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2008 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible - Driving Impressions 

The Corvette is special from the moment you open the door. The new keyless entry means you keep the fancy fob in your pocket; just grab the little rubber pad behind the door and pull. Sit down (and we mean down) into the comfortable but flimsy-feeling seat, grab the meaty wheel with one hand and push the start button. The Corvette roars to life and quickly settles into a comfortable burble at idle. Loping there, the Corvette has just a hint of engine shake, reminding you that there’s a living, breathing monster under the hood.

Reach up, unhook the top latch, give it a quick push and then reach behind the wheel to press the button that drops the top. It takes a mere 20 seconds, letting in the sunshine and eliminating the top’s thick pillars. It also lets in more of that deep, barrel-chested idle rumble.

Slipping the Corvette into drive lurches the car just a little, but it’s sweet and smooth in traffic. Seriously, your grandmother could drive this car (as long as she could see over the doors and dash) and not be intimidated by it. The transmission shifts smoothly, the engine is quiet, and even the ride is comfortable. Take it up on the freeway with the top down and your hair will get mussed, but not too badly. With the windows up there’s a calm pocket of air in the Corvette that lets the heater keep things comfortable, even when temperatures drop into the 50s. All in all, a pleasant car for a leisurely Saturday afternoon cruise.

Then you floor it, and all hell breaks loose.

The transmission – which had been letting the engine turn about 1,500 rpm in sixth on the freeway – suddenly drops three gears. The engine roars to redline, you’re pinned in your seat, and the numbers on the digital head-up display cast on the windshield begin cycling up by fives and tens. Suddenly a “1” appears before the numbers – you’re into triple digits – and only your good sense and absolute fear of getting thrown in jail for excessive speed get your foot off the gas. The power available in the standard Corvette is astounding, enough to make you wonder who drove it and decided that 505 horsepower and 620-plus horsepower versions were needed.

But the Corvette is far from a straight-line specialist. The suspension is taut in corners, and if you hit bumps the car skids disconcertingly, but the grip from the big Goodyear tires is tremendous, and the low stance makes it easy to toss the Corvette back and forth on a twisty road. The new steering mechanism makes you feel much more connected to the car than ever before. It’s still not as accurate or effortless as a Porsche, but it’s a far cry from where it once was and makes the Vette easier to drive even faster. The car’s stability control has three modes. The standard mode keeps everything on, giving you enough slide to kick the tail out a bit, but reigning you in before you get in trouble. Shut off traction control and you get more room to play, but the car won’t try to save you if you get in over your head. Then there’s the Competitive Driving mode, which leaves on the car’s Active Handling – a high-performance version of stability control – but shuts off traction control for those times you want to do big nasty wheel-smoking burnouts. Or, y’know, slide the rear end a little more.

Since we didn’t have a chance to evaluate our test car on a track, we left the traction control on during our evaluation, and found it unobtrusive and, frankly, a welcome leash on our activities. Not that the Corvette is hard to drive fast; quite the opposite is true, and its deceptively benign nature makes it easy to get in over your head. In other words, dump the whole gold-chain and trophy-wife image of this car: Even with an automatic transmission it’s a serious performance machine, one that rewards good drivers and gladly punishes the stupid ones.