Yahoo Autos The $80,000 Would You Rather: C8 Corvette or F-350 Tremor?
There are two possible ways to approach a car-buying decision. You can decide what you want and figure out how to afford it, or start from the other direction and see what you can find for a given amount of money. We tend to conduct comparison tests from the assumption that you erudite car snobs know exactly what you need—at least, from a given class of similar vehicles. But that’s not how everyone shops. Some of us play an automotive version of “Would You Rather?” As in, for around $80,000, would you rather have a C8 Corvette or a diesel Ford Super Duty F-350 Platinum with the Tremor package?
The question isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds, like Mr. Beast’s “Would You Rather Have a Lamborghini or a House?” My friend Sandy once traded in a Corvette for a Raptor, and that whiplash of a transition makes sense if you perceive the theme: fun overkill. For the C8 and Tremor, doing zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds and hulking out 1050 lb-ft of torque are two manifestations of the same goal—to aspire to hyperbole and then somehow go even further. So which one would you rather have? Let’s break it down.
Tale Of The Tape
You can’t really compare a mid-engine two-seater to a 4x4 diesel truck, so let’s go ahead and do it. The closest metric is horsepower, where the Vette narrowly edges the truck, 495 horses to 475. Torque is, of course a different matter. The Vette has 470 lb-ft, which normally sounds like plenty, but not in the context of a 6.7-liter Power Stroke, which heaves out 1050 lb-ft. If anyone’s lighthouse needs to be moved back from a cliff, the F-350’s got it covered.
The Tremor has 35-inch tall Goodyears, the tallest tires on a heavy-duty truck. The Vette comes with special-sauce Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires that deliver more than a G of skidpad grip. The Ford will ford 33 inches of water. The Chevy’s Performance Traction Management system has a wet-road mode. The Tremor gets a two-inch front-end lift, while the Vette has a front-end lift system that can add 1.7 inches of ground clearance in 2.8 seconds. Both have differentials that can fully lock. See? These two seemingly disparate machines are more similar than you think.
How about price, though? Well, one of them is decidedly more expensive than the other. The Corvette, loaded with the 3LT luxury package and Z51 performance goodies, stickered for just under $83,000. The truck? That was more like $87,000. (It didn’t have a window sticker, but that’s where a diesel Platinum Tremor F-350 ends up.) Most people are surprised to find that the truck costs so much and the Corvette costs so little. But, you must agree, the Tremor is a whole lot of truck.
The Drive
It may be unsurprising to hear that a mid-engine Corvette is more fun to drive than a solid-axle heavy-duty truck. I regularly tell people to buy a half-ton truck (or, hell, midsize) unless they absolutely need to tow more than 10,000 pounds on a regular basis. And that’s because stupendous hauling capability doesn’t come for free. In the case of an F-350, it does come with solid axles and, at the rear, leaf springs that are about as flexible as the Earth’s crust. When they named it the Tremor, they meant it. Even minor bumps set off seismographs three states yonder, as those Brobdingnagian axles stutter-step like Saquon Barkley. Crossing a diagonal heave in the pavement, the Tremor’s suspension got so discombobulated that the stability control system flashed on for a moment. This kind of thing is the reason why the Ram Power Wagon is a 2500, not a 3500. It’s more supple, if not subtle. (You can also Tremor an F-250, which would probably be a more simpatico starting point.)
The Corvette’s manners are a revelation, especially for anyone who’ll be going from a C6—king of snap oversteer—to this one. It just grips and grips, turning my favorite local off-ramp into a centrifuge. And that goes for off-the-line traction, too, where the mid-rear engine helps it absolutely hook up and go. It’s a riot, this car.
Which you’d expect from a Vette, I suppose, but how about that interior? I’d say it’s Porsche-quality, but it’s probably better than that. When I got a ride in a disguised prototype with Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter, he told me people would be surprised to discover a vein of Lexus refinement running through the Vette. And that’s true, when you’re in touring mode, letting the transmission shift for itself. But put it in track mode and queue up launch control and it’s a NASCAR infield party. According to bystanders, the C8 at full throttle “sounds like a racetrack” at a quarter-mile away. Yet it’s not that loud in the car. Unless you crank up the optional Bose stereo, which puts a 10-inch subwoofer in each door. That's probably twice as many as you need, strictly speaking, but when you're trafficking in superlatives, 200 percent of enough is just about right.
Yes, I have gripes, but none that I feel too strongly about. The tan dash on the car I drove reflected so badly onto the windshield that I don’t know how it made it out of the design studio. And personally, I don’t care about a removable roof panel or room for golf clubs, so I would’ve preferred they truncated the rear trunk and arrived at tidier styling. The C8 looks great from most angles, but the extra length behind the engine makes for some funky views. You want the roof to come off, get the convertible.
So: Would You Rather?
The question that I always ask about any vehicle is, “How well does this accomplish its intended mission?” I’m a sucker for cars that go all-in, whatever the goal. And the Tremor is fundamentally conflicted, because off-roading and heavy hauling are totally disparate goals. Off-roading—in most of its forms—demands pliant suspension that can conform to the terrain. Heavy-duty trucks need suspension that can handle 20,000-pound trailers and couple yards of gravel in bed. The Tremor is fully committed to one of those goals at the expense of the other. On my informal driveway ramp travel index banking, where the Power Wagon articulated its axles far enough to look like a broken toy, the Tremor barely climbed a few feet before its brittle suspension caused the tires to lose traction, despite the locked rear axle. The Tremor may be a better off-roader than a regular FX4 F-350 4x4, but probably not by much. Its forte would be mud, I imagine, but calling it the Super Duty Swamp Stomper probably wouldn’t fly with the marketing department.
The Tremor is practical yet frivolous, and I appreciate that. But I’m going with the C8. There are plenty of jacked-up trucks on the road. There’s only one car that’s redefined the terms for mid-engine exotics.
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