QUICK SHIFTS: Long-Term C8 Corvette, C6/C7 Values, Escalade V Testing with C8 Mules, Comparison Tests, and More!

Welcome back to another exciting edition of Quick Shifts! Quick Shifts is a content feature here at CorvetteBlogger featuring links to Corvette and automotive-related stories of interest, including the arrival of Motor Trend’s long-term C8, C6, and C7 values hike while C4s lag behind their contemporaries, a first-year C2 that’s seen half of a million miles, the return of comparison tests, Bobby Unser, C4s on Motor Week, and more!

FIRST GEAR

If you are one of the thousands of people still waiting for their C8, or one of those out there who is either skeptical of the new model or who likes to wait for GM to work out the kinks inherent in clean-sheet redesigns, Motor Trend is finally kicking off a 12-month ownership experience with their 2020 Car of the Year. Be sure to follow along with the Rapid Blue adventure that should lead to plenty of outstanding content. Catch the first installment here.

Also on MT is Steve Stone of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Steve purchased a 1963 Corvette convertible when he was 18-years-old and, over the past 57-years, he’s turned over the odometer more than 584,000 times! The full story of this boy and his Corvette can be found in this Reader’s Rides column!

SECOND GEAR

It’s time for Corvette Values! If you haven’t been paying attention, prices for the most desirable C6 and C7 models are already soaring! Hagerty’s rube of an author ties this price run-up to the discontinuation of front-engine models and manual transmissions. As most used car prices are up this year because of a shortage of new inventories, we will have to keep an eye on the situation to see if he has a point or if the C6/7 is just going with the flow of the market at large. See the full breakdown on Hagerty’s new Insider website, and decide for yourself!

Hagerty also brings us some baffling news. Somehow a #2 Condition example of the NA (first-gen) Miata is now worth more than an equivalent Corvette (full story here)! While that definitely smells like a different kind of #2 to us, racer and multiple-Miata owner Jack Baruth chimed in (here) with some good reasons for this phenomenon and to sing the praises of the LT1-powered C4. Get one of these underrated gems before the rest of the market figures out how great they are to drive!

THIRD GEAR

The cornerstone of automotive journalism is back at near-full force after a rough year of quarantines, lock-downs, and massive lists of new rules. It is Comparison Test season, once again!

We will start off across the pond, where Top Gear rounded up a quartette of Super Spiders. That’s to say drop-top versions of some of Europe’s hottest metal. In this comparison, a pair of Italians (the Ferrari F8 and Lamborghini Huracan RWD) face off with the wickedly quick new 911 Turbo, and the hometown 720S. Seeing the competitors makes us even more excited for the C8 Z06 to hit the streets and start mixing it up with these thoroughbreds; we like its chances!

One of the hottest fashions in the automotive industry of late is to take a non-coupe vehicle and throw a coupe-aping fastback roofline at it. Stateside, Car and Driver rounded up three premium, German super sedans that implement this design trick. The AMG GT63 S, RS7, and M8 Gran Coupe aren’t cheap, ranging in price from about $140,000, all the way up to $200k, but they back up their sticker prices by packing a wallop! The slowest of the three hits 60 in 3-seconds flat, while the quickest of the triad gets there in a C8-shaming 2.6 seconds. Not bad for a 4,600 lb. luxobardge with room for four! See which is best with the official test here.

Back to where this column started, Motor Trend did an interesting print version of their Head2Head show. The belligerents of the battle are “the best sports car BMW has built-in decades, if not ever,” the M2 CS and our old nemesis, the Cayman GT4. The interesting piece here is that they brought along manual and automatic versions of both cars. We don’t want to spoil the end result, but, just like the first comparison, this one has us thinking that buyers could do better for a lot less money by just visiting one of the 3,000 Chevrolet dealers in the US. At Willow Springs (Streets of Willow), the 414 HP, $127,000 Porsche defeated the 444 HP, $97,000 Bimmer by 2.32 seconds. The times were both impressive at 1:19.4 and 1:21.72. The problem is that with the same driver (Randy Pobst) at the wheel, a lowly Camaro SS 1LE splits the difference with a 1:20.67 (on street tires) for only $45,695. Its big brother and its LT4 and extreme aero can turn all three into tiny specs in its rearview mirror for $73,395. Finally, we have the 86ish thousand-dollar mid-engine C8 that hasn’t been to Willow Springs yet, but it outlapped the GT4 by 1.3 seconds at Lightning Lap (also on street tires) and also rides better than anything else that’s been mentioned in this entire column. So, in summary, regardless of transmission choice, you could get one front-engine German, and one mid-engine German for $223,665, or you could get one naturally aspirated Camaro track rat with a manual transmission, one even more hard-core manual transmission Camaro, AND one mid-engine cross-country missile of a Corvette for $205,090. We would say that is a definitive W for team America!

Finally, a throwback from C&D. The cars have gotten so much better than we could have ever imagined in the days when a 143-HP Toyota Cressida that takes 8.7 seconds to surpass 60 MPH was somehow the quickest member of this EIGHT(!)-way comparison test of “sports” sedans! I challenge you to find any writing as entertaining as this nugget from national treasure Brock Yates. “Protein for the people!” Classic!

FOURTH GEAR

While we are on the topic of national treasures, the great Bobby Unser passed away this week at the age of 87. Unser’s most notable accomplishments were his three checkered flags at the Indianapolis 500 (’68, ’75, ’81), but even more impressive are his unrivaled 13 overall wins at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, in his hometown of Colorado Springs. In a tribute to a champion, Road & Track rustled up footage from one of Unser’s most memorable win at Pikes Peak. In 1986, seventeen years after his last overall win at the 12.42-mile, 156-turn Hillclimb, he came out of retirement to attack the mountain in an Audi Quattro. The result was an emphatic win that broke the all-time E.T. record at Pikes Peak and put him atop the all-time wins list, finally passing his uncle, Louis. Bobby is survived by his son, Robby, who won four of the six PPIHC’s following his father’s incredible run in 1986.

FIFTH GEAR

In this edition of QS, we are going to dedicate fifth to cool industry news and random stories of interest. It is like its own mini-episode of Quick Shifts!

It looks like Cadillac is about to surpass Chevrolet as the company that offers/offered the Supercharged LT4 in the most vehicles. While everyone (including us) was falling over themselves to catch a glimpse of some camouflaged C8s last week, an Escalade shrouded in mystery was spotted with the convoy. Autoblog.com has the pictures of this supposed hi-po Escalade that will allegedly let the LT4 send its power to more than two wheels for the first time and join the last-gen CTS-V and upcoming CT5-V Blackwing in the LT4 Caddy Club. If GM is indeed cooking up a full-size competitor to the Mercedes-AMG GLS 63, then we have to say, “what took so long?” This thing is going to print money that its parent company will use to phase out everything of its kind!

Speaking of “63”-badged AMGs, Hagerty’s Eric Weiner recently got to spend some time with the most desirable of the breed, the E 63 S Wagon, which is a sure-fire way to be included on my weekly reading list!

A good deal of new truck “innovations” since the turn of the century (think, Ford’s “Man Step“) have been real eye-rollers. The Blue Oval may have hatched a brilliant idea for 2021, though. The new M4 of half-tons (ugly face, blown 6-cylinder) just got one of the coolest features for the 8% of its buyers that actually use their trucks for work. It’s an onboard scale that allows an F-150 to weigh itself. This thing can tell you how much weight it is hauling in its bed, on its hitch, and even account for passengers in its overall load (careful with this feature if you have the wife onboard!). See Motor Trend’s full write-up on the new tech; it is pretty dang neat!

It’s already been pretty well established that your humble author isn’t just fanatical about cars and the automotive industry; I also carry substantial respect and fanhood for vehicular journalism. I cherish my favorite writers is like most people do their preferred singers and bands. I’ve been following most of them since I was a little kid in the ‘90s, and now, friend of the site, Don Sherman (who was even mentioned in the Yates piece in third gear), has pulled back the curtain on the first century of testing cars. It is fascinating stuff that we often take for granted!

SIXTH GEAR

Croatian purveyor of electric hypercars, Rimac, is putting the finishing touches on its sophomore effort as we speak. Creatively named the C_Two, Rimac Automobili’s second car is about to make even the quickest cars on the market look slow! EVO brings us footage of company founder Mate Rimac running acceleration tests on the upcoming super-EV. It is hard to even fathom, but the C_Two crosses the 1,320-foot mark in 8.94 seconds at 156 MPH! As the UK motoring mag points out, that is nearly half of a second quicker than even the mighty Bugatti Chiron! See it all for yourself at evo.co.uk.

As impressive as that is, though, Ferrari easily upstaged the upstart EV-makers on my “I want that car so bad” list with their reveal of the 812 Competizione and even more seductive 812 Competizione A this week. Starting with the already breathtaking 812 Superfast, Ferrari cut weight and added 30 horses for a total of 819 from a free-breathing 6.5L (it actually displaces exactly 396 cubic inches!) V12! In an experience that is impossible to duplicate with batteries and electric motors, this thing howls all the way to 9,500 RPM and allows drivers to interact with seven forward gears! (And, yes, it deserves each and every one of these exclamation marks!)

The best part of the Competizione is that it already has an online configurator! I went with Bianco Avus, Carbon Wheels with no yellow detail, yellow calipers, no racing stripe, and then struggled through the interiors. The Blu Medio is really nice, and Bordeaux almost made me start the whole build over again with matching Rosso Mugello paint, but ended up sticking with white outside and went with the Cuoio (we’d call it Natural) color for the insides! When you are done building a Ferrari, you get your very own QR Code; here’s mine:

The Corvette configurator should steal this feature ASAP and upgrade to Ferrari-level graphics while it’s at it! The bad news is this; even if you have the dough and are as enthusiastic about this car as I am, you still can’t get one unless you already have an extensive collection of Ferraris and a good relationship with a dealer. You’ll have to wait for a second-hand example, and if it is anything like its F12tdf predecessor, it’ll become a million-dollar car almost immediately, but hey, that’s still a lot better deal than the even lower-production Rimac!

REVERSE:

We are going to close this week with a quadrupole dose of C4 Retro Reviews from Motor Week (don’t worry, they are short and quite binge-worthy!). First up is a 1989 Corvette L98 Coupe. Next, we will are going to let John Davis take it up a notch or two with individual reviews of a pair of legends; the 1990 ZR-1 and the ‘93 Callaway SuperNatural. Finally, we will send you into your weekend with the granddaddy of ‘em all; Callaway Twin-Turbo vs. ZR-1; enjoy!

PREVIOUS QUICK SHIFTS
C8 Reviews, 1960 Corvette at Le Mans, Porsche Takes a Page from the C4 Corvette, and More!
C8 Lightning Lap, Blackwings and Raptor Revealed, Three-Car Garage Game, Guarding the Gates, and More!
C8 Corvette Rated, Caddy’s Blackwings, BMW M5 CS, Wagon Wars, SSC Tuatara’s Top Speed Run, and More