Australia's Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2022 tested: Right-hand-drive monster "feels strange" - in a good way...

Australia's Corvette Stingray is getting closer to launch, with the vehicle's engineering team putting the first right-hand drive examples through their paces in the States.

And there's good news from the team, with the test-drivers reporting that, while the Corvette feels "very strange" with the steering wheel on the right-hand side, Australian drivers will get the exact same experience as their US counterparts.

That's the word from Corvette Chief Engineer, Tadge Juechter, who told local media the first right-hand-drive cars are undergoing on-road testing ahead of their export to Australia and other similar markets.

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“Yes, some of us are actually driving them around. It’s very strange to be driving a Corvette with the steering wheel on the right-hand side," he told Corvette Blogger. "We’ve built some and we’ll be doing some of our pre-production testing now in the US.

“The car sold out almost immediately in Japan when we introduced it. That will be our first foray into right-hand drive."

In other good news, Chevrolet is promising there will be no downsides for right-hand-drive markets, with our Corvettes to feel every bit as driver-focused as their left-hand-drive siblings.

"In our car, everything is driver-focused, everything is angled towards the driver, the cockpit wraps around you, and so when you do a right hand drive, we didn’t want to dumb that down, we wanted those customers to have the same exact experience whether it’s Japan, UK or Australia," Juechter said.

"We wanted them to have the same driver-focused interior and so what we actually did was tool-up all those unique parts that are kinda mirror shaped so that we can flip them over to the other side and it would just be an exact mirror of the rest of the world’s car, the left hand drive cars.”

Chevrolet is promising there will be no downsides for right-hand-drive markets.

While Australians might not be overly familiar with Corvette product, there will be some instant familiarities, with the car's engineers ensuring there's a touch of Aussie flavour in every C8.

"I really like the Australian car because it’s all localised and so the navigation, the voice, she has that cool Australian voice that comes through. It's a lot of fun,” said Corvette product manager, Harlan Charles.

The Corvette will form the key pillar in GM's new GMSV strategy in Australia. In other words, get excited, because the Corvette's numbers are genuinely hard to believe. In base spec, the mid-engine C8 will scream to a staggering 312km/h, thanks to its hard-charging 6.2-litre LT2 V8 engine, good for a signifiicant 370kW of power and 640Nm of torque, which is shuffled through and eight-speed dual-clutch automatic.

The Corvette is expected to launch next year.