Growing up with the PS1 era of Gran Turismo games, my childhood heroes have always been the FD RX-7 and the SR II Vipers, both having sleek, curvaceous bodies that somehow spoke not just fluently, but also bewitchingly, in a wordless language to the kid who knew nothing about cars. The Viper in particular was offered with body stripes, making it stand out all the more in a sea of monotonous cars in an era before visual customisation featured prominently in racing games. In comparison, the boxy, somewhat derpy looking C4 Corvettes just never registered in my head, not to mention the C4s were just plasticky food for the Vipers on the track, stock for stock.
Of course, when Chevrolet unleashed the C5 Corvette onto the world in 1997, the playing field looked much more even. After the sacrilege of having a Lotus–built V8 carry the Corvette's legacy in the flagship C4 ZR-1, the C5 Corvettes would all proudly bear an engine that would soon become an instant classic synonymous with General Motors: the LS engine. Wrapping around the compact (by American standards...) 5.7L LS6 NA V8 engine of the Z06 was a sleek and curvaceous body that bore less resemblence to the C4 it succeeded and more with the FD RX-7, and dare I say it, the American car with the hulking V8 engine also drove quite like my corner–craving childhood hero as well.
All that is to say, with GT7 Update 1.59 adding in the long–awaited and sorely missed C5 Z06, the SR II Viper gets a new playmate, and I get to be a kid again.
Of the two, the Viper is more of a known quantity; we've had SR II Vipers since Gran Turismo 1, and this particular 2002 GTS model has been with the series almost like a mascot since Gran Turismo 5. I've always liked Vipers because they've always just seemed like someone materialised a cartoon character in real life, which is perhaps why it's so effortlessly charismatic to the 8–year old kid inside every man. It's powerful, brash, dangerous, unwieldy, demands respect, and takes no BS from anyone—
especially its own driver, and as is the case with all good character design, one could glean its characteristics just from laying eyes on it. Stability control? TCS?
HA!, try begging for ABS for a start. Yet, it also seems to have a nonchalance about it that is either confidence in its own abilities, self–awareness that conveys it shouldn't be taken seriously, or a paradoxical mix of both. It's heavy, soft, and numb in the corners. It understeers on corner entry and exit, and it slithers and writhes about mid–corner as though trying to bite an omnipresent itch somewhere along its body. And for a car this softly–sprung, it really doesn't like kerbs, liable to leap into the air and pounce onto an unsuspecting trackside barrier if it doesn't find the kerbs to its taste. Getting a Viper round a track quickly is less about surgically making use of every millimetre of the track as it is simply keeping the snake straight and on the paved surface, where it is most happy and its driver is the most safe. Even then, the Viper is not an easy pet to satiate, as its 8.0L V10 prefers to be short shifted, even with its low 6,500rpm rev limit. Of course, with an engine so low–revving and comically abysmal specific output figures, the real magic of the Viper's engine is in the sheer torque it has throughout the rev range; by the time I realise I'm in the wrong gear coming out of a corner, it has already become the correct gear. In all, the Viper is a massively quick car by early 2000s standards, but it just never makes me feel like I want—or even
should—push it hard. It's one of those cars where you'll automatically be doing well simply by not getting into an accident.
The bowtie wearing C5 on the other hand, is much more business minded. Strait–laced, focused, pinned down, and scarily efficient with its movements, the Z06 exudes such a no–nonsense feel when behind the wheel, almost as if it were fighting to change the perception of American sports cars, or perhaps fighting to
be the image of America's sports cars for the first time in Corvette history, being the first generation of Corvettes penned in a toxic world where Vipers roam free on American streets. With a wide, low stance and a lightweight body that looks crafted to rend air with surgical precision and an unhealthy vendetta, the C5's sleek silhouette is a statement of ill intent to dispose of corners with as little fuss and as quickly as possible. Getting out of the Viper and straight into the C5, the Z06 just feels so effortless and razor sharp on turn–in that it's just downright uncanny for an American car of its time, not to mention it has impressive stopping power as well. One doesn't get much in the...
minimalistic interior of the C5, but they do have a tachometer that reads up to 7,000rpm, and the Naturally–Aspirated 5.7L LS6 engine very much enforces the mindset of, "I paid for the whole tachometer; Imma use the whole tachometer". Quite like a certain childhood hero of mine, actually!
But of course, the C5 is still a Corvette at the end of the day, meaning it will violently bite off heads if proper respect and care is not exercised when driving it, even if it is a corner craving machine not just in the context of this comparison, but as a whole. Being a 2001 model, we GT7 players
just miss out on the 2002 update to the Z06 that bumped its power from 384HP to 405HP (287kW to 302kW), but even then, I've found our slightly less powerful Z06 to be a bit snappy on corner exits on power. Good thing the C5 'Vettes all come standard with Traction Control, then! The thing that irritated me the most when driving the C5 however, is that it seems to have
gear ratios from three completely different cars mashed into one gearbox: the first three gears look to have come straight from a top fuel dragster, 4th and 5th being on an island by themselves, and then 6th is so tall and disconnected from everything else that it might as well be its own planet. The car launches strongly with short and close 1st to 3rd gear shifts, but shifting to fourth drops the revs so much that it just drains all life from the car and my soul from my body each time I have to make that shift. At the risk of sounding corny, it really disrupts any flow state I may have on a drive. It'd sure be a shame if 3rd and 4th were the most commonly used gears around most tracks, huh? That big dropoff in revs on upshifts also means that the driver has to wait longer before downshifting from 4th to 3rd under braking, and I'm ashamed to say that I'd probably have blown up a few LS6 engines on downshifts had engine damage been simulated in GT7. I suspect the reason why there's such a big gap from 3rd to 4th is to allow the driver to launch the car in 1st and then skip–shift to 4th during daily driving, but it's such a shame that the performance–oriented Z06 has to be saddled with this BS as well.
For how drastically differently these two proud American beasts go about their business, a stopwatch actually has an incredibly difficult time telling the two apart; the cars were within 2 tenths of a second from each other around Road Atlanta in my clumsy hands, and with all their specs crunched, the 2001 Z06 measures in at 562.97PP as of v1.61, which is within hair–splitting range from the 2002 Viper GTS that comes up at 561.26PP. In a racing scenario however, it's always easier to overtake on a straight than in the corners, and with GT7's track list consisting mostly of wide open racetracks with sizable straights, the Viper is just the faster car for the pragmatic in most scenarios when stock, though I think the C5 would make for a better tuning base with its lower, wider body.
But to be pragmatic about toys I think is completely missing the point. I love and enjoy both, and to ask me to choose between Corvette and Viper is akin to asking me if I'm a bra or panties guy; they're both sexy as hell, and to miss out on one with the other is to miss out on life. A limp dick conclusion from me for sure, but I'm too busy having fun with them both to care. I'm simply glad that they both exist and that we have them in Gran Turismo 7.
