Lucas Bell 
The C8 Corvette Stingray will go down as the most talked about car of this year. Never mind the fact that the legendary BMW Toyota Supra has returned to the market, or that the rebirth of the Ford Bronco continues to draw nearer. The dramatic transformation that took place between the seventh and eight generation of Chevrolet Corvette is in a class of its own, nearly fifty years in the making. It is almost a given then that the mid-engined car from Kentucky just took home the Motor Trend Car of The Year Award.
Yes folks that is right, the 2020 C8 Corvette has officially joined the prestigious ranks of previous award winners like the 1980 Chevrolet Citation and 1992 Cadillac Seville. While none of these vehicles have all that much in common, they all performed well in Motor Trend’s six judging categories at are made public: advancement of design, engineering excellence, performance of intended function, safety, and value.
The C8 beat the new Porsche 911 Carrera S, new Toyota Supra, Tesla Model 3, Audi A8, Kia Soul, Mercedes A-Class, Mercedes-AMG GT, and Subaru Legacy in the final running.
The magazine had one-on-one access to a C8 Corvette since the summertime, where it published riveting exclusives about the car’s interior buttons, and what can fit in the storage compartments. More recently, Motor Trend performed a dyno test on the car, and came up with the wrong numbers.
For this year’s testing, Motor Trend took the field of competitors out to the Hyundai Motor Group California Proving Grounds to put the vehicles through their paces. Chevrolet provided the outlet with the 10th-ever C8 Corvette, an early-build, production-intent model. How well this car reflects an actual production C8 is anyone’s guess, though this will become more clear when the car tardily enters production early next year.
The car was equipped with the Z51 performance package, meaning that the 6.2L V8 engine mounted mid-ship produce 495 horsepower and 470 lb-ft, enough to hurl the ‘Vette to 60 mph in a Ferrari 812 Superfast matching 2.8 seconds. That pace continued through the 1/4 mile run, where Motor Trend says the new C8 Corvette ran 11.1 seconds at 123.2 mph. Those are some pretty stout performance figures. So stout in fact that the Corvette is the quickest naturally aspirated, rear-drive production car to 60 mph the magazine has ever tested.
The Corvette is no stranger to the magazine’s Car Of The Year Award, first capturing the prize in 1984 with the introduction of the C4 – another moment in the car’s history when a great leap forward was made, and again in 1998 with the C5 iteration. Based on our research, the Chevrolet Corvette has captured the top spot more than any other model since 1949, which has to be worth some sort of bragging rights.
