For "bang for buck" I'd take the British Ultima GTR720
$50,000 Ultima GTR Shatters $1.6 Million Ferrari FXX Top Gear Track Record
or
Top Gear Track Lap Record
The road registered Ultima GTR720 (complete with air con, stereo etc) was driven, not trailered to the track used by Top Gear (after Top Gear had refused to feature/run the Ultima), where, on it "road" tires, it smashed the "then" Lap record set by Schuey in his "track only" Ferrari FXX,,,& was then driven home again. The Ultima still holds the track's lap record. All with power supplied by a 350 Chev donk, no flat plane crank either. Ultima have since upped their game & wrung even more horses out of the little Chev engine.
That said, I do like the C8 'Vette. Cheers
Actually, I believe that GM "were" the first to develop & use the flat plane crank, in 1923, when they (GM) used a flat plane cank in the Cadillac type V-63 V8 engine. Other manufacturers soon copied this & continue to do so.
Similarly, the mid engined sports car was, I believe first conceived by an Austrian, one Mr H Von Rumpler (I believe he worked for Daimler). Again, other manufacturers soon copied this & continue to do so.
If we refused to buy cars from a particular manufacturer simply because the manufacturer had, at some time, with some models, for whatever reason, had to recall them, then we wouldn't be buying cars off many manufacturers at all. Cheers
My Pop's business built racing engines and I built a lot of Generation 1 Chevrolets. I was always unimpressed with the small black Chevrolet, but yes, they could be made powerful. We always made more power, more torque and did so at higher RPM with Fords and the 351 Cleveland was our favorite. At the time, we were the only builder who had not succumbed to the "monkey See - Monkey Do" aspect for building Chevy's.
Having said that, I am familiar with the engine you are referring to. V-63 is actually a chassis designation and not the engine designation. All 4 cylinder engines are flat-plane by design. When V8's were first developed, they were all flat-plane because they were basically two (4) cylinder engines connected together. This design causes a lot of vibration and Cadillac wanted to find a smoother running engine. It was The Peerless Motor Company that actually developed the cross-plane crankshaft that all V8's employ today. They patented the design and agreed to share the knowledge with Cadillac. There are some articles on this. The V63 chassis used three engines - a 314, 341 and 353 CID "Flathead" V8's.
I mean, it's largely a matter of taste and preference really. I, personally, see nothing attractive about the Corvette. I've driven them at Fontana Speedway and immediately noticed ill handling qualities that I remarked about in a TTR thread some time ago, much the the dismay of the GM worshippers. I've spent plenty of track time in mid-engine cars, both on the wrench and as a driving instructor, so I felt like GM put a lot of effort into trying to build a car that would borrow the best attributes of Ferrari/Lamborghini, cheapen it radically and offer it at a value to the public. The big factor when examining the new C8 is the cheapness in terms of lack of build quality.
Your average person will look at copycat McLaren styling and be enamored. But I look at things like the cracks you see developing in the body around the air scoops from stress the designer did not account for to how things just don't align properly. It's a lot like Van Halen and the Brown M&M's, in that if you can't get this aspect of the design "right," then expect the more complex parts of the car to suffer from poor or "reduced to a price point" engineering.
I have really backed off of the car hobby. I once had several 911's including a 1968 911R, followed by a 1964 Ferrari 330 GTC 2+2, a Lamborghini Jarama, and a Maserati Mexico. I found the hobby to be quite costly. In 1998, I started to step away from the exotics and the ground up restorations. As much as I enjoyed how my Ferrari sounded, I never felt like I was any more of a person by driving one - I just enjoyed how the car ran and I liked being able to make (4) 3-barrel Webers run eloquently.
To this day, I still drive (and will always do so) a manual transmission. My 2001 F250 Truck is the only vehicle I have ever owned and driven with an automatic transmission. My Mustang is a great car and it's a trusted daily driver. To me, cars just don't really excite me anymore. I don't care if people like me. My windows are tinted dark so you cannot see me. If people like the new Corvette, then great! I have two colleagues who own them and both are causing them problems. Thankfully, they are under warranty.
