Chevrolet Corvette vs Ford Mustang

What's the difference?

Chevrolet’s Corvette Z06 supercar is an all-American answer to European rivals Lamborghini and Ferrari, but it’s not just this that makes it so appealing.

Spending a week with the most potent Corvette you can get in Australia has left me with a list of notes on this beast I want to hand over to you. Maybe it will help make your mind up about it or change your mind.

What makes the Z06 the flagship of the Australian Corvette range isn’t little luxuries, but seriously upgraded mechanical hardware, much of it track focussed.

Our test car was also fitted with the Z07 Performance package which adds a carbon-fibre aero kit to pin the Corvette down at high speed while also drawing everybody’s attention to it.

Oh, and then there’s the sound of the largest flatplane crank V8 ever to go into a production car… and look out for your ankles - let me explain…

The new Ford Mustang GT was not designed for Paris.

Fighting through the morning peak hour rush (which seems to extend through the middle of the day and the afternoon), the new Mustang feels like a caged animal. Which is appropriate, given the car’s namesake is a wild horse that exists to roam the American wilderness.

But once we finally break the shackles of Parasian traffic we find ourselves getting to let this Mustang gallop across the French countryside and unleash its full potential. But more on that later…

The reason we're driving the Mustang in France is because the American brand wanted to connect it to its new racing program at the famous Le Mans sports car race (you know, the one in the Matt Damon movie, Ford v Ferrari).

No less than Bill Ford, great-grandson of the company’s famous founder, was on-hand to see the Mustang at Le Mans, such is the passion for performance.

Ford (the man, not the company) took the opportunity to declare that the Blue Oval brand is not only committed to internal combustion engines for the foreseeable future, but it will retain the V8 under the bonnet of the Mustang GT for as long as it can legally do so.

Australians will have to wait a few more weeks (maybe months) before the seventh-generation Mustang arrives, but here’s what you can expect when it lands on local roads.