© Tim’s Enthusiast GarageJeremy Clarkson: “If you drive a Jaguar, you are welcome to drop round at my house any time for tea and buns. If you drive a Corvette Stingray, you are not…”
… and the ex-Top Gear man-turned-farmer is wrong, if you listen to Tim Neely - a motoring journalist from the United States, and the frontman of the Tim’s Enthusiast Garage YouTube channel.
Neely is big in character, genuinely kind in that American way us Europeans initially view with suspicion, and he speaks enthusiastically - and authoritatively! - about cars with a dry, earthy wit specific to those from America’s industrial Midwest. It’s fitting that he’s from Akron, Ohio.
Once the “rubber capital of the world,” Akron was home to icons of automotive Americana such as Goodyear, Firestone, and Goodrich at a time when Washington DC only had the White House. How’d you like that, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Having got to know Neely via Instagram over the course of the gin-soaked COVID year that was 2020, to say he has a superb taste in cars would be doing him an injustice. His garage includes - amongst many other automotive delights - a Bentley Arnage, a Maserati 4200 GT, and a Corvette C4 ZR-1.
“During the 1950s, GM really tapped into the go anywhere, do anything spirit of the time, and they produced an ad campaign with the tagline ‘See The USA in Your Chevrolet’ and had Dina Shore singing along with all sorts of cutesy Americana”
Interestingly it’s the Corvette, and its maker, GM-owned Chevrolet, who Neely views as the most important footnote in US automotive history. A bold statement indeed, given that on this side of the Atlantic, GM is largely remembered for killing SAAB, overseeing a deluge of dreary Vauxhalls, and cynically re-badging Daewoos as Chevrolets for those who have no interest in cars apart from driving from Point A to Point B. Badly.
To understand his reasoning, we need to travel back in time to post-war America; a period in history where everything was sepia, people walked funny, and trilby-wearing cads would exchange insults such as “dunderhead” and “gentleman of four oats.”
“It’s interesting to talk about the most influential or successful cars and carmakers, because I think it can be viewed differently depending on where you’re from,” Neely explains. “But if we’re talking about the United States, I really think Chevrolet and the Corvette can make a strong case for themselves here.”
“During the 1950s, GM really tapped into the go anywhere, do anything spirit of the time, and they produced an ad campaign with the tagline ‘See The USA in Your Chevrolet’ and had Dina Shore singing along with all sorts of cutesy Americana.
“The ad tied in with the fact that at the time, the US government was building this expansive network of highways that connected the East Coast to the West Coast with technologies borrowed from the Führer and his engineers our dear government brought over after World War II,” he laughs.
Neely’s point is irrefutable. The morals behind the US government’s decision to bring over several high-ranking Nazi officials to help on several of its post-war megaprojects are seriously questionable. However, an expansive motorway network paired with affordable motoring allowed regular Americans to see other parts of their country they could have only dreamt but a handful of years prior.
What’s more, it wouldn’t just be Chevrolet’s tapping into the hard-wired US love of freedom that cemented the brand into the national psyche.
“Chevy really revolutionised the car market in the US with its second-gen Bel Air and Nomad,” he continues. “These cars were made from ‘55 to ‘57 and really captured the spirit of that Jet Age, post-war era: the fins were big, the chrome detailing was exquisite, and they looked like nothing else. They absolutely blew the likes of Ford and Cadillac out of the water when it came to design.
“When Chevy launched the Corvette C2 ‘Sting Ray’ in 1963, they really came out swinging with this car”
“If you ask your grandfather or a young kid to draw an ‘American car’ on a piece of paper, then even now, some 65 years later, they’ll draw something that resembles the second-gen Bel Air.”
A self-confessed Corvette enthusiast, Neely admits that the first generation of America’s sports car, the C1, was overlooked by family oriented Bel Air. The C1 “missed the mark a bit” for being a bit too dainty, and a bit too soft.
“After the war and even up to the late 50s, we had a lot of soldiers return from the United Kingdom and Europe as a whole. They’d brought back Triumph and MG sports cars with them, but you have to remember, we grow ‘em big here in the US, so the 56bhp these cars produced just wouldn’t cut it, and neither did the C1.
“When Chevy launched the Corvette C2 ‘Sting Ray’ in 1963, they really came out swinging with this car. It really hit the spot for the sort of lads I’ve just mentioned.
Its gear shift could crush rocks, the engine was a 327 cubic inch V8 with 360 brake, and you could configure it in either a hardtop or a coupé.
“I think a lot of people forget that whilst the C2’s styling and power figures made it an attractive proposition, its accessibility is what really sold it.”
Upon release, a base-spec C2 cost USD $4,037, or $40,000 in today’s money.
Meanwhile, the prestige afforded by the Corvette’s European peers such as the comparably-powered Ferrari 275 GTB/4 or Lamborghini Miura would come with hefty price tags of around $16,000 and $20,000 respectively.
As for Porsche in 1963? Well, the 911 had just been released, and it would be another 12 years until it decided to turbocharge what would become one of the most revered cars in automotive history.
By the time C2 production stopped in 1967, almost 120,000 of them had rolled off the production line at Chevrolet’s St. Louis plant in Missouri. It wasn’t perfect, but the C2 had done its job in proving America could make a democratic sports car in that unlike similar machinery from across the Atlantic, its price tag made it pretty much available to everyone.
“To me, the C8 1LT in its most basic form is what a Corvette should be - a simple, honest sports car”
As GM hoovered up brand after brand in the following decades and became the bloated, multinational conglomerate it was until a handful of years ago, the Corvette lost ground to Europe. The Chevrolet had always looked and sounded great since its 1953 debut. Undoubtedly, it was also fast in a straight line. However, the ‘Vette wasn’t exactly a class-leader in the dynamics department…
… until now.
Alongside his journalistic work, Neely is a co-owner of a detailing shop called Performance Auto Spa in Columbus, Ohio. It doesn’t take the brainpower of Robert Oppenheimer to figure out what goes on at this 20,000 sq ft facility, but if you are interested, click here.
What matters for the sake of this story, is that Neely and his experts recently set to work on a 2022 C8, the latest chapter in the Corvette’s 70-year history. But before that, a quick history lesson.
When it launched in 2020, the Kentucky-made C8 proved a controversial piece of work. Chevrolet - presumably sick of seeing its beloved sports car repeatedly used as a lazy punchline in many a European automotive writer’s column- had decided to get serious with its latest Corvette. Very serious.
Once-unimaginable in Chevy circles, the C8 received an all-new, more aggressive aluminium body designed by Tom Peters. Underneath, the leaf springs more befitting of the ox and cart were thrown in the skip in favour for proper, coil over springs.
Most controversially - and the reason why many white-capped sets of teeth were gnashed at the golf club - was Chevrolet’s decision to move the naturally-aspirated 6.2-litre, 490 bhp V8 from the front of the car to the middle. Until 2020, the Corvette had always firmly been front-engined, rear-wheel drive.
To understand the level of offence felt by your quintessential Corvette owner at this simply anathematic idea, imagine the reaction if Porsche moved the engine of the 911 to the front. Yeah. That.
“When you sit in the C8, you really notice the detail and quality of the fixture, fittings, and ergonomics. It’s easily up to industry standard and far superior to anything Ferrari is producing at the moment”
Yet with the C8, the Corvette had - depending on how you see things - grown up for better or worse.
For Neely, the Corvette’s new-found maturity is for the better, and he’d rather own a C8 over the equivalent Ferrari F8 Tributo or Porsche 911. His trim level of choice is equally surprising, as he cites the entry-level 1LT as the one he’d have. Bear in mind that this is a car with no optional extras and a price tag of $69,995 or in 2023, the cost of a week’s food shopping.
To put things into perspective, a similar base-spec 911 Carrera will set you back $114,400, and an F8 is a whopping $284,000.
“A little while ago, we had a guy drop a white C8 1LT with a red interior into the workshop, and genuinely, all of us there fell in love with it,” Neely says. “It was for sale for $65,900 and the owner had negotiated it down to around $58,000. There were absolutely no optional extras - no heated seats, no larger interior screen, nothing - and it rode on standard 19-inch wheels at the front, and 20-inchers at the rear.
“When you sit in the C8, you really notice the detail and quality of the fixture, fittings, and ergonomics. It’s easily up to industry standard and far superior to anything Ferrari is producing at the moment”
“To me, the C8 1LT in its most basic form is what a Corvette should be - a simple, honest sports car. Sure, you can go nuts and double or even triple the price by ticking ‘green, green, green’ on the options list, but it’s really not worth it as you have all the performance and toys you’d ever want or need.
“That sentence sounds kinda strange to me when I say it out loud, because I’m a huge Europhile when it comes to cars,” he laughs. “When I was growing up in the ‘80s, American cars - and GM cars especially - were crap. As an adult, I actively tried to avoid them until the 1990 Corvette ZR1 came out, and Lotus even helped engineer that! That was the first time I ever lusted after a car built Stateside, and I feel the same about the C8 now.
“Something else I’d say about the C8, is that GM has worked really hard on the interior quality. Its predecessor, the C7 was one of the best-sounding Corvettes ever made, but the interior was horrible, the plastics were horrible, the leather was horrible, and the cabin was filled with switchgear from mid-2010s GM rubbish was like the Impala.
“When you sit in the C8, you really notice the detail and quality of the fixture, fittings, and ergonomics. It’s easily up to industry standard and far superior to anything Ferrari is producing at the moment. As an owner and lover of Italian cars that’s mindblowing.
“We have a lot of Ferraris come to the workshop, some even fresh off the boat, and the quality is outright shocking. The paint is unevenly applied, and in a recent 488, the panel that controls the lights had come away and was just hanging at the wires. I have no idea what’s going on over there at Maranello at the moment, but it’s really poor.”
Even a few years ago, mentioning Ferrari and Chevrolet in the same breath would have got you laughed at, and deservedly so. Detroit simply wasn’t able to hold a candle remotely close to anything made by Maranello.
“I love the Corvette because it has always been a bit tongue-in-cheek. It’s never really had the teutonic efficiency of a 911 or flamboyance of a Ferrari. That said, it’s never tried - and most importantly - it’s never professed to”
Now, it’s at this point that I’ll abandon all rules of journalistic writing and make these next two paragraphs about me as I make a public admission: I f***ing love a Corvette.
I adore the whole jort-wearing, New Balance-rock, rad dad, “Corvette Guy” culture surrounding them - after all, I’m a fat bloke who enjoys a barbeque and a tin in the garden. What’s more, that uttural, snarling growl produced by the C7.R’s V8g still stirs deep, unnatural feelings within me.
Ultimately, though, I love the Corvette because it has always been a bit tongue-in-cheek. It’s never really had the teutonic efficiency of a 911 or flamboyance of a Ferrari. That said, it’s never tried - and most importantly - never professed to.
Has, then, the C8 lost some of that happy-go-lucky charm that made the Corvette so appealing in the first place?
Thankfully not, according to Neely.
“I think with the C8, it’s moved away slightly from the cruising thing that Corvettes used to do so well,” he explains. “The decision to move the engine to the middle of the car has made it so much better to drive, there’s just so much more feel and grip from what you’d usually expect.
“The ride is now a little busier, not too dissimilar to what you’d get in a modern BMW, but it’s not offensive in the slightest. I even prefer the noise made by the standard cross-plane V8, which is strange because while the C7 sounded fantastic, but for me, the C8 sounds like a proper, American sports car.”
“For decades, the Porsche 911 was my performance car benchmark, but it simply isn’t anymore - that accolade goes to the C8, and that’s something to make any American car enthusiast truly proud. Chevy has done the impossible”
The conversation with Neely over the last hour has flown by. His enjoyment of more esoteric cars and a mischievous streak that simmers gently beneath the surface is a true joy.
A final comparison between Chevrolet and Ferrari seems a good note on which to wrap things up.
“The C8 is one of the greatest cars ever made by GM who after some years of making absolute garbage, have really got their act together recently,” he concludes. “In terms of value, the Chevy trounces both the F8 Tributo and the 911, and under certain circumstances, it’s certainly on par with - or exceeds - the Porsche. It’s 90% better at everything than the Ferrari whilst coming in at under $70K!.
“For decades, the Porsche 911 was my performance car benchmark, but it simply isn’t anymore - that accolade goes to the C8, and that’s something to make any American car enthusiast truly proud. Chevy has done the impossible.”
To browse 8,000+ American cars listed on Dyler.com, follow this link! If you are looking for a specific Chevrolet model, click the yellow word.
1990 Corvette ZR-1, Lotus helped create the King of the Hill : Tim's Enthusiast Garage S4 E9
Follow Tim’s Enthusiast Garage by clicking HERE.
---
Find your ideal vehicle among our Car Categories, or delve into our Classic Passion Shop to discover exciting products from our partners!
