If you’re lucky enough to have $70,000 to spend on a car and your buying criteria includes head-turning looks and the kind of power that can incinerate a set of tires before you’ve even left the dealer’s lot, you’re spoiled for choice.
That kind of money gets you into all manner of high performance front-engined coupes from the Dodge Challenger Hellcat to the brand new BMW M4 Competition. But in the C8 Corvette it also opens the door to the next best thing to an Italian supercar for those of us who can’t afford the real thing.
To find out which is best, Edmunds pitted its own long term Corvette against a BMW test car. The C8 had a $60,995 base price, but ended up costing $80,660 by the time they’d finished nibbling at the options list, adding stuff like the Z51 Performance Pack.
The BMW, on the other hand, stickered at $72,795, but loaded with the usual haul of press car goodies, came in at $101,995.
Related: 2021 BMW M4 Competition Takes On 2020 Chevrolet Corvette In A Straight Line
They deliver eerily similar power, but do so in very different ways. The BMW’s 503 hp and 479lb ft comes courtesy of a twin-turbo 3.0-liter six, where the Corvette’s 495 hp is generated by a 6.2-liter V8. It kicks out a similar 470 lb ft, but being naturally aspirated, delivers it almost 3000 rpm further round the dial.
And Edmunds host Carlos Lago says the BMW’s stronger initial kick in the back means it feels far more powerful than the Corvette, despite the C8 beating the M4 to 60 mph and to the quarter mile mark.
The BMW’s limited traction also makes it exciting, Lago says, but maybe a little too exciting, while the Corvette is always controllable and surprises with a more comfortable ride, and, weirdly, more trunk space.
Pushed to call it, Lago gives the win to the Corvette for its value and breadth of abilities, but the four-seat, sideways-to-victory M4 runs it very close.