Sub-Optimal Saturday

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Events not written about in this blog are causing much stress for my wonderful wife and me. Because I feel as though I have been cursed for ten years, I don’t really want to write about what’s going on for fear it might get worse.

Stress + Allergies = Feeling Crappy, sorry for the “vulgar slang” that the word “crappy” is supposed to be.

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From Carbonhans Blog comes a review and link to this Autoblog piece about the new Corvette. Unlike Carbonhans I will not simply copy the Autoblog story virtually word for word here. The title of the piece is, “2020 Chevrolet Corvette Road Test | The hype is legit.” The sub-title is, “As close to perfection as it gets for the price.”

Autoblog’s Zac Palmer had the privilege of driving the car. He drove a 3LT coupe in Accelerate Yellow with the Z51 package and many options. The car stickered for about $87,000. Here is the last paragraph of the article:

 

“Raw performance, sophistication, luxury, price. Somehow, all four deliverables are present and accounted for. At $59,995, nothing can beat it. At $86,860, nothing can beat it. The Small Block isn’t holding this car back from greatness — it’s already great with it. But this chassis, and the car as a whole, begs for more. More character, more revs and an exotic yowl that matches the chassis’ greatness. When Chevy adds such an engine, the Corvette can transcend beyond the performance bargain moniker to being one of the greatest of all time. It’s nearly there already.”

 

The engine to which Palmer refers is the new dual overhead cam, flat-plane crank V8 that is supposed to be in the Z06 version, whenever that is released. Here is a picture of the car he drove, taken by Palmer himself:

 

2020 Chevy Corvette

 

Aesthetically, I like the C8 except in the rear three-quarter views. From those angles, the back end is a bit ungainly. I don’t think the C2 or C7 have any bad angles.

If the engine had been mounted transversely (it would also have to have been smaller although it still could have been a V-8), the rear could have been shorter without sacrificing cargo space. Maybe going to mid-engine AND transverse mounting was a bigger change than desired.

I would like to read your views on the C8, especially if you have seen one in person.

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Do longer posts make you less likely to read? For much of the time I have been writing Disaffected Musings (this blog), I have struggled to balance exposition with readability. One of the areas where that struggle exists is the length of each post.

For 2019, the average post was 512 words; for 2020, the average is, so far, 587. Sometimes when I have written 300-ish words and think I should stop, part of me–perhaps not wanting to reduce the length of the average post, it’s called OCD–wants to add more content. Sometimes I will add more content not necessarily related to the rest of the post.

Anyway, I would like to read your views. Thanks.

 

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Published by rulesoflogic

Empiricism over ideology!

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10 thoughts on “Sub-Optimal Saturday”

  1. Allergies are no fun. I have an issue with pine pollen, and the woods in my area are ate up with pine trees, so spring is when I suffer.

    Length of the post is never a problem in my eyes. If parts of it are not of interest, it can be skipped over to the parts that ARE of interest. And as you have probably noticed, it’s often the added parts that I comment on.

    Today I have made an executive decision that today is a good day for a NPD (No Particular Destination) motorcycle ride. I reviewed my “chore list” and concluded that there is nothing that can’t be put off until tomorrow. You know, all work and no play,etc. Hope your day is as enjoyable as I plan for mine to be, as long as your allergies don’t knock you onto your backside..

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  2. Love the car, but the color seems washed out. I’ve seen other C8’s with a badass, “in your face” yellow.
    In the interest of being all things to all people, what would GM have to do to make it “beyond perfect”? Are the Lingenfelter folks going to kiss this car? Will Corvette do something in house to make it “untouchable” at say $130,000?

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    1. I think the variants–Z06, ZR1 and Zora–will make the car “beyond perfect.” An important question is whether or not Chevrolet/GM will abandon its traditional push-rod architecture in even the base C8 Corvette.

      Ferrari, McLaren, and a German company whose name I won’t mention made super-performance hybrid models with seven-figure price tags. The Zora will be of the same design, have more horsepower and torque than those European cars, and probably cost no more than $200,000-$250,000. The ZR1 will probably cost about $150,000.

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  3. I agree with Dirty Dingus, length is not an issue when the topic is interesting to the reader. Shorter posts, I suspect, are read in their entirety, and long ones get “edited” by the reader skipping content as desired. My “sweet spot” is 500 words for my own blog, but if the subject is more complex, I’ve been known to make the post longer to be as complete as I think it should be.

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  5. I always read the whole post, so I think you’re doing just fine for post length. I do sometimes like the shorter posts, just for variety – a quick hit as it were.
    I don’t believe I’ve seen a C8 in person. I’m kind of ambivalent on them. I’ll likely never have a Corvette, and while I can appreciate it’s quite a marvellous automobile, I’ve found each generation since the C3 ended has taken a little longer to grow on me. It is great to see the C8 is grabbing a lot of praise, that bodes well for GM and American made sports cars I think.

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