What’s the minimum amount of scratch you’ll have to shell out in order to park a 2017 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport in your driveway? Drumroll, please…$66,445. If that seems like a lot of money, well, you clearly haven’t been playing around with many online car configurators, because the new Grand Sport is actually a friggin’ steal.
That’s because that chunk of change buys you pretty much all the goodness to be found in the Corvette Z06, minus the 650 horsepower, blown V8. In case you’ve forgotten the details we learned during the car’s Geneva Motor Show reveal, the Corvette Grand Sport takes the basic Stingray and adds stickier aerodynamics, recalibrated springs and stabilizer bars, staggered wheels wearing Michelin Pilot Super Sports, and improved cooling systems. Team all those performance-enhancing substances features together with the extra-aggressive, Z06-inspired appearance and you’ve got a car that looks every bit as menacing, and is nearly as fast, as its big brother, but for about $15,000 less.
Indeed, Chevrolet suggests the Corvette Grand Sport should shoot from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.6 seconds, and run the quarter in 11.8 seconds at 118 mph, when equipped with the shifts-like-a-dual-clutch eight-speed automatic. Sure, that’s only a couple ticks faster than the Stingray, but the Grand Sport will look so much better than the regular car when it does it.
If somehow that’s not enough naturally-aspirated Corvette badassery to satisfy your cravings, you can also spec the new Grand Sport with the Z07 track package first seen on the top-tier ‘Vette. That pack adds on carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes that reportedly haul the Grand Sport from 60 mph down to a dead stop in less than 100 feet, as well as even grippier Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber that supposedly lets the Grand Sport pull 1.2 g on the skid pad.
Chevrolet will also offer a special Grand Sport Collector Edition sometime later this year, prepared with all the flair one would expect of a special-edition Vette. It’s rather tasteful from the outside, with Tension Blue hash marks on the front fenders, body-length satin black stripes, and black wheels adding some pizzaz to the Watkins Glen Gray paint job. Inside, though…well, let’s just say the bright blue leather and headrests embossed with the planform of an O.G. Grand Sport are the sort of choices that show GM hasn’t fully divorced itself from the Corvette’s traditional dad-jeans-and-beer-belly aesthetic.
Should the Collector Edition not be up your alley, though, you can spec your Grand Sport with any of the 10 colors in the Corvette palette, including new shades of red, gray, and blue. Between those colors, the five different wheels, the optional carbon fiber ground effects, and the bevy of racing stripes and contrasting accent work on the options list, it should be pretty easy to build a special Grand Sport without resorting to blue raspberry-colored leather trim.
Oh, and if you prefer your Corvettes in convertible form, the drop-top Grand Sport starts at $70,445. But be warned: we at The Drive will judge you harshly if you choose the ragtop.