I'll take one each of the Z06 and the Viper. WRT to the question of color on the snake car, I really like that new green, but I'm a sucker for white stripes on blue when it comes to Viper coupes.

 

I dunno that DTS with dubs is a lot more exciting to me and the dudes in the picture.

 

You and me both.

 

I like white stripes on blue for any car.

 

I disagree with your hood statement, but agree that it keeps getting more and more Vette-ish, and visa-versa with the Vette. I'd take the Viper over the Vette just because Vettes are everywhere (I love Vette's, and I know Z06's are pretty uncommon) but when I see a Viper I just stop and stare.

 

But it's a Dodge.

I encountered a Viper yesterday afternoon leaving work. It came racing up behind me...pulled up next to me at a light...revving it's engine. Please.....

 

I would rather have the orange or even the purple than the green, but that's just me.

I love how the C6 looks and even more how the Z06 looks compared to a C6. But the Viper is just NASTY! The hood vents are needed for that much exhaust heat! The wheels are different. A car that uses 6 lugs needs spokes that are a multiple of 3. The original 3 spoke razor wheels are still my favorite, but a split spoke 6 or 12 spoke wheel would be nice.

 

I hate the wheels on it, and I hate the color. However the red looks quite bad ***.

 

I'd say the Corvette looks more like the Viper. Viper had those headlights and that hoodscoop first.


If it were my own money I was spending, and I was shoping in that price range, It'd be the Viper I'd buy so fast it would make your head spin. The Viper looks like four wheeled pure sexual adrinaline. Only occasionally do you pass them on the streets, you don't need too many fingers to count the number of 600 horsepower cars on the road, and even fewer to count the number that have TEN cylinder engines.

If you are spending over $70,000 for a car, chances are it doesn't matter much to your pocket book if gas sells for $2 per gallon or 4. What matters most to you is exclusitivity, head turning appeal, and is it fast. Corvette may be a screaming bargin next to the world's exotic cars, but 99.9% of the population is going to see a Z06 and think of the same $43K Corvettes they've probally seen (and forgotten) a dozen times already that day. If that green Viper in the picture pulled up at Starbucks, they'll still be talking about it at Christmas.

If you buy a Z06, chances are you're a dyed in the wool Corvette fan who wants to buy the ultimate Corvette model. Viper buyers seem to be rich guys who have access to (and live for) race courses and use their Vipers strictly as week end cars. People don't value shop when we're talking $73K-$83K sports cars. The Z06 has been universally praised as more user friendly in day to day use over the Viper, while the Viper has been equally praised universally as being easier to handle on tricky tracks than the Z06 (Until the 2008 model, the Z06's handling, though highly capable, has been called from squarrelly or scary on tricky courses. The '08s fair better).



For you information junkies, Chevy sold 6272 Z06 Corvettes in 2006 (447 of them had buyers who took deliver at the National Corvette Museum). Dodge sold 1155 Vipers. Fuel prices haven't had much of an impact on sales.

 

They have to be weekend cars because the ride is so brutal! The reason the Z06 wins all the head-to-head competitions with the viper is because it's more civilized and can be used as a daily driver. The Viper sells to those who want the closest thing they can get to a race car and the race car experience, and with 600 hp they just got closer!

 

Am I the only one that would like to see them re-run this test, but with an '08 ZO6, an '08 Viper, and an '08 F430?

 

My money is probably still on the Ferrari.

 

Something no one has mentioned yet is the difference in tires between the Vette and Viper. The Viper has Michelin Pilot Sport Cups, commonly thought to be the best street legal tire one can buy for performance vehicles, and the Z06 has crappy runflats. I believe it was MT or C&D that said if the Vette had PSCs like the 911 GT3 in the same test, it would have been significantly faster around the track. I would bet a big chunk of change that if you put the same tires on each vehicle the Z06 would be faster.

Regardless, both are pretty awesome machines, but neither hold a candle to the F430.

 

They aren't trying to. An F430 is ridiculously priced for marginal performance gains over the Vette and Viper. Once you make race cars out of them I'd put my money on the Americans.

Then again, it is art on wheels.

 

Tru'dat, when it comes down to the numbers, its interesting to see what little difference it makes given a practically unlimited ceilling. Now it may make a difference on the subjective stuff but this is America and americans love numbers, especislly big performance numbers for small price numbers