are very much like microwave pizzas.

The C8, by contrast, has done a San Fran on me. For starters, it feels European in more than just its mid-engine layout, with an exterior design sporting angles and intakes that could easily have come out of a Maranello design studio. It does help, of course, that moving the eight-cylinder motor also gives the Stingray a shorter nose and longer tail than its forebears, something that’s more obviously synonymous with European creations. But this is different to the other times the Yanks have had a go at relocating an engine. Previous interpretations of the layout have either still felt overwhelmingly American, like the Saleen S7 with its 7.0-litre V8, or been part-Anglo/European, like the Hennessey Venom F5 and even Ford GT. The C8 has European vibes, but it’s wholly American.

This is true in everything from the entry-level Stingray to the 1,267hp ZR1X, although arguably it’s the former car - which uses an LT2 6.2-litre cross-plane V8 with just 482hp - that seems more connected to the traditional Corvette formula. The Z06, along with the hybrid-powered E-Ray and ZR1X models, gets an LT6 5.5-litre V8 with a flat-plane crankshaft, which is designed not only to provide closer competition to roadgoing rivals from Ferrari, Porsche, and Aston Martin, but also to be faster on the race track, especially at Le Mans. This is another thing I (to my shame) got to experience for the first time in 2025, allowing me to see and hear the Corvette Z06 GT3.R charge to a podium finish in the LMGT3 class with its higher-pitched flat-plane note.

It was quite the precursor to my first go in a C8, I can tell you that. And while we'd collectively agreed to play favourites with the E-Ray (that car becoming unavailable at the last moment), the replacement Stingray 3LT certainly lived up to its billing. The model lacks the mechanical links to the Le Mans racer with its cross-plane motor, and obviously there’s no front-mounted electric motor for an all-wheel drive E-Ray output of 644hp. But that only serves to make you zero in on the best bits of the C8, which are shared across all C8 variants.

Turns out even a 6.2-litre, purely rear-drive take on the C8 is not the untameable monster that it appears on paper - on even when finished in vibrant Rapid Blue paint and parked beside a sodden Welsh B road. The weather only serves to make the fact that this particular car is a convertible all the more hilarious, though I love how the sunlight pops off the blue Nappa leather interior when the day gives us our two or three minutes of dry weather. That blue colour, and the long layout of buttons on a diagonal bar that stretches from dash to waist height - it all serves to make the interior of a C8 feel even more exotic, and yet also brilliantly functional. Honestly, even a long line of buttons is easier to use on the go than most modern touchscreens. It’s a real standout feature of the C8 that’s worth celebrating.

As is the engine. The LT2, which naturally fires into life with more bass than the LT6, can’t escape the noise-sapping restrictions of modern exhaust filters, meaning its volume and texture are lower and smoother than cross-plane 'Vettes of old at tickover. But spin the crank towards its 6,500rpm redline and that note quickly evolves into something more muscular, with a familiar American V8 rumble to satisfy your senses. The motor’s delivery of naturally aspirated power is hard but progressive, and feels well-matched to the quick-shifting eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. It’s no PDK, but it’s certainly eager enough to follow clicks of the wheel-mounted paddles with thumps up and down the ratios.

Not surprisingly, it’s the balance of the C8 that provides the biggest contrast to earlier experiences of Americana. Even when the road surface is cold and wet, the Stingray’s inherent desire to rotate into a corner with a trailed brake demonstrates the obvious advantages of its mid-engine layout. The car’s mechanical limited-slip differential and Michelin Pilot Sport 4Ss are more than capable of letting you carry that motion through and out of the corner, confirming that even this two-wheel drive C8 is not, by default, a tyre-shredding lunatic. Sure, it doesn’t offer much in the way of steering feel, and the brakes - strong as they are - aren’t mated to the firmest of pedals. But the engine and double wishbone chassis of the C8 make for a genuinely brilliant combination.

I can only imagine what the E-Ray, with its 162hp of additional electric traction and sub-three-second 0-62 time, would be like on a damp day in Wales. Even on paper, the E-Ray emphasises just how far the C8 has strayed from the traditional 'Vette formula, and how Europe-ready it is with an EV-only Stealth Mode developed specifically to cater to EU regulations. But my drive in the Stingray confirmed there’s lots of clever fuel-saving tech even in the cross-plane V8 car, which can switch to four cylinders so effectively that I genuinely saw 25mpg on the dash during my 150-mile cruise to Crickhowell. That number quickly shrank once I opened the taps, but the proof is in the pudding. Even from the base model up, the C8 is plainly no crude, good 'ol boy.

Best of all, this step forward in overall ability hasn’t come at great expense, because you can still order a new, right-hand drive Stingray in Britain and pay several grand less than £100,000 for the privilege. The same can’t be said for the Porsche 911 Carrera. Yes, the E-Ray costs from over £153k, so it’s pricier than the T-Hybrid-powered 911 Carrera 4S, but the Porsche has over 100 fewer horses. Then there’s the Aston Martin Vantage, which has similar power and feels a cut above in terms of design and interior quality. But it costs several thousand pounds more, and yet doesn’t have an electric front axle - or a Stealth Mode. And while our plans for the E-Ray weren’t to be, driving the Stingray, even in its most basic form, was a timely reminder that the C8 Corvette isn't just an American version of a typically European recipe. It's a San Francisco pizza. And for that reason, I love it.

SPECIFICATION | CHEVROLET CORVETTE STINGRAY CONVERTIBLE (C8)

Engine: 6,162cc, V8
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 482@6,450rpm
Torque (lb ft): 452@4,500rpm
0-62mph: 3.5sec
Top speed: 184mph
Weight: 1,767kg
MPG: 23.3
CO2: 293g/km
Price: £105,890 (price as tested £110,103)

Honourable Mention | Renault 5

The Renault 5 isn’t a brilliant electric hatchback, it’s a brilliant hatchback. The fact it is battery-powered is an aside. I like it so much that after spending a week with one in summer, I’ve found myself on Renault’s configurator more than once - and that’s despite the fact I’ve driven the Alpine A290 on both road and track. The Dieppe-built hot hatch might be a step up in performance and finish, but a 220hp EV with a real-world 200-ish-mile range doesn’t have the legs for you to really enjoy it where it’s intended to be driven. Whereas a 150hp R5 with 250 miles of range has plenty to offer for life in town. It’s as fun to chuck about as it is to look at, and the ride is as comfortable as the interior is softly finished. Plus, the colours it comes in are a welcome contrast to the greys that dominate our roads. One day, I’d like to buy a used yellow one and stick it on some old Speedline Turbine alloys.