Four Hour Drive: 2025 Corvette Stingray

Thanks to a trusting friend, I got to spend four hours behind the wheel of the 2025 Corvette Stingray. The Corvette has been an American automotive icon for nearly 75 years—often regarded as the blue-collar dream machine that many finally afford only after retirement. Now in its eighth generation (aka C8), this Corvette marks the first-ever mid-engined version, though the classic V8 heart remains intact. Car wags agree that this Corvette represents one of the greatest bargains in sports cars today, serving up performance you’d typically pay double for from European badges. That still means that these start in the high $60k range, and the trim package here is really in the mid-$70k range. (Super high-end variants go up into six figures, but it's hard to imagine that you could need any more performance for street driving.) Visually, this might be the only American car that consistently tricks me into mistaking it for a Ferrari or Lamborghini—particularly in blazing orange, which is ...