1966 Chevrolet Corvette Long-Term Road Test

1966 Chevrolet Corvette: Ray Vs. Ray

August 13, 2015

You did see this, right?

That a new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, even the basest base model with an eight-speed automatic, can outperform its 50-year old predecessor is a bit of a no-brainer, right? Right. Today's Stingray generates almost 200 horsepower more than the second-generation, it's four seconds faster in the quarter-mile and it's 17 seconds faster than the old dog around the road course where we wrung out both.

But as Carlos Lago explains in the accompanying video, you simply can't measure both cars by the same yardstick, and that for pure visceral, butt-puckering thrill, the 1966 Stingray still wins.

The old car might require a lot of work and commitment to drive fast, but the faster you drive, the more exponentially exciting it becomes. For an even deeper dive on how Sting Ray and Stingray spec up against each other, read Dan Edmunds's excellent analysis here.

Finally, with the exception of the Porsche 911 and Ford Mustang, few current production cars — fewer if filtered down to sport/pony cars — can claim a link to such a long and uninterrupted history as can the Corvette. That alone makes both cars truly special.

Dan Frio, Automotive Editor