The squircle looks odd, but it keeps the
instrument screen unobstructed, and
your hands get used to the shape.No exaggeration, this is what the finish of
a 911 versus Corvette track battle would
look like, the Corvette right on the 911 ’s tail
through the last corner and across the line.
with the pavement and ABS. At minimum,
it was distracting, and at worst it hurt
some of our confidence in the car—despite
knowing it needs only 1 foot longer to stop
from 60 mph than the Porsche.
The 911 put it in starker relief. Step on
the Porsche’s brake pedal, and it doesn’t
feel as if you’re pushing hydraulic fluid
around so much as pushing the brake pads
directly into the discs with the ball of your
foot. You always know exactly how much
stopping power you have left by just the
feel of the pedal. It’s an astonishing feat of
engineering. And the 911 can do it all day,
all the way to threshold.
Similarly, the 911’s steering offered
more feedback midcorner; you knew
exactly how much front-end grip you had.
Not to diminish the Corvette’s steering,
which was as accurate and precise as the
911’s. Indeed, the Corvette’s more damped
steering was a virtue on faster sections of
our makeshift track.
At triple-digit speeds, the Corvette
feels planted, but all the extra kickback
in the 911’s steering makes it feel nervous
and light up front the faster you go.
Nervous or not, the 911 saw up to 8 mph
higher maximum speed on our “track.”
You can put it down to greater cornering
speeds and the ability to roll hard into
the throttle just after the apex—having
the rear end rotate you slightly in the exit
direction as it digs in and whips you off
the corner harder than the Corvette could.
Add together those 911 advantages,
though, and you get a car that never
asks you to think about anything but
your own driving. Giving you exactly the
feedback you need from your inputs and
predictable behavior at every turn, the
911 lets you focus on being a better driver,
not driving the car better. It may be a
semantic difference, but bear with me.
The Corvette is nearly this good (and
better than any Corvette before it),
but having to navigate the limits of the
Chevy’s ABS and understeer right at the
critical moments makes you focus on
the car as well as your driving—and thus
costs you the precious tenths you lose to
the 911. With a time delta this small, the
911 spends less than 1 percent of the lap
ahead of the Corvette, and that’s where
you’ll find it. The Corvette makes you feel
like you’re in a supercar; the 911 makes
you feel like you’re part of a supercar.
Where you won’t find time is in the
Corvette’s hot new transmission. Many
sports car makers have tried to match
Porsche’s class-defining PDK dual-clutch
gearbox. Precious few have come close.
But the Corvette does—on the first try.During our figure-eight testing,
Reynolds, who almost always shifts
manually in this drill, found the ’Vette’s
dual-clutch good enough to not bother.
Walton and I thought the same on our
pseudo track—though he said he had an
instance or two where he might’ve gone
down one more gear than the computer
did. If you prefer to pull the paddles,
you’ll find the Corvette responsive and
happy to let you pull a downshift that
drops you just under redline. It’ll let you
sit there, too, and stall at the fuel cutoffFEBRUARY 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 45