Big horsepower corvette? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Paul, the evolution of the corvette is interesting. The first one I ever drove was a '53. How many remember the first two years? Six cylinder inline engine, 3 carburetors, powerglide transmission. A friend had one in '58; fun to drive but sluggish starting. In a drag race, I could easily run off and leave him in my '56 Mercury. The corvette could almost not even burn rubber from a standing start. From a 50 mph even start, I could easily pull out ahead of him; somewhere above 100 mph, he'd catch up, then the Merc would top out just over 120 mph and the corvette would still be winding up and leaving me behind. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Another buddy had a '60 model, big V-8, two 4 bbl. carbs, 4 speed manual, solid lifters and later traded it for one of the first Stingrays in '63. Both were fun to drive.
Like you said, a lot of power and acceleration, but couldn't compete with the European cars on the turns. The Dallas Sports Car club and the Oak Cliff Sports Car club used to have Gymkhanas on big parking lots on Sundays. They divided the classes by engine displacement size, but the largest class included things like Austin Healy, Jaguar, and some others as well as the corvettes, so a corvette could never win. Then when the Dallas Corvette club had their Gymkhanas, they divided the classes by displacement size, but their largest class was only corvettes so at least one corvette would win one race. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif A local Chevrolet dealer's son raced corvettes and occasionally won a race. He could easily outrun the Masseratis and Ferraris on the straight-a-ways, but they'd pass him in the turns. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
I don't know a thing about the newer ones or how they handle, but yesterday the newspaper had a short story about a 54 year old man who blasted off from a stop sign in his corvette, lost control, hit a Suburban, and killed himself. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Don't really know, but figure it was probably inexperience at handling a powerful car rather than any handling problem with the machine.