Corvette Grand Sport

The Grand Sport will certainly get you noticed – the brash muscle car looks and thumping V8 soundtrack are all part of the classic Corvette recipe. Yet, at £70,196, there are no excuses for its cheap interior and unforgiving dynamics. This automatic is a little easier to live with than the searingly quick, more powerful manual versions, but unless you’re a true enthusiast for American cars, it’s hard to justify.

Fancy flexing some American muscle? This is the Corvette Grand Sport, a new version of the US sports car that slots into the range above the standard C6 and below the Z06 and even faster supercharged ZR-1.

So, the Grand Sport gets big cross-drilled brakes, a wide front end that features a central air-intake, and a neat pair of white stripes on the front wings.

It’s powered by a naturally aspirated 6.2-litre V8 with 431bhp, so it’s as rapid as its extrovert looks suggest, going from 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 186mph.

It’s also a surprisingly laid-back cruiser. The ride is firm, but the tall gearing of the auto box means it’s happy at low revs on the motorway. Only when you change down with the steering wheel-mounted paddles do the quad exhausts make their presence felt. What’s more, the big rear tyres mean there’s a huge amount of grip in the dry.

On narrow or wet roads, it’s a different story. The tail is twitchy, and the combination of the wide body, low nose and left-hand-drive layout makes it difficult to drive. The rest of the car feels very American, with dated interior plastics in the cramped cockpit, a slow canvas roof and a serious thirst for petrol.

We could forgive it these shortcomings, but not if you consider that you could buy a Porsche 911 for the same money.