NEW CARS ISSUE
SEPTEMBER 2013
2014
CORVETTE
TONY STEWART TESTED
UNCENSORED TRUTH
FROM AMERICA’S
HARDEST-DRIVING
LOUDMOUTH
RUNS ON
NILLA WAFERS
MADE IN
INDIANA
RACES 115
DAYS A YEAR
460 HP
MADE IN
KENTUCKY
0-60 MPH IN
3.8 SECONDS
SPECIAL ISSUE
OVER 50 NEW MODELS
BMW’S M SEDAN
FUTURE TECH
FORD MUSTANG
HOT HATCHBACKS
ROADSTERS
NEW SCION VS.
USED PORSCHE
TECH TO IMPROVE
YOUR DRIVING
BEST WAYS TO
WATCH RACING
ROADANDTRACK.COM
PROUD
S
N
A
C
I
R
AME
WE HIT GM'S
SUPERSECR
E T,
MEGADANGE
ROUS TEST
T
R
ACK
WITH THE 2
014 CORVET
TE AS
DRIVEN BY T
ONY STEWA
R T.
ONE'S MARV
E L O U S LY R E
FINED.
ONE'S GLOR
I O U S LY N O T
.
BY L ARRY WEBSTER
PHOTOGR APHED BY JOSH SCOT T
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“WHAT’S
A GOOD
TIME
AROUND
HERE?”
asks Tony Stewart, a crooked smile on his face.
The assorted handlers, GM engineers, and tracksafety officials all go weird. Who said anything
about lap times?
Stewart’s job today is simply to help us suss
out the all-new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette. Any
new Vette is a special occasion, but when this one
debuted in January, we got the feeling that the
Corvette was finally a no-excuses sports car. No
more, “Sure, the 911 feels better, but the Chevy
crushes it for twenty grand less.” No more, “God,
those seats suck.” America’s sports car is ready to
be judged. And who better to do that than a guy
who not only lacks a brain-to-mouth filter, but is
also America’s greatest active racing driver?
The “here” in this equation is GM’s nutty,
custom-built road course at its massive provingground complex in Milford, Michigan. The
track—which goes by the lame name of MRC,
for Milford Road Course—is legitimately insane.
ABOVE: TONY
STEWART AND THE
2014 CORVETTE.
NICE AND FRIENDLY,
BOTH. WITH
TEMPERS.
Sweeping, hairy-fast corners; blind crests; Armco
inches from the driving surface and almost no
runoff. Shoved through the General Motors bureaucracy by former exec (and R&T columnist)
Bob Lutz in 2003, MRC is so outrageous that
only 35 of GM’s 200,000 employees are allowed
to drive it flat-out. Those so-called Level 3 drivers
prove their mettle by posting a lap time within
one percent of the company hotshoe, Corvette
engineer Jim Mero. It works out to roughly one
minute and 58 seconds.
Stewart, after just five laps on America’s Nürburgring, wants to know where he stands.
arrives
at MRC. He’s wearing the NASCAR off-duty
CUT BACK AN HOUR. STEWART
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uniform: blue jeans, running shoes, a black team
shirt with sponsor embroidery, wraparound
Oakleys. Other than the touch of gray at his temples, there’s no outward clue that he’s 42 years
old. He’s undoubtedly a star to the assembled
crowd, and his warmth seems genuine. But you
can tell from the way he keeps turning his head
toward the Vette that he’s struck by it.
The singular car parked trackside wears a
deep emerald-green paint job. The hue is called
Lime Rock Green, a version of British Racing
Green that’s been infused with a carpet of fatflake metallic. It’s pretty but oddly subdued,
even on this big-sky day, until you see it through
polarized glasses, at which point it positively explodes. The new body, composed of carbon fiber
and various types of plastic, looks even better up
close, the angular mashup switching to a mass
of one or two great lines. Stewart runs his hand
along the car’s shoulder, stopping at the grille
over the left-rear tire.
“That feeds air to the transmission cooler,”
says Tadge Juechter, the Corvette’s chief engineer. Like Stewart, Juechter is no wallflower. A
GM lifer, he started his career as a co-op in the
raucous Lordstown assembly plant and made
his way to the Corvette team in 1993. As Juechter
explains the Vette’s technical details—the new
stiffer aluminum frame, the electrically assisted
steering, the two sole parts that are carried over
from the sixth-gen car (cabin air filter and a roof
latch)—his obsession is obvious. There’s nothing
about the Corvette that this man doesn’t know
intimately. Stewart smiles and nods.
The pair split and get in the car, Stewart falling into the driver’s seat. The interior is great, finally, a sea of aluminum, nappa leather, and rich
screens. It actually feels like it’s worth something
and not an afterthought. I kneel on the hot pavement next to the driver’s door just in time to hear
Stewart say, “Mine’s going to be black.”
“So you’re going to get one?” Juechter asks.
“Already ordered. Actually three, one for me,
and two more for a couple of guys who work for
me. It’s only the second car I bought brand new.”
“What options?” I interject.
“All of them. Duh.”
Sitting here, jawing about cars, it’s all too easy
to think Stewart is just another car guy. He’s not.
He’s now a mogul. In addition to being part owner of his NASCAR team, Stewart-Haas Racing,
he owns USAC and World of Outlaws teams, a
motorsports-PR firm, and a radio-controlled-car
company. He has a penchant for saving ancient
dirt tracks and owns Ohio’s legendary half-mile
Eldora Speedway, as well as a part interest in
both Macon Speedway and Paducah International Raceway. And when you work for Stewart—or I should say, work hard for Stewart—you
might just get a Corvette. He’s that kind of guy.
It’s also easy to forget that Stewart is one of
the most interesting characters in motorsport.
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39
“I CAN GET THE
THING TURNED
AND ADJUST
THE ATTITUDE
WITH MY FEET,
WITH THE
BRAKE AND
THROTTLE. I’VE
NEVER DRIVEN
A STREET
CAR LIKE THAT.”
It’s 2.9 miles, never flat, and pitches the car violently at every turn. If MRC was a throwback, grandfathered
circuit from the old days, we’d be amazed that it wasn’t bulldozed. It’s still unbelievable that GM built it in
the past decade, a rare moment of reason trumping caution. The fact is, this track highlights a car’s
handling flaws. I rode in the Vette while Tony Stewart flung it around, then drove a few laps a week later.
What follows is a combination of my impressions and more of what it’s like to ride with greatness. —LW
THE MILFORD
ROAD COURSE
1
6
1
2
5
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3
ANOTHER YUMP
Rear tires spin when we catch air.
4
TURN SEVEN The only basic curve. Love, love, love the Vette’s
handling balance. Slightly lift the throttle and the tail gently
drifts out, tightening the line. Stewart sets the car with the
steering wheel, then fine-tunes with the pedals.
3
RIGHT: STEWART
AND CORVETTE
CHIEF ENGINEER
TADGE JUECHTER.
SMALL TRUNK
VENTS (CIRCLED)
EXHAUST AIR WHEN
DECKLID SHUTS.
4
7
5
TURN SEVEN EXIT Naturally, there’s a crest where you
don’t want it. In the car with Stewart, we’re drifting up the hill
wayyy too fast. I’m panicked. He’s stone-faced. We glide to the
edge and just kiss the curb. The throttle’s always pinned.
BARELY TWO TURNS INTO STEWART’S
first lap on a gnarly track he’s never seen, and I
can hear tires howling from the pits. (Milford
is so crammed with hills that you can rarely see
more than one corner at a time.) A minute later,
the Corvette rips by, its V-8 at full honk. So much
for a reconnaissance lap. Early in his career,
Stewart was nicknamed “Smoke” for ruthlessly
punishing his tires. And because he appears to
be genetically incapable of taking it easy.
Two laps later, he pits, a mile-wide grin on his
face. “Did you hear me go through the grass over
there?” Everyone nods. I climb in the passenger
seat. (See sidebar: R&T’s turn to drive the car,
albeit mostly at Milford, will come a week later.)
Stewart immediately floors it and we plunge
down the hill to the first corner. Rounding this
tightening left-hander, Stewart’s already sliding the car, which feels taut, more stiffly sprung
than the Corvette it replaces. And praise the
Lord, Juechter and crew have finally given the car
proper, rigid seats. The side bolsters hold me in
place well enough that I attempt to scrawl notes.
These musings will later prove unreadable save
one word: aggressive.
MRC’s first section contains a pair of thirdgear hills with apexes at each crest. These rises
are so steep that you don’t see where the track
goes until the summit. I’ve been around MRC
enough to know the layout, so I realize—before
Stewart—that he’s going too fast as we charge up
the first hill. I can’t help shoving my feet to the
firewall, hoping for an invisible brake pedal.
We drift to the right, heading straight for the
knee-high grass that lines the asphalt. He hasn’t
lifted. Just when my back starts to tense up, he
THE BOWL Banked so steeply you have to crawl up it.
Stewart doesn’t even tap the brakes. Getting through is downright violent. GM engineer Alex MacDonald: “You know a good
calibration engineer because they grab their laptop screen—to
keep it from slamming shut—without even looking up.”
2
He once traveled with a monkey. He steals every
interview he’s in and once referred to Kurt Busch
as the yappy guy in high school who deserves a
regular wailing. Unlike most NASCAR drivers,
he seems to operate outside the mind-numbing
sameness that permeates the sport. And he’s a
regular in NASCAR’s off-track brawlfest, most
recently with 23-year-old Joey Logano, who
blocked him in a race at Auto Club Speedway.
(Stewart, when asked why he was angry: “Dumb
little sumbitch runs us clear down into the infield. He wants to talk shit about everybody else,
and he’s the one driving like a little prick. I’m
gonna bust his ass.”)
As much as we admire Stewart’s honesty and
refusal to toe the line, those antics can mask the
real reason we love the guy: He’s a wheelman.
He’s won three NASCAR championships, one
in IndyCar, many more in lower feeder series,
and on this day, he’s just off a win at Dover. In
2007, he traded cars with McLaren F1 driver
Lewis Hamilton at Watkins Glen, in the rain.
The video is telling, and that’s all you really
need to know.
If his performance and character weren’t
enough to declare Stewart a kind of latter-day
A. J. Foyt, there’s also this: He’ll race 115 times
this year alone, and most of the time you’ll never hear about it. In addition to a year’s worth
of NASCAR races—38 events over the longest
season in professional sports—he’ll more than
double his track time in winged sprint cars and
modifieds on small dirt and asphalt ovals.
This is no grab for attention: He enters lesserknown events under a pseudonym to avoid the
circus. The guy’s addicted. Ask him why he
wants to drive so much, and he shrugs, as if to
say, “That’s a stupid question. I can race. I do.
Who wouldn’t?”
Back in the car, Juechter’s still talking. Stewart
listens politely, but you can tell he’s getting itchy.
TURN ONE Madness begins at 135 mph. Stewart deftly
brakes all the way down to the apex, then guns it. While the
Vette’s binders offer good feel, I end up over-braking and coasting. Good thing my job’s not hinged on speed.
6
TURN NINE Fast, with waves in the pavement. The old Vette
bounded here, threatening to beeline for the guardrail. New one’s
so stable I accelerate through one-handed. Massive, staggering
improvement.
7
TURN 10/KINK
Only the brave keep it pinned.
8
TURN 12 Easy to over-drive. Stewart rides the brake to pendulum the rear around the apex. Looks easy. Vette has a rev-matching feature that automatically blips the throttle for downshifts.
I’m proud of my heel-and-toe skill but grow to dig the assist.
9
8
9
THE BIG STRAIGHT Acceleration never seems to dim, even up
this hill in fourth.
jumps off the throttle for a millisecond before
getting back on it. Damn this guy. The car just
brushes the tall grass. Maybe a second or two later, we dive into a steeply banked left-hand bowl,
a Talladega-esque oval, but one small enough to
be stuffed into your living room. Thanks to the
traction-enhancing effects of the banking, the
car generates over 2 g’s in this turn, which means
my head effectively doubles in weight. I can’t
keep my helmet from banging the window, but I
can’t stop giggling, either.
A lap or so later, Stewart’s hit a groove. He
doesn’t just drive aggressively, but decisively. In
some of the longer corners, where the car is cutting a broad, fast arc, his style is what I’ve come
to call the American way of driving. The Europeans constantly jiggle the wheel, cranking in
more steering to get the required yaw and then
quickly correcting. These are small movements,
maybe 10 degrees each, but the drivers stay busy.
Stewart, by contrast, turns in and holds the
wheel in one place. The car still dances around,
but I can’t see him doing anything to cause it. I
yell a few questions, but Stewart waves his hand.
“After 35 years of racing, I can’t hear a thing.”
We pull into the pits. Stewart stays in the car,
and a small crowd forms by the driver’s door. Everyone waits for him to break the tension.
“God, I love this thing!”
The air, somehow removed from the scene,
comes roaring back.
“How’d it feel?” someone asks.
“I can get the thing turned and adjust the attitude with my feet, the brake and throttle. That’s
amazing. I’ve never driven a street car like that.
“I like that as soon as I picked up some understeer, I could feel it through the steering wheel.
Hydraulic steering [might] bring more feeling
into it, but this system is much better than I
anticipated.”
We go out for another few laps. He’s smoother
now, more sure of the line, and we’re sliding a lot
less. When the tail steps out, Stewart holds there,
not rushing any correction. “I like cars that are
freer than most,” he says.
I’m usually a terrified passenger, but I find myself enjoying the ride. There’s something about
Stewart’s style that makes it obvious he has everything handled. We pull in.
Climbing out, Stewart jokes, “Here’s what pisses me off. I’m over here workin’, and he’s writin’
stuff down! Like, maybe I need a new day job.”
And then he asks, almost absentmindedly,
“Did you get a lap time?”
We don’t even
have a stopwatch. Alex MacDonald, a Corvette
engineer, suggests we use our phones. The track
is reopened. The Vette’s stability control, formerly
on (“The car’s like, ‘I got this . . .’ ”), is shut off.
NO ONE GOT A LAP TIME.
His first lap is a 2:00.7. “We take two days to
get down to the target time,” says MacDonald,
one of GM’s top guns. “He’s had, what, six laps?”
Stewart does one more and comes in. His best
time is two minutes flat. We debate who’s going
to break the news.
“Do I get my license? Did I make the cut?”
MacDonald hedges. “We haven’t tested this
particular car, but we think you’d need about a
one-minute, 58-second lap. You did two flat.”
“So I need two seconds?”
He shrugs and gazes back at the track. We
all want him to go out again, but our time is up.
He’ll race in Pennsylvania and Indiana in the
next three days and then hit the NASCAR race
that follows. Yet he’s apparently willing to add
another duty.
“Any time you have somebody call in sick and
I’m anywhere in the continental United States,
call me. I’ll be right over.”
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41
THE OILY BITS
1 WHEELBASE: Stretched nearly an
inch, but greater max steering angle
helps shrink turning circle two feet.
2 FRAME: Now aluminum, 100 pounds
lighter, gobs stiffer.
3 CENTER TUNNEL: Deeper than
before to increase structural stiffness. Now houses the 2.75-inch dual
exhaust pipes. Tunnel is lined with
Aerogel, an insulator used by NASA.
Interior trim gets warm, but not hot,
unlike old car.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
4 TRANSAXLE: Seven-speed manual
is the best-shifting ’box the Vette’s
ever had. Clutch is buttery and a delight to operate. Optional computercontrolled differential is a wonder; it
clamps and relaxes continuously to
aid handling balance. Every driveline
fluid is cooled, standard.
2
5 TIRES: New, custom-designed
Michelins are as grippy as race tires
of a decade ago. The computer estimates tire temperatures (cold tires
have less traction) to maximize ABS
and stability-control effectiveness.
3
1
6 SUSPENSION: Frame mounts are
five times stiffer. Optional magnetorheological shock technology pioneered on a Cadillac and now used
by Ferrari and Audi strikes really
nice balance of control and comfort.
7 SEATS: Made by Lear. Power adjustment is standard. Magnesium frame
feels solid. Optional sport seats will
offer even more support. Consider
the seat issue solved.
8 BODY: Carbon-fiber hood and roof.
Otherwise composite plastic with
panel gaps 30 percent smaller than
those of previous car.
4
9 STEERING: Electric assist. Adjustable effort and variable ratio. Not
as communicative as, say, a Lotus
Elise’s, but trumps the old car’s.
5
10 BRAKES: Fixed four-piston calipers.
Slotted rotors on high-performance
Z51 package. Cooling ducts front
and rear.
11 EXHAUST: Four sewer-pipe-sized
rear tips. Optional valves make it
louder. Sounds hellacious from outside the car, a little boomy within.
12 ENGINE: Incredibly basic design—
pushrods, 16 valves—continues to
overdeliver. Now with direct injection, variable valve timing, cylinder
deactivation, greater low-end
torque, 29 mpg, and 455 base horsepower. Who-ahh!
13 REAR HATCH: Louvers exhaust air
so it closes easier. Louvers are run
by a lightweight, shape-memory
alloy, a production-car first.
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Performance Report [ 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray ]
SPECIFICATIONS
STEERING
BASE
$51,995
ASSIST
AS TESTED
$67,915
RATIO
front, longitudinal
CONFIGURATION
90-degree V-8
INDUCTION
naturally aspirated
MATERIAL
aluminum block and heads
VALVETRAIN
pushrod, 16 valves
DISPLACEMENT
6162 cc
BORE x STROKE
103.3 x 92.0 mm
COMPRESSION RATIO
6500 rpm
FUEL DELIVERY
465
FRONT
control arms, anti-roll bar
REAR
control arms, anti-roll bar
BRAKES, FRONT
460
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
DRIVEN WHEELS
rear
TRANSMISSION TYPE
7-speed manual
FINAL-DRIVE RATIO
3.42:1, limited-slip differential
MAX SPEED (RPM)
12.2
0.3
1.0
13.3-in vented rotors,
0–30
1.5
4-piston fixed calipers
0–40
2.1
Michelin Pilot Super Sport
0–50
2.8
SIZE, FRONT
245/35ZR-19
SIZE, REAR
285/30ZR-20
aluminum chassis, composite body
177.0 in
WIDTH
73.9 in
HEIGHT
48.6 in
WHEELBASE
106.7 in
TRACK, FRONT/REAR
62.8/61.6 in
DOORS/SEATS
2/2
0-60
3.8
SECONDS
0–70
4.7
0–80
6.2
0–90
7.4
0–100
8.8
0–110
10.8
15 ft 3
0–120
12.9
DRAG COEFFICIENT x FRONTAL AREA 0.29 (est) x 20.0 ft 2
0–130
—
0–140
—
0–150
—
EPA CLASS
2-seater
WEIGHT
CURB WEIGHT
GEAR
RATIO
1
2.97:1
2
2.07:1
73 mph (6500)
3
1.43:1
106 mph (6500)
FUEL
4
1.00:1
151 mph (6500)
EPA CITY/HWY
5
0.71:1
185 mph (5650)
CAPACITY
6
0.57:1
185 mph (4550)
RANGE
7
0.48:1
185 mph (3825)
RECOMMENDED FUEL GRADE
51 mph (6500)
4.6 sec
0–20
CARGO CAPACITY
TRANSMISSION
5–60 MPH
4-piston fixed calipers
LENGTH
PEAK
HORSEPOWER
(SAE) @ 6000
RPM
1.9 sec
ROLLING START,
0–10 MPH
13.6-in vented rotors,
BRAKES, REAR
CONSTRUCTION
0.2 sec
60 FEET
SECONDS @ 117 MPH
BRAKES AND TIRES
BODY AND CHASSIS
100
1000
SUSPENSION
TIRES
LB-FT
PEAK TORQUE
@ 4600 RPM
1 FOOT (rollout)
1/4-MILE
direct injection
200
RPM
37.7 ft
11.5:1
REDLINE
300
2.5
TURNING CIRCLE
LAYOUT
400
—
TURNS, LOCK-TO-LOCK
ENGINE
500
ACCELERATION
electric
3444 lb
DISTRIBUTION FRONT/REAR
49/51%
WEIGHT-TO-POWER RATIO
7.5 lb/hp
17/29 mpg
18.5 gallons
518 miles
premium gasoline
TOP SPEED
(drag limited, mfr est)
185
MPH
BRAKING
60–0 MPH
105 ft
80–0 MPH
184 ft
FADE
HANDLING
TEST NOTES
ROAD HOLDING
■ Generates as much cornering speed as the previous Corvette Grand Sport, but with narrower tires,
so it’s more stable on lumpy, crowned pavement. And a whopping 1.07 g on the skidpad! That’s
better than the Porsche 911 S, the Lotus Evora, the McLaren MP4-12C, and a lot of others.
neutral
INTERIOR NOISE
■ The C7 is the first Vette that’s on our short list for a back-road drive. You feel the pavement
imperfections but aren’t punished. Connected like a German car. Steering has genuine feedback.
44
1.07 g
(300-ft skidpad)
BALANCE
■ V-8 still has that deep bass roar, but if we could change one thing, more snarl would be nice.
Test Conditions:
none
IDLE
—
70-MPH CRUISING
—
0–70 MPH, PEAK
—
TEMPER AT URE: 77°F | REL ATIV E HUMIDIT Y: 62% | ELE VAT ION: 994 ft | W IND: c a l m | LO CAT ION: Mi l f o r d , Michigan
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