Twin-Turbo C8 Launches So Hard It Leaves Parts Behind
Fueltech’s 1,350 HP C8 Corvette runs a crazy-quick eighth-mile, but not without some carnage in between.
By now, most are familiar with Fueltech’s twin-turbo C8 Corvette, which has served as that company’s R&D vehicle since the eighth-generation model launched back in 2019 for the 2020 model year. Fueltech managed to turbocharge the car and give it a piggyback ECU pretty early on, and has been hard at work making it better (and faster) over the past couple of years. Currently, that means this wicked machine churns out 1,350 horsepower and runs 8.97 at 161 mph in the quarter. Recently, Rob Dahm from Top Gear met up with Fueltech’s Anderson Dick to check it out, and the results were quite impressive, if not entirely what he might have expected.
Dahm routinely jots around the U.S. as part of Top Gear‘s web series American Tuned, which explores the craziest machines this country has to offer. A 1,350 horsepower twin-turbo C8 Corvette certainly meets those criteria, but in this case, the crew scopes it out at an eighth-mile strip to take a joy ride and see what it’s all about. After a short lesson on how to launch the car, Dick and Dahm get to work trying to extract the best possible e.t. from the red rocket.
Unfortunately, things don’t go entirely to plan as the C8 launches incredibly hard on the first attempt and leaves the passenger side rear wheel well liner sitting behind it on the track. It seems as if the car’s giant rear slicks rubbed on the liner when it launched, ripping it and the transmission control unit clean off and leaving the car stuck in first gear. It’s nothing terribly difficult to fix, however, and the crew soon has it ready for another pass or two.
After a test run with Dick behind the wheel, Dahm hops on that side to see if he can extract a solid run out of the wicked powerful Corvette. The results are undoubtedly impressive, as he manages to rip off a 6.567-second pass at 114 mph with ease. Dahm notes that the car is incredibly easy to drive as well – holding the brake and gas and then letting off the brake and allowing the Corvette to do its thing. So long as it doesn’t rip random parts off of itself and leave them on the track, that is.
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