The Z06 is crazy fast, especially with a good aftermarket 'Merican exhaust and headers (plural ). The reason I have never bought a Vette is because of that nasty-*** interior. COME ON!! It's worse than a 350Z or an Evo. The steering wheel looks like it melted at the spokes, the shifter is the same one from the '80s (no exaggeration, it really is), and the instrumentation sucks. Especially for a $50K car. If they re-did the interior even like an S2000 (very focused, but well-made), I would buy a Z06 next time around. Parts to go fast are pretty cheap and all you'd really need would be the aforementioned exhaust and some good brakes.

I still hate when they throw cars like that in the comparison. Next time they compare a Viper, a Z06 and a Ferrari, throw a Pagani Zonda C12S 7.3L in there. Kinda the same thing...

 

The Z06 comparison I think was completely valid. It was to show what performance can be had for x amount of dollars and that these tuners had very expensive modifcations to their cars. I think people try to minimize the amount they spend on their cars by using the initial purchase price as an excuse. I think C&D should have contacted more tuners though, especially some that will help make the Z06 not look like such a bargain. THere are a lot of tuners out their who focus on bang for the buck performance.

Also C&D did a big diservice to their readers by simply awarding overall finish based on completion time of *their* (very biased towards extremely HIGH 500+ HP cars) course. THe previous months issue comparing the convertibles utilizing a scoring of 12 categroies is more apt.. These are all street cars, which have a very wide dynamic to them. Race cars are simply about one thing, who's quickest and agian these are not race cars.

 

That's true - if more of the tuner cars were $50K+, then they would be making TONS more power. Imagine 20K in an Evo... WOW

 

Most of the tuner cars were close to $50k, avergae range from $35ks to $45ks, with two crazy dumb amounts of money being spent, ~$87k and ~$67k. And Z06s are often had for about $47k. Looking through the paper right now, They are offering $9,000 off them right now!

So these tuner cars basically were out to show what C&D's bias is towards. Tuner cars cost a whole lot to make go fast and for less you can get that with a warranty. With better candidates chosen I think the picture would be dramatically different, maybe hacing to pull in a >$150k dollar car to compare to. And did they bother showing the breakdown of the Z06's through each section of the course? no. Again trying to purvey their beliefs, not the facts.