The Ford GT had long served as the sole premiere mid-engined supercar from the U.S., but with the arrival of the C8-generation Corvette, it has a new rival on its hands.
In standard guise, the C8 Corvette Stingray is no match for the Ford GT but the Corvette Z06 is a different beast entirely. It starts at around $114,000 and while that’s almost double the original starting price of the C8 Stingray, it does make it significantly cheaper than the GT with its $450,000 MSRP. Does this make the Z06 the performance car bargain of the century or is it the GT that still has the performance advantage?
To find out, CarWow headed to the U.S. and pitted the two against each other. In terms of specs, the two are well matched with the Corvette’s 5.5-liter V8 rated at 670 hp and 460 lb-ft (624 Nm) of torque while the GT delivers 647 hp and 550 lb-ft (746 Nm) through its 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6.
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The first race is extremely tight with the Z06 getting the better launch and clinging on to a narrow advantage for much of the race down the quarter-mile. However, just as the duo approached the finish line, the GT edged ahead and claimed the victory. The duo then had a rolling race over the half-mile from 50 mph and while the driver of the GT botched the first race, he performed better in the second run and as the two cars started to build speed, the Ford did edge ahead.
Things did not go so well for the Ford GT in the third rolling race as it experienced a bit of turbo lag and dropped behind the Corvette and was never able to catch up.