wookie@sri-unix (12/08/82)
I am asked this question over and over and thought I might get some other peoples opinions as to whether a Corvette is really what people reguard as a "sports car". In my own experience with Corvettes which is only on the racetrack and not through owning one I would have to say that they do not measure up to my expectations of a sports car. A sports car should have fantastic handling, a good measure of power, seat two people, and be small and agile. The Vette is Americas answer to any car situation; TOO big and heavy. It has (had) lots of power and seats two people true but when it comes to handling it is just to big and heavy to cut it. On the racetrack I find that the Vettes with the 350 engine and fully race prepared suspension and steering can easily power away from my little Sunbeam Tiger with 289 on the straights but when we get into the corners I can get all over them and the damn things get in my way. This requires cutting inside them on the turns since they will push to the edge of the track but then when we get back to the straight they blow past me in typical quarter mile American drag style. The Sunbeam by the way even when race prepared is not Gods gift to the handling world due to the screwy positioning of the rack and pinion. I have to live with this under production rules for the car. The Vette on the other hand runs in a more open class and so many more modifications may be made to improve the car. Enough of my ramblings. How about yours. If there is enough interest I'll post the results! Keep looking for that new Pontiac P car "Fiero" it sounds great (but can they make it great?). Keith Bauer White Tiger Racing Bell Labs Murray Hill
rs55611@sri-unix (12/17/82)
In regard to the question of the Corvette's sports car nature: Road and Track magazine has had a history of not liking Corvettes too much. The thing that always bothered me about this is that the specs of the car were always tremendous in R&T's road tests, but there overall summary opinion was always worse.(Oops, I meant "their", not "there") For example, in R&T's test of a '77 Vette, the 0-60 time was the fastest that they had seen in that year, except for the Porsche Turbo (930), the slalom speed was the fastest of all cars tested, including a Ferrari and the same Porsche, and the g-force rating (lateral) was very high as well. The summary at the end of the article, however, said that the handling didn't "feel" quite as nice as on other cars, and that the great handling test numbers were due to an unfair advantage that the Corvette had, in that it came with 60-series tires standard. (As if Ferraris and Porsches don't have wide tires.) I'm waiting to see how R&T rates the new '83, which should have handling numbers way up in the stratosphere. Maybe R&T is losing their bias (which had applied to American cars in general), as they have been rating a number of American cars well, lately. Bob Schleicher, ihuxk!rs55611 (also a proud Vette owner, of a '59)