Looks powerful: Chevrolet Corvette

The idea of a sports car or a supercar is usually one that's associated with a lot of speed and great handling, but with a very high price tag. Some brands, however, are wanting toprove that this need not always bethe case. They believe that fastsports cars that handle well don't need to be very expensive.

The Chevrolet Corvette is one such example. It has always been the symbol of the ideal American sports car since it was introduced in the early Fifties. Now in its sixth generation, the Corvette has managed to build a huge fan following around the world. The car symbolises freedom and provides a sense of liberation to the driver. Chevrolet's approach towards making a world-class sports car affordable is probably what has made it so popular.

Speed at an affordable price

The Corvette that I got to test-drive was the Z06 version which comes with a naturally aspirated 7-litre V8 engine also called the LS7.

The engine is capable of producing 505bhp @ 6,300rpm and can doa 0-100 km/hour run in around3.7 seconds.

It's got the looks

As always, the first look at a Corvette is breathtaking, no matter how many you've seen on the road. The exterior is beautifully sculpted with an overwhelming sense of great aerodynamics. The view from every angle is perfect and it doesn't fall short in any way, even when compared with a rival that probably costs three times as much.

I love the way the Z06 looks, butI am a much bigger fan of the Corvette Stingrays from the late Sixties and early Seventies. The newer models have a much more modern approach to their design and they all relate to the Stingray in some way or the other, but they somehow fall a little short in the feel factor. Seeing a Stingray on the road today still makes you stop in your tracks and start wanting to own one. That said, the Z06 is indeed a very good car to look at and it has managed to remain world class in terms of design.

The interior, however, isa little different. Although it is very sporty and ergonomic in terms of functionality, the dashboard feels quite bare and lacks excitement.

The steering wheel looks very much like that of a conventional sedan, except that it sports the Corvette logo. The seats are firmand supportive, but the leathercould be better.

I found it quite interesting thata switch is used to open the door from the inside. This makes the car feela lot more sophisticated. An emergency override lever is also provided on the floor near the seats to open the doors, just in case the switch fails.

The drive

The 7 litre LS7 engine is quite ‘torquey' with high revving and the six-speed manual transmission gearbox that's mated with it enables it to do the quarter mile in 11.8 seconds and achieve a top speed of 320 km/h. The latter part of the previous sentence is quite theoretical with regard to this review because I did not actually make the Corvette reach its top speed. However, I was able to make it do a 100 km/h before shifting it to second gear.

The short throw gear box isa thriller to the core and it lets you feel what ‘lightning quick' actually means. The wide tyres play a crucial role in keeping this beast stable on the road. The stability programme working with tyres any less wide would fall short in terms of traction considering the monstrous amount of power delivered to the wheels from the LS7 engine. The rear-wheel drive system combined with the oversized engine and the right amount of traction gives the Corvette Z06 its characteristic feel. It is stableat corners at reasonable speeds andit can be made to oversteer with little effort, even with the stability control.

The architecture of the machine assumes that the person behind the wheel will always be a responsible driver. Although it is a beast within,it is tameable in a short amount of time. All you need to do is to understand it and feel the spirit in which it was built.

It has set a few records on the Nürburgring race track, but I am not too impressed by that. I think track times are overrated when trying to sell a sports car for road use.

On the whole, I love the Corvette Z06 for what it is. Its price tag of Dh315,000 places it in a segment where you could afford one for the price of a premium sedan. It's kind of like the grunge rock movement from the early Nineties. It isn't the most sophisticated and ‘gadget packed' car out there, but it sure is fun to drive. Its interiors aren't as exciting as some of the suede leather-clad Italian hot rods, but hey, it suits me just fine! It's something that one would buy instead of a boring five-seater sedan with gadgetry you don't really need. It's a car that would feel odd with anything more than two seats. In fact, it's like an mp3 file of Kurt Cobain's Smells like Teen Spirit instead of Cyndi Lauper's Manic Monday on a gold CD for the same price.