[David N.]

Hey all, tried out a C6 for a day. Thought I'd give my impressions. It was optioned with everything pretty much. It was an automatic 6-speed with the paddle shifters.

First, the good. Oh the power! The mighty V8 was quite omnipresent. You could start from a stop in third gear without problem (probably fourth too, but it wouldn't let me shift there). First gear went to a healthy 48mph. The most noticeable difference was at higher speeds, the car just keeps wanting to blast forward even as you past 100. I didn't take it up too far, but honestly some times I would look down and just forget how quickly it can be going too fast. It handled pretty well, turn in was relatively tight and responsive. Definitely wanted to oversteer at the limit.

The ride was surprisingly supple, I expected bump-city. I could do the everyday thing in a C6 no problem (the Boxster is so much worse). The HUD is really useful, even tho the styling is a bit basic. I relied on it exclusively after the first 5 minutes. The paddle-shifters worked out pretty nicely for an auto, they didn't automatically override or shift for you (like the Z4), so it stayed wherever you left it. Sat-nav was decent, the interior not as bad as I expected. Still plastic, but not really obnoxiously cheap.

And now the bad, dear lord the top! It was the convertible, and the top lowering process is pathetic. You have to open up the top latch, the rear hatch, get outside, lift the back of the top and pull the hatch out...just too much to do. And it does intrude on trunk space when you have stuff that slides around back there. GM just can't build a decent top mechanism. Maybe someone from Mazda needs to show them how some day...

Handling-wise, the one main complaint I have is the rear end suspension. Both me and a friend tested it, and we decided it was not necessarily the leaf springs, but maybe just the spring rate. If you hit even a moderate bump on the road, the rear just wants to leap over a few inches to either side, and heaven forbid you do it on a sweeper. I was taking a long freeway ramp around (very little throttle), and the car musta jumped over a foot over this one seam, a little heart-stop at 60. It was not the confidence-inspiring ride that the Boxster gives at all. And it really made me tentative after awhile. Also, couldn't for the life of me get the traction control to fully turn off, so no breaking the tires loose more than a bit.

Besides that the sound system was kinda blah and the car was just too...gadgety. Between the fully electric doors and all this auto-stuff, it just started to take away from the experience after awhile. Although my most important personal discovery was perhaps the most helpful, the law of diminishing returns. The mighty 400hp/400ftlbs engine was incredible, but not amazingly impressive...really. It's all rather useless in daily driving, and you realize that at the end of the day it does nothing more than shorten that momentary climb from 80-100 and beyond moreso than say a Boxster.

Driving the corvette just doesn't inspire confidence like the boxster, it's that certain something that defines an awesome driver's car. It's quite a beast, and I would be proud to own one, but I would always dream of something else...

...boxster with an engine swap!

-David