Five Ways the New C8 Corvette Will Be Your Best Daily Driver Yet
Though the C8 Corvette heart is now behind the cabin, the car delivers just as much comfort and utility as before.
We all know what’s coming around the bend for the Corvette. No longer will the engine be up front, as it has been for all of its life until now, but instead will reside behind the driver and passenger, as the late Zora Arkus-Duntov had intended for the remainder of his days.
Despite the dramatic transformation of America’s beloved sports car, it looks like it will be as liveable as it was before. The host of the YouTube channel Cars, Costs and Technology took a look at the five things the C8 has that will guarantee potential owners that while the more things change, the more they stay the same.
“As you saw by the title of today’s video, I want to talk to you about the five features the C8 Corvette that make it one of, if not the best sports cars on the market for daily driving use,” the host says. “This is a really important topic for me because I’ve actually daily-driven two different Corvettes in the past, and I do plan on daily driving my C8 Corvette when it arrives. I think it adds a ton of value and appeal to a car if it is practical enough and capable enough to be daily driven.”
And the first bit of practicality for the new Corvette is its ability to lift its nose above speed bumps, a feature found on cars far, far above the C8’s base price of under $60,000. As our host says, though, new owners will have to select the 2LT or 3LT trim levels to lift the nose, as those trims include the GPS functions needed to make it all work (and save up 1,000 locations where the feature is required). Once equipped, however, the nose can be lifted two inches above whatever low-lying obstacle is in the way in just 2.8 seconds so long as the car is travelling at 24 mph or below.
“For the first time, the Corvette is going to come standard with Michelin Pilot Sport 4ALS tires, or all-season tires,” the host said, “and that’s a dramatic change from the past, where they’ve always come equipped with summer-only tires.”
He says that while summer-only tires are perfect for performance, keeping everything on lock around the corners, they’re not designed to handle cooler temps or other weather issues like rain and snow. Thus, previous Corvettes were either relegated to nice driving days or their owners went out and bought all-seasons and/or winter tires, along with wheels to mount the tires upon. That said, those who opt for the C8’s new Z51 package will have to go shopping for all-seasons, as the package swaps the 4ALS shoes for the Pilot 4S summer-only meats.
“Typically, mid-engine supercars or sports cars are really a challenge for cargo space,” said the host. “Because you have the engine in the back, all you have is the front truck, or frunk, and they’re typically pretty small, limiting you to just a bag or two of cargo space.”
The new Corvette, though, can accommodate a pair of fully loaded golf bags in the back, along with a carry-on bag up front. The total cargo volume available in the C8 is 12.6 cubic feet, a bit less than the outgoing C7’s 15 cubic feet, but greater than the likes of the Mercedes-AMG GT, the Ferrari 488, and the Acura NSX, the last barely able to hold a grocery bag with just 4.4 cubic feet of space.
“The actual miles per gallon rating hasn’t been released yet for the C8 Corvette,” the host said, “but if you look at the C7 Corvette as a benchmark, since it’s using a very similar engine — it’s got the 6.2-liter, naturally aspirated, direct-injection V8 with AFM or active fuel management — that car had excellent fuel efficiency, and I think the C8 will have similar [fuel economy].”
According to our host, the previous big V8 was able to snag 25 mpg on the highway — he himself managed to get more from his C7 — thanks to the AFM’s cylinder-deactivation technology. Thus, he feels good knowing that he and other C8 owners will get plenty of miles from a single tank of gas.
“The features that they have in, say, the 2LT trim level, or even in the 1LT base model, is really incredible when you think about the price point that you’re paying for this level of performance, and this level of comfort and convenience,” the host says. “When you compare it to, say, a luxury SUV, luxury car, sedan, even a fully-loaded truck, some of these features could cost much more in something with significantly less performance.”
All in all, the C8 era of the Corvette is getting brighter all of the time. We can’t wait to finally see them hit the showrooms in the next few months.
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