It’s a British V8 vs American V8 smackdown!
It’s no secret there isn’t much love lost between many American and UK car enthusiasts. Even though the British auto industry has been largely hollowed out – an unfortunate fact that’s even more true of the Australian industry – many enthusiasts on the other side of the pond still rabidly advocate for their storied brands and titans of yesterday. That makes stacking a Jaguar XK8 against a C5 Corvette a little bit of an emotional topic.
Check out Tesla’s latest victory here.
There will of course be those on both sides of the Atlantic divide who automatically assume the car from their country wins. And we fully expect people from other countries such as Germany or Italy to smugly laugh with a self-assurance their preferred V8-powered vehicle from the same era would absolutely mop the floor with these two. Perhaps that matchup will be coming later.
For now, TFLclassics came up with the brilliant idea to have these two face off in a standing drag race, rolling race, and brake test. You might not agree with all their methods for pitting these vehicles against each other, but you have to admit this is a truly interesting matchup.
Even though these two are both using V8 engines, there are many dissimilar things about them. First off, the most obvious one is the Jag is a luxury vehicle and cost quite a bit more, at least here in the US. With all that lovely leather and such, it also tips the scales about 500 lbs. more than the Chevy, which admittedly has a pretty crappy interior. But we’re talking about speed, not how pampered you feel. On paper, the C5 Corvette outguns the XK8 by about 60-horsepower and 90 lb.-ft. of torque, so already things don’t look great for the Jag.
But as we know, real-world tests and specs on a page can be two entirely different things. Check out the video to see which car came out on top.
Keyword: Jaguar XK8 Races C5 Corvette