Ford F-350 vs Chevrolet Corvette

What's the difference?

Ford’s legendary F-Series has been America’s best-selling truck for more than four decades. A major factor in that success is the Super Duty range (F-250/F-350/F-450), which reports for duty when loggers, landscapers, miners, oil-field workers and anyone else with seriously heavy on- and off-road load-hauling requirements needs more than the entry level F-150 can deliver.

Not surprisingly, such extreme-duty towing is also required in Australia, particularly by tradies with heavy equipment, and/or for recreational and sporting pursuits that involve multi-axle caravans, horse floats, boat trailers and the like. Some of these large trailers feature a goose-neck design which requires a prime mover-style turntable coupling mounted in the cargo tub.

There are a number of small volume importers which cater for these specialised requirements, including Harrison F Trucks at Melton in Melbourne’s outer west. Harrison provides ADR-approved right-hand drive conversion, local certification and sales/after-sales service for these American giants, one of which we recently sampled for a few days to see what life is like in the world of the Super Duty.

For many, Chevrolet’s repositioning of the engine in its Corvette from the nose to behind its passengers was a shock, although Chevy had seemingly been itching to make the shift since showing its XP-880 Astro II concept car close to 60 years ago.

But the idea of an electric motor in ‘America’s Sports Car’ was probably even more confronting.

However, when you add the critical detail that the petrol-electric hybrid E-Ray version of the current C8 Corvette puts out 488kW (655hp) and 806Nm, surely fears the end is nigh for muscle car enthusiasts ebb away.

The C8 ‘Vette has been with us for five years, blurring the line between traditional US-style performance and mid-engine Euro exotics, maintaining good ol' boy naturally aspirated V8 power but locating it between the axles, and in the E-Ray, hooking it up with a chunky electric drive unit up front.

There are potential changes on the horizon, with the even more thunderous Corvette Grand Sport X hybrid lurking in the wings. But right now, this is Chevrolet’s hybrid hero.

Could this cut-price supercar be your next four-wheeled piece of mechanical pride and joy?