From the May 1998 issue of Car and Driver.
Okay, we know the prices of these two cars are too far apart—more than 30 grand apart—to be considered equal rivals in a comparison test. But let’s face it, these two have been fighting it out on the track for decades, and they have enough in common that they’re clearly on the same mission.
For one thing, both are high-performance sports cars that are sufficiently practical to be driven on a daily basis. That’s not something you can really say of a Lamborghini Diablo, or even a Dodge Viper. The Corvette and the Porsche 911 also share a long motorsports heritage, which in turn has allowed them to incorporate meaningful performance, handling, and durability tweaks.
From previous performance testing, we knew the two cars were right on top of each other in the numbers game. Add to that the giant tires, brakes, and high-output engines that these cars share, and it’s obvious they have a common purpose, and a common appeal.
Of course, the differences are equally profound. The Porsche is a steel monocoque car with a flat-six engine mounted in the rear, and the Corvette is a fiberglass car with a V-8 engine carried up front. But the most important differences between the two remain the vast $29,677 base-price disparity and the strong partisan support each car enjoys. That’s what makes it unlikely that they’ll be cross-shopped by the same intended buyers. Frankly, Porsche fans probably wouldn’t want to be seen dead in a Corvette, and bow-tie fans probably see the Porsche as a snob’s sports car. But despite this wide divergence of price and sentiment, we wanted to know how they compare.
Second Place: Porsche 911 Carrera
Yeah, it finished second, but let’s get this straight. The 911 is almost certainly the better car of the two in absolute terms. It enjoys a better overall perception of assembly quality and integrity. Its steering has clearer on-center feel (the Vette’s is a little vague), and its weighting is just about a perfect compromise for high-speed work. The Porsche’s engine has a broad spread of power, thanks to the VarioCam valve-timing system and variable-volume intake plumbing, and it has an exhaust note at 7000 rpm that will prickle your neck hairs faster than a werewolf’s howl at full moon.
Developing 296 horsepower, the 911 rips off 0-to-60-mph sprints from a standstill in less than five seconds and runs the quarter in only 13.5 seconds, beating the Corvette, though narrowly, in the process. It also circulates the skidpad slightly quicker, posting a neck-straining 0.93 g (the Vette scored a close 0.90 g).
In Don Schroeder’s hot little hands, the 911 lapped the tortuous Streets of Willow at California’s Willow Springs raceway some 0.9 second faster on its best lap than did the Corvette. According to his notes, the 911 feels lighter, more responsive, and more nimble on the track than the Corvette. Some of that is certainly due to a wheelbase that is 12 inches shorter and a curb weight 180 pounds less than the Vette’s, while the rest has something to do with careful chassis tuning. However, the 911 also understeers with some determination on the Streets and requires a quick off/on throttle procedure to get the tail out. But in our emergency-lane-change maneuver, the 911’s tail end did step out slightly. It was quickly subdued with a dab of steering, and the 911 was still 1 mph quicker in this test than the Corvette. It seems safe to say that given this car’s enormous grip, these are not maneuvers most owners will need to learn.
As we’d expect from a 911, the brakes are strong and fade-free, with a beautifully readable pedal. Stops from 70 mph require just 170 feet—three less than in the heavier Corvette, which also wears substantially larger tires.
As expected, the Porsche is an extreme example of a solidly built car, with controls and pedals that operate with palpable precision and no discernible slop. Its sounds and functions are sophisticated and expensive, and the only vice we noted was a clutch that reacted to the snap shifting necessary in acceleration testing with a slow reengagement. We also think that gearshifts with the new cable-shift mechanism feel deliberate rather than fluid. And until it warms up after a cold start, it’s actually quite balky.
On the road, the Porsche has a ride calibrated for high-speed work, so it’s a little firm on uneven pavement at moderate speeds. Still, it’s a good compromise, and the cabin is fairly quiet, particularly on smooth roads. However, the tires are very texture sensitive and roar quite loudly on certain coarse surfaces.
Inside the car, you’re surrounded by expensive leather and molded surfaces, but we’re not sure that the combination of gray, charcoal, and fine-crackle platinum is as timeless a design as the original 911’s is. The ergonomics are better, that’s for sure, with an interior layout as rational as in any modern car. Broad-shouldered passengers will find the seat backrests a little narrow. It’s odd not having a real glove box, but there’s plenty of stash space in the doors, and the luggage space provided by the fold-down rear seatbacks and the decent-sized front trunk compartment aren’t bad.
We prefer the combination of manual fore-and-aft seat adjustment with power recline to the system in the Corvette, which is the other way around. Drivers are more likely to want to modify their backrest position while driving at speed, so that’s the control to electrify. Although the Corvette has a longer list of equipment, the Porsche offers side airbags and rear seats, however vestigial, which are not available in the Vette. All in all, the new 911 is a worthy successor to its illustrious forebear. But it’s so much pricier than the Corvette.
First Place: Chevrolet Corvette
The fable of the hare and the tortoise makes the point that you don’t have to be fastest to win a race, and so it is here. We found the Corvette’s combination of speed, handling, and driving pleasure to be enough—at its much lower price—to put the big Yank up front at the polls.
Actually, from about 100 mph, the Corvette is in front anyway. Although we couldn’t get it to launch as hard as the Porsche, or run the quarter as quickly, its brawny 5.7-liter LS1 V-8 moves it past the Porsche at the 100-mph mark, and it keeps pulling away from there. It reaches 120 mph a half-second sooner than the 911 and 150 mph 3.6 seconds sooner.
The Corvette enjoys other advantages, too. Its optional three-position variable-damping suspension provides a softer ride on the highway than does the nonadjustable 911 undercarriage, although it does add $1695 to the cost of the Vette and has to be switched to its firmest setting for high-speed work anyway, where the car rides about the same as the Porsche. Still, you have that choice.
The seats are bigger in the Corvette and seem about as supportive, but we are annoyed by a passenger-seat backrest that flops forward during hard braking when it’s not occupied. Ironically, the Corvette’s interior design is now quite European and does not venture into the realm of questionable aesthetics like the Porsche’s does, thus scoring a hit despite cheesy touches such as the crude ashtray-cover molding.
With a lower seating position than in the Porsche, the Corvette feels quite sporting, yet it’s still fairly easy to get into and out of. The analog instruments are as tidy and easy to read but more versatile in that they adjust between English and metric units, and the Vette has a standard-equipment driver-information center.
Although the steering may not be as crisp as the 911’s, the Corvette is nonetheless a bundle of fun to drive, with loads of grip, fairly neutral handling, predictable responses, and power oversteer just about anytime you want it. It may have gotten around the Streets almost a second slower than the Porsche, but the Vette can blast onto the straight with its tail sliding wide and with the driver wearing an even wider grin.
It has more torque than the 911 and cranks out that famous V-8 thunder when wound up. You’re always aware of its size—we had to throw out some of our quickest runs in the lane change because a rear tire had run over a cone. It wasn’t because the car was sliding so badly, but because you kind of forget how broad in the beam this sucker is.
In other departments, too, the Vette isn’t as tightly laced as the Porsche. Its body-motion control isn’t as good, and the controls are a tiny bit more woolly to the touch. But only a tiny bit. And the levels of refinement in this latest-generation car—an area that would have instantly disqualified the previous Vette—are good enough to keep it in the hunt.
Sure, the Corvette is bigger than the Porsche, and it feels it. But there’s little handicap suffered because of it. Just look how close all the test figures are. Then look at the size of the trunk.
The Chevy has slower responses to the wheel, but it doesn’t push as badly as the Porsche. Its neutrality is a little offset by grip that isn’t quite as prodigious as the other car’s but is nonetheless good enough to generate lots of cornering force.
It’s also fast. So fast that the right-side window was sucked away from its seal and right past the tab intended to hold it in as we approached the Vette’s top speed of 171 mph. If you run 170 mph fairly often, this could be a problem. In the Porsche, the frameless windows retract automatically as you shut the door, then seal tight for any speed—any speed, that is, up to 169 mph. But that stuff costs money.
At the end of the day, we concluded that, yes, the Porsche has been immaculately engineered and is better able to assume the 911 mantle than we’d originally thought. But the Corvette is now a truly great sports car, and the fine nuances of quality and control that make the Porsche a better car do not, in our book, add up to more than 30 grand. As a result, the Corvette wins.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
