The B10 A5 is an absolute disaster of an interior and exterior. I don't know what Audi was smoking but the B9/9.5 is way ahead of the 10 - in fit and finish, materials and design.

Mechanicals are mostly the same so not even worth mentioning.

Lucid Air: Legend ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Throw an E39 M5, Porsche GT steering hardware, and S class in a blender.
Season it with Porsche’s latest HUD and Rivian’s UX.
Press the button ….

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lAl28d6tbko/maxresdefault.jpg

Sell it at like 5 dealerships total and wonder why no one has bought one….
Discount the lease to be cheaper than a C class….
Presenting the Lucid Air.

https://cars.usnews.com/static/image...Touring_31.jpg

Its parts are better than each of those cars, and summing them makes the goodness even greater, no notes.

Real talk: there’s this incredibly empowering comfort and confidence that washes over you every time you do anything in this car …. Not unlike a E46, 39, or W221 S class. If you’re an enthusiast that cares about the finest details in experience, this is the car that breaks the pattern of cost cut shitboxes like the new A5.

Want specifics?

They benchmarked E39 M5 for rear suspension, RS6 for front - steering and dynamics are better than both.

Seats? Foam, massage, and comfort is better than the S class. Immediate relaxing feeling.

Throttle and brakes? Perfectly tuned, this is the only car I’ve ever kept regen on in.

The drive? The steering, brakes, powertrain have a polish that gives old-school v8 sedan in a way that the Ioniq 5N could never match.

The tech? It has the HUD from Porsche Macan, putting all the self driving shit perfectly ON the lane so you can look out of the windshield like you normally would.

The only issue I’ve found is the self driving behaviour is sketchy. BMW’s is super brainless and Lucid needs to get there. They also need to hire the B9 Audi guy to make the buttons more consistently clicky and high quality feeling.

C8 Corvette: Don't Meet Your Heroes ★★★★⯨

So as I was being dragged along to Atlanta by the wife and had to kill two days while she was at the conference, I managed to find a neat trick - Enterprise Exotics will rent you a C8 Corvette mid-week for $149USD plus fees and taxes, totaling out to $185USD for 24 hours and unlimited mileage. Friday to Sunday rates are about triple that. They also have stuff like Porsche Caymans and 911s but those are still expensive mid-week, unlike the Corvette. The C8 Corvette has always intrigued me as this is the first time the Corvette has gone to a MR layout, and it has been praised quite a bit by journalists and those that have driven it as being a huge improvement in terms of how the Corvette drives compared to previous generations.

https://i.ibb.co/8gPSK3Jn/image.png

Exterior

The exterior of the Corvette is very angular and almost pointy, evoking fighter jets through the side intakes and perhaps a bit of Lamborghini/Ferrari through an American lens. The rear deck is huge and flat without a wing, almost shapeless - I think something is needed to break up the expanse of flatness here. The rear haunches are huge, the proportions almost comical. Unfortunately I don't think the rental car wash routine has been kind to this Corvette as it has quite a few swirls, water spots and other paint issues, but in general the build quality looked pretty good. Everything seemed solid and well put together, and the panel gaps were all acceptable.

I think the Z51 package would have done wonders here to make the car look more special and aggressive but unfortunately the rental Corvette did not come with the performance wing. The wing, splitter, bigger brakes and other bits would have improved the look of the car and made it look less bland. I think that was my general impression of the outside. Besides the red colour, the car kind of looked bland.

https://i.ibb.co/b57mM2dN/image.png

Interior

The interior was actually nicer than I expected - this rental was a 3LT (top trim in GM terms) and had faux-Alcantara(?) trim in a lot of places, not a ton of piano black and some pretty nice switchgear. The driver display screen is nice and crisp, the center infotainment display was a bit small, but both were a bit laggy unfortunately. Switching drive modes took an eternity, and trying to customize the driver display took more time than I would have liked. Climate controls are a bit confusing especially for the heated/vented seats. I was never sure whose seat I was turning on haha. Wireless CarPlay worked well, but the phone holder/charger location is utterly baffling - it is behind your elbow between the seats and very difficult to use. I ended up stashing my phone in the center console box which was a bit shallow but worked for that purpose. The interior does not have a ton of storage space, and more cramped than I was expecting. I have serious doubts about being comfortable with a helmet on which was kind of unfortunate - I do have a long torso which does not help.

https://i.ibb.co/5hbsnvPX/image.png

The steering wheel took some getting used to as it was that weird squircle shape, and the location of the volume/track buttons was pretty much a tacked on afterthought; I was not a huge fan of the wheel controls in general. The paddles were nice and heavy metal ones, but the actuation felt too long and mushy. There was no tactile click at the actuation point, simply a thunk at the end. The digital rear view mirror that can switch between regular and video feed was a godsend as at night the regular view was not very usable. The blind spots were huge as well, and shoulder checking simply netted you a view of the rear buttress/quarter pillar.

The seats were supremely comfortable and a pleasant surprise. They held well, had good padding and bolstering, were vented/cooled and currently one of my favourite performance seats. I put on a total of 475 miles during the time I had the car and I did not feel sore at all after that much driving in a 24 hour span. I believe these were the GT2 seats with the microfiber inserts. Seating position was good in the car, and I had room to spread out during cruise control periods on the highway.

Trunk wise, the rear trunk got surprisingly warm after driving around so I would not stash groceries in there, and the frunk was decently sized. Some wind noise from the targa top.

https://i.ibb.co/xkZG2Vd/image.png

Features (or lack thereof)

Why the hell did GM not put radar cruise control/lane keep assist on this thing? It has collision warning and lane departure alert already. Utterly baffling given the price and the grand touring nature of the car. It has a hilarious distance warning thing that basically says "Hey you're getting too close!" but doesn't do any braking at all.

The Bose Performance or whatever sound system that is in this car utterly sucks. Super disappointing. No highs no lows must be Bose.

Performance/Drive

Ah now we come to the meat of the matter.

The suspension is surprisingly great, has a very supple ride and incredibly comfortable in the city and on the highway. I don't know if this has MagneRide or not but I was blown away by how good this thing is as a highway cruiser over crappy American highways with tons of expansion joints. Managed to get 32-34MPG on the highway averaging 75MPH so that was a pleasant surprise. Eats up the miles very quickly and confidently.

The V8 power delivery is super flat and strong, almost feels supercharged/turbocharged. There's basically a torque plateau when you step on it and it doesn't stop pulling until redline (6500RPM). That much power on tap is intoxicating, and passing on two lane roads are not a problem (looking at you, S2000). However - and this is my big disappointment - it's too damn quiet. You can't hear it inside even in Track mode and stepping on it. With the windows down it doesn't get much better either. This issue is probably solved with the Z51 exhaust, but with a plain-Jane Corvette the sound is very muted.

DCT transmission is a little unrefined, it is definitely no DSG or PDK in terms of smoothness. In Track mode there is a nice aggressive shift shock though not as prominent as a BMW M ZF transmission in M mode. Not great creeping in city traffic, but that's true of most DCTs.

In cornering there is a boatload of front end grip - and rear end grip - in fact grip everywhere. I could not push this car to the limit as that would be suicidal on public roads. The suspension stayed very flat, the chassis communicated clearly what it was doing and how it was doing, the controls felt very linear and crystal clear. Throttle response was excellent, and like mentioned before power on tap at any RPM at any time. Steering was a bit numb and too heavy in track mode, feeling very wooden. The limit is so very high, and the car is very easy to approach/get comfortable driving. In fact it was so competent and so good that it made everything drama free, almost Porsche-like. You would need a track environment to push this car to the limit and truly get to know its personality.

I got to have a fun little encounter with a Turbo S Cabriolet on the highway, we did a few pulls and I got gapped every time - that's what 640 German horses will do to 490 American ones I guess. Not a fair fight but it was a fun five minutes.

Conclusion

The C8 Corvette is an excellent grand tourer, however as a performance car I wish it had more emotional range. The C7 and the preceding Corvettes were loud, raw, brash in your face Americana and the C8 is the polar opposite. It's as if they sent the Corvette to a Swiss boarding school and turned it into a European gentleman. Chevrolet has managed to create their take on a 911, and somehow lost its country roots in the process.

I want to drive one with the Z51 exhaust/performance package to answer whether or not a louder exhaust would help wake the car up.

Perhaps the Z06 is the answer, but until I get to drive one I won't know yet.

Bonus: that flat rear deck makes for a great dining table.

https://i.ibb.co/wFNByHGZ/image.png

Other than the exhaust note, it seems to me that the hero you met is almost exactly the hero you wanted to meet!

And now I wanna try it too, but I feel like it'll be too wide a car for me to like. I generally prefer something smaller and narrower.

Is it though? I wish it didn't feel as sterile or German, it didn't really have any playfulness to it.

To be fair it handles excellently, and you don't notice the width. The C8 Corvette is one of those that shrinks around you as you drive it.

I wonder if the 2026 Z06 will change your mind. They updated the interior with a new display and faster processor, and no more wall of buttons. I drove behind a Z06 and the flatplane V8 reminded me of the 458. Loud AF too.

Corvettes used to be the sports car for the nascar loving hicks but starting with the C7 they stepped their game up IMO. Still relatively "cheap" to maintain compared to other cars in its class too.

Yeah I want to try the Z06 and see if that adds the "drama" back into the Corvette. Will have to try and find one for rent.