[VIDEO] Depreciated Sports Cars (and a Tesla) Battle to Meet a 2020 Corvette Stingray in the Finals

It’s the most wonderful time of the year; March Madness is almost upon us! In honor of the greatest annual tournament in sports, a team of vehicle testers from your author’s home state of Colorado – I even ran into them at Torchy’s Tacos Boulder location one time – The Fast Lane guys, under their “Car” banner, have set up a little multinational quarter mile-based bracket of their own!

This unique four-way battle features pure internal combustion, hybrid, and all-electric powertrains, fighters from Germany, Detroit, Silicon Valley, and the UK, and current price tags ranging from just $13,000 all the way up over $70,000. Let’s meet the competitors!

Hailing from the most British-sounding place imaginable, Warwickshire, England, is a 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage. It pairs a rowdy naturally aspirated 4.3L V8 to the test’s only six-speed manual transmission. What’s remaining of its original 380 horsepower are sent exclusively to the rear wheels, and in spite of its perfect recipe of driving joy ingredients, A-list badge, and dashing good looks, TFL picked up this 40k mile example for just $33,000.

It’s nemesis in the play-in round is a BMW i8. These less-exotic than they look Germans power all four wheels by mixing a single 1.5L turbo inline-three and multiple electric motors to make a grand total of 357 HP to go with a stout 420 lb-ft. Current price: $48,000.

The winner of race one will get the chance to square off with the California kid, a 2014 Tesla Model S 85 that has depreciated to a hard-to-believe $13,000 over 100,000-miles of use. The 85 puts 360 HP and 325 torques to the back corners by powering a single 225 kW AC induction asynchronous motor with a 60 kWh Li-NCA battery pack.

Finally, the newest, most powerful, and most expensive car in the test, a Sebring Orange 2020 Corvette Stingray Z51 with dual black racing stripes awaits the winner of the first two contests. Its mid-mounted 6.2L LT2 V8 makes 495 HP and 470 lb-ft of twist, is rear-wheel-drive, and shifts gears with a dual-clutch automatic transmission.

We won’t spoil the ‘Vette-centric parts of the video, but we feel compelled to set the stage for any of our readers who want to jump straight to the good stuff – which starts at 12:43, fyi. Ok, let’s talk race one! As much as we hoped for the glorious sounding Aston to make things interesting, it just… didn’t. The hybrid three-banger Bimmer annihilated it from start to finish, making the handsome Brit look like an unprepared 16 seed the whole time.

Race 2 isn’t that much more interesting. The battle between the hybrid and a basic depled EV – which the hosts admit should have been an AWD, dual-motor P85D – goes to the slightly newer BMW, setting up a mid-engine grudge match in the finale. Does the i8 continue its improbable run, or does the favored C8 get to cut down the net? Hit play below to find out!

From The Fast Lane Car via YouTube:

Source:
The Fast Lane Car / YouTube

Related:
[VIDEO] Racing a 1971 Corvette Against a 1964 Studebaker Challenger
[VIDEO] 2025 Corvette E-Ray Drags a 2024 Tesla Model 3 Performance
[VIDEO] U-Drags is Back with Some C8 Corvette Stingray vs BMW M2 Action!

Subscribe Now: