[VIDEO] Jay Leno and Donald Osborne On Why this 1981 Corvette is the Smarter Buy Over a Ferrari 355 F1

Putting a 1981 Corvette up against a Ferrari might not seem like much of a fair fight.

Jay Leno would agree.

But when the former Tonight Show host recently compared two beautiful black cars – a 1981 Corvette with a 1997 Ferrari F355 F1 Berlinetta – on Jay Leno’s Garage Assess and Caress, he found plenty to appreciate about the aging C3 Corvette — particularly its affordability, simplicity and ability to deliver sports-car fun without emptying your bank account.

The two cars, both from the Audrain Automotive Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, were featured under the theme of “two-seat motoring, high and low.”

The Ferrari represented the high end, of course.

Leno admitted he thought pairing the 1981 Corvette against a Ferrari built nearly two decades later was a little unfair.

“There’s so much better Corvettes than the ’81,” he said.

With just 190 horsepower from its V8, the ’81 came from an era when emissions regulations and other restrictions had taken much of the muscle out of American performance cars.

But Leno and Audrain CEO Donald Osborne pointed out that Corvette engineers did what they could to compensate.

They looked for ways to shed weight, using components such as a fiberglass rear leaf spring, magnesium valve covers and lightweight exhaust pieces.

Leno contrasted that era with today’s Corvette, saying he would put the C8 against virtually any car in the world regardless of price.

The ’81 couldn’t make that claim.

Still, Leno said it offered something that has always been an important part of Corvette ownership — usability.

“Corvette owners drive across the country in their cars,” Osborne added. “They drive to meets. They drive on vacation. They’re always cars that were meant to be driven.”

Leno agreed, noting that every Corvette he has driven has been comfortable enough to spend hours behind the wheel.

Then there is the matter of keeping one on the road.

Need a water pump for the Ferrari? Leno joked that you might need a second mortgage.

Need one for the Corvette?

Walk into an auto parts store, ask for a small-block Chevy water pump and you’re likely back in business for relatively little money.

“You can do all the work yourself,” Leno said of the Corvette.

That affordability became even more obvious when the discussion turned to values.

According to figures used on the show, a comparable 1981 Corvette worth about $20,000 five years ago would bring roughly $27,000 today.

The Ferrari, meanwhile, jumped from about $95,000 to $175,000 during the same period.

So the Ferrari easily won the show’s “appreciation sweepstakes.”

But Leno still picked the Corvette as the better bargain.

“To me, buying a car that’s old for $175,000 is much more of a risk than buying this for $27,000,” he said. “This, okay, you can afford to fix it if it breaks and it’s not a problem.”

He went even further, calling the Corvette “the better bargain and more fun.”

That’s particularly significant considering how much Leno enjoyed the Ferrari.

The 375-horsepower F355 featured an early F1-style paddle-shift transmission, technology derived from Ferrari’s Formula 1 program. Although historically significant, Leno wasn’t particularly impressed by the first-generation system once he got behind the wheel.

He loved the Ferrari’s chassis, handling and sound but said he would prefer one with Ferrari’s traditional gated manual shifter.

There was no argument that the Ferrari was the more exotic machine — or that it had appreciated far more.

But that wasn’t necessarily the point.

Near the end of the discussion, Osborne estimated that the much cheaper Corvette could deliver perhaps 80 percent of the enjoyment of the Ferrari on the road.

That’s not bad for a Corvette from an era remembered more for declining horsepower than outright performance.

The Ferrari may have won the investment contest.

But for Leno, the old C3 made a pretty convincing case for winning the bang-for-the-buck battle.

Source:
Jay Leno’s Garage / YouTube.com

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