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The Corvette Grand Sport X delivers Porsche 911 performance for a fraction of the price | The Local News
My drive of the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport X began under oily black clouds, a torrential weather front releasing its grip on Manhattan — an inauspicious start for any mega-powered sports car. Rain pelted the waterlogged pavement, as I set course for the mountain-man roads of the Catskills, then on to Long Island and New England over three days.
Fortunately, this Grand Sport, a name synonymous with value among Corvette fans, was the first of its kind: A 721-horsepower super-hybrid with a brainy, confidence-boosting AWD system. I popped the Corvette into Sport mode, Wet mode be damned.
Finding tire grip galore on the Palisades Parkway, I realized the “X” badge on those wide flanks had changed the forecast to “fun.” As a track-centric mid-engine sports car, the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport X is hardly representative of mass-market transportation.
But the GSX still has something hopeful to say — or shout, with every seismic blast of its new LS6 V-8 engine — about the world’s renewed love affair with hybrids. People have always made a statement about who they are, or the person they want to be, through the car they drive or the one they dream of owning.
Beetle or BMW, Porsche or pickup, Stingray or Subaru. These choices are more fraught than ever as a zero-sum game emerges between EVs and internal combustion engine cars.
You can watch that standoff unfold on YouTube, with drag races between Teslas and seemingly every ICE car since the Model T. When I came of age in Detroit, true sports-car fans scoffed at such reductive straight-line contests, the equivalent of an arm-wrestling match to determine the most gifted athlete.
On a broader level, it doesn’t have to be this way. 1/5Image: GMThe Corvette’s sophisticated algorithms bring two often-warring tribes together.
There’s electric business in the front, and a gasoline party in the back, with no physical connection between the electrified front axle and petroleum-powered rear wheels. Finely coordinated teamwork and integration makes the GSX the latest all-wheel-drive hybrid sports car that feels like an unfair fight against purely gasoline models.
GM could use some teamwork on the hybrid front. The company currently has just two gas-electric models.
Both are Corvettes. Both use electricity strictly to boost performance, like a hybrid F1 racer, with fuel economy not part of the brief.
In America, only hybrids have gained powertrain market share in 2026, with both EVs and pure ICE losing ground. 4 percent of the market through June, hybrids are outselling EVs by nearly three to one.
Even in China, hybrid sales are growing faster than those of EVs. The Corvette’s sophisticated algorithms bring two often-warring tribes togetherThree companies, Toyota, Hyundai and Honda, now control 90 percent of this booming US hybrid market.
Toyota and Lexus alone sold 600,000 hybrids through June. The windfall has seen Hyundai and Kia post their best overall sales in history, including a 115-percent jump for Kia’s growing hybrid lineup.
Caught flatfooted after having gone all-in on EVs, GM is racing to bring fuel-saving plug-in hybrids back to its showrooms, supposedly beginning next year. The GSX itself replaces the Corvette E-Ray, Chevrolet’s first hybrid sports car.
But it’s an entirely different animal. The 650-horsepower E-Ray was a versatile grand tourer: fast and fluid, but a bit of a mellow yacht rocker.
The GSX was expressly designed as a track assassin, with heightened power, roadholding, braking, and agility. What GM engineers call the “baby ZR1X” adopts its electrified front axle directly from the 1,250-horsepower, 233-mph record setter that I tested at Sonoma Raceway.
Most every internal part number is identical. But in keeping with the Grand Sport’s reputation as a sweet spot in the Corvette lineup, the GSX coupe’s $112,195 base price is less than half that of a ZR1X at $227,395.
For 2027, a non-hybrid, 535-horsepower Grand Sport asks $88,495. 1/5Image: GMSome want more.
So the GSX’s 721 horsepower represents a 186-hp bump over a Grand Sport or 2027 Stingray. Add a monumental 655 pound-feet of torque, and the GSX easily tops the 690 horses and 531 pound-feet of a McLaren Artura, a hybrid that starts from around $260,000.
As in the ZR1X, the internal bearings in the electric motor were beefed up to handle a higher output of 186 horsepower and 145 pound-feet of torque. Push the GSX’s start button, and the engine crackles to life, before settling into a menacing basso idle.
Floor the accelerator, and the cabin fills with enough pummeling, martial sound to backdrop a Christopher Nolan epic. The electric motor plays its own whirring part, including a metallic overlay of selected frequencies amplified through the audio system.
EV backers may believe silence is golden (sometimes it is) and scoff over ICE fans’ unwillingness to give up their thrashing cylinders. What they forget is that an engine’s sound offers not just drama and engagement, but critical somatic cues as to how fast you’re going, and a car’s gear or limits at a given moment.
Yes, an EV can digitally imitate those cues. But for now, as with certain music, analog still beats digital among the performance cognoscenti.
Yes, an EV can digitally imitate those cues. But for now, as with certain music, analog still beats digital among the performance cognoscentiAn optional performance exhaust for $1,995 is a worthy upgrade.
Corvette engineers lavished attention on the center-mounted exhaust and its four trumpeting outlets to coax out its most-pleasing harmonic frequencies. Another $2,995 for a front-end lift system is another practical spend, to avoid scraping the low-slung front splitter on every steep driveway.
Displacing 409 cubic inches, the stroked V-8 coincidentally harkens to a bygone age of muscle, when Brian Wilson ticked off the Chevrolet Impala SS’s technical virtues in the Beach Boys’ hit “409.” (Hey, it was the ’60s).
Here in 2026, the LS6 makes that old 409 seem primeval, in tech, power, or efficiency. Pricey forged cylinders can deactivate to save fuel.
A lofty 13:1 compression ratio is the stuff of race cars and also contributes to cleaner fuel burn. 1/4Image: GMThe engine’s 520 pound-feet of torque sets a high for any naturally aspirated V-8 in production-car history.
This overachiever also becomes the standard power plant in a 2027 Stingray, making this “basic” Corvette even more of a sports-car bargain at $73,495. The engine manages a 25-mpg highway rating, impressive for a Stingray that can nip 200 mph.
As noted, neither the GSX nor the ZR1X gives a hoot about fuel economy. Their adrenalized performance encourages its pilots to feel the same.
The GSX topped out at 22 mpg during my drives. It settled in around 15 mpg, and dipped as low as 11 or 12 mpg during barnstorming runs through the Catskills.
Whichever automaker can bring a two-seat, truly mass-produced electric sports car to market — whether Porsche or someone else — energy savings will be an easy win for Team Electric. 9-kilowatt-hour battery mounted in the chassis’ spine, between driver and passenger.
Again, that battery isn’t about efficiency or solo electric propulsion. Instead, its cells are designed to absorb regenerative energy like a fast-acting sponge, and spit it back out in rapid bursts.
The motor fills any gaps in the engine’s output with an unbroken wave of torque, including during paddled upshifts from the eight-speed, dual-clutch automated gearbox. 4 seconds at 131 mph.
6 seconds to 60 mph, even on lumpy backroads in upstate New York. 2 seconds quicker than another track-centric Corvette: the mighty Z06 and its Ferrari-esque, flat-crankshaft V-8.
As you’d expect, launch starts are less dramatic than in rear-drive Corvettes, all four tires hooking up with a yawn before you’re hammered into body-hugging bucket seats. Familiar hardware, including a limited-slip rear differential with selectable Performance Traction Management settings, is retuned for this application.
A superlative MagneRide suspension reads the road 1,000 times per second to adjust the viscosity of its magnetic-fluid dampers, and stiffen or soften shocks at individual wheels. The ride is firm but not spine-crunching, especially in Touring mode.
Algorithms help dial in electric power for any situation, striving for handling balance and linear power delivery. In familiar tuning disagreements between passionate engineers, every GSX tiebreaker went to the track.
As compared to the E-Ray, “we’re keeping the edgier scenarios where the car feels more ready to pounce, versus a more-docile character,” says Keith Badgley, lead development engineer. Stated simply, electrified front wheels take a major burden off of rear tires, here shod with Michelin Pilot Sport all-season tires in a fat 345/25/ZR21 size.
Powerful carbon-ceramic brakes are standard, helping to explain a somewhat eye-opening $23,700 price jump from a standard Grand Sport. Like its ZR1X daddy, the GSX lets me brake deep into corners and jump back on throttle earlier, with fewer worries about the back end getting loose.
In the rolling twisties of the Catskills, the GSX felt thrillingly athletic and on-its-toes. Hard-working front wheels palpably yank the ’Vette out of fast corners.
Common sense is the only thing that will stop you. The GSX also adopts the ZR1X’s specialized performance strategies.
Hitting a “Charge +” button summons an Endurance mode, ensuring electrified wheels can deliver a consistent AWD jolt over a full tank of fuel, even during track sessions. A Qualifying mode preps the car for the fastest possible lap.
Push-to-pass mode offers the full monty of gasoline and electric power on demand. To keep peace with neighbors, a Stealth mode lets the Corvette roll on electric power alone at speeds up to 50 mph.
The energy strategies make it virtually impossible to run the battery below 40 or 50 percent on public roads, no matter how hard you try. Selecting Charge + will also refill the battery over five miles or less of driving, using the gasoline engine and kinetic energy to generate electricity via the motor.
Did I mention this Grand Sport makes a great first impression? Rolling into fabled Woodstock, the GSX underscored how the eighth-generation Corvette is (finally) widening its appeal beyond a traditional Boomer, rock n roll audience.
I can still quibble with aspects of the C8 design, especially that bluff back end. 6-inch-wider chassis, cavernous side air inlets, and forged aluminum wheels add to its exotic supercar vibe.
Everywhere I rolled up in the glowering gray GSX, someone would stop in their tracks to offer questions or compliments. And not just car fans, but people who didn’t always realize this was a Corvette, but were visibly impressed when they found out.
Serious fans will recognize a Grand Sport’s traditional hash marks on rear fenders, rendered in classic Admiral Blue on my test car. The Corvette’s reworked interior will also win friends.
A new auxiliary screen sits just left of the steering wheel, for easier access to launch control and PTM settings. There’s an intuitive Google-based infotainment system, graphical performance readouts, and the ingenious camera-based Performance Data Recorder to record and analyze track laps using telemetry software.
A removable hardtop remains a signature coupe feature, and a GSX convertible starts from $119,195. My GSX coupe started from $122,845 at its richest 3LT trim level.
A schmear of options lifted that to $140,080. By old measures, that’s a lot of money for a Corvette.
But a Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS hybrid, with 189 fewer horsepower, starts from $191,650, and soars past $220,000 with a modest sprinkling of options. From the chip-on-shoulder Corvette to Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren, buyers who might be ambivalent about EVs are warming to this new breed of hybrid sports cars.
Their advantages are becoming harder to resist. For any type of car or SUV, I’ll argue that the hybrid love affair, rather than being seen as a rejection of EVs, is exactly the opposite.
It’s a sign that Americans are already willing to meet electrification halfway. The next step becomes that much easier.
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