10 Reasons the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette Won the AutoWeb Buyer’s Choice Best Sports Car Award

sports cars are the stuff of dreams. You’ll find them on posters, on phone or computer backgrounds, and on many folks’ bucket lists. Someday, they tell themselves, they’ll own that gorgeous fun car they’ve always dreamed of.

And for many, that car is the Chevrolet Corvette. It’s a longtime performance icon, and it starts at $55,900 while running with far pricier models from high-end luxury brands. When dreams are so well-suited to reality, it’s no surprise that AutoWeb users respond favorably. And based on their searches for price quotes, the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette has won the AutoWeb Buyer’s Choice Best Sports Car Award. Here are 10 reasons so many people are interested in buying a Corvette.

Whether you like the open-air experience of a convertible or the value, practicality, and structural rigidity of a fixed-roof car, the Corvette has you covered. Chevrolet technically calls the latter a coupe, but it’s actually a versatile liftback. You even can remove a small section of the hardtop and store it in the trunk to give the coupe a bit of a convertible vibe.

The traditional convertible, meanwhile, has a power-operated fabric top that can open or close in about 20 seconds and at speeds up to 30 mph. It can operate using a button within the cabin or the keyfob remote.

This isn’t a factor when 11-year-olds choose a poster for their bedroom, but when you’re actually picking a sports car to buy, you’ll appreciate that the Corvette has a surprising amount of trunk space. Thanks to its liftback design and generous dimensions, the Corvette coupe has 15 cubic feet of trunk space — the same as you’d find in a Toyota Camry midsize sedan, except that it’s actually the ’Vette that has the larger opening for easier loading and unloading.

Even the Corvette convertible has a decently sized trunk at 10 cubic feet, providing more space for your stuff than most sports cars. Just remember that there are only two seats in every Corvette.

Critics once complained about Corvette interiors, but the latest model has largely banished those concerns. The driver-centered dashboard has sufficient design flair while maintaining a user-friendly control layout, and materials are more luxury-grade. The seats are more supportive, and you can choose between extra-snug chairs for track duty or more relaxed (though still nicely bolstered) ones if you’ll be subjecting your Corvette to less extreme conditions.

The Corvette’s interior also is up to date technologically. It includes a touchscreen infotainment system, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone integration, and a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot.

Today’s Corvette is called the C7, meaning the Corvette’s seventh generation. The first Corvette hit the streets in 1953, and it quickly became an icon for American performance cars — both for its alluring style and for its substance.

The Corvette is a car that people have aspired to own for decades, and it’s good enough to continue inspiring desire among future car-buyers. Excited speculation about what Chevrolet will do with the C8 already abounds, but the classic Corvette flavor remains strong in the current generation.

The Corvette’s long, low, wide proportions almost guarantee that the car will look good, but today’s model is better than ever. In many of its iterations, the Corvette was unmistakably a Corvette — looking like nothing else on the road. While it still looks like a Corvette, the latest evolution also has picked up a resemblance to six-figure exotic sports cars.

The front view has a hint of Ferrari, while the rear end has dropped the signature set of four round taillights in favor of more conventional rectangles. Meanwhile, the narrow rear windshield over the wide haunches subtly evokes the Corvette Stingray of the 1960s and 1970s. Higher-performance Corvettes look even more exotic than the standard car, thanks to their wider stances and extra bodywork. 

With a base price of $55,900, the Corvette is not a budget car. But compared to other high-performance premium sports cars, it’s a bargain. Even the base Corvette can stomp many cars costing twice as much.

You can spend well over $100,000 for a Corvette these days. The Z06 model starts at $80,900 and has a long list of available options, while the new ZR1 starts at $123,000. But these models’ performance is commensurate with the price, and they too can outrun high-end exotics that are much more expensive. It's a stellar performance car that also happens to be relatively affordable. 

As you’d expect from a good sports car, the Corvette delivers sharp, balanced, capable handling. It’s fun to drive on the road and a downright monster on a racetrack. Once focused primarily on acceleration, the Corvette has evolved to also take on the European competition in corners. The current C7 generation represents the pinnacle of those efforts.

While even the base model is impressive, the Corvette offers numerous higher-performance variants that upgrade the handling for superior lap times on the track. And if you want to monitor your driving, the Corvette is available with Chevrolet’s Performance Data Recorder — it takes down 34 measurements about your car's behavior, along with audio and video clips.

While the high handling limits always are appreciated, the heart of the Corvette always hass been its V8 engine. For 2019, every Corvette has a version of the same 6.2-liter V8, and all of them blast you to 60 mph and beyond in less than 4 seconds. Buyers choose between a 7-speed manual transmission and an 8-speed automatic.

The base version is the Corvette Stingray, with 455 hp and a naturally aspirated engine. It’s closely followed by the Grand Sport, which focuses mainly on handling upgrades but also bumps horsepower to 460. The Z06 adds a supercharger to bring horsepower to 650, and drops the 0-60 time to under 3 seconds. New for 2019, the ZR1 takes things further with 755 hp; it pushes up the Corvette’s hood to make room for all the upgraded components, and it brings the 0-60 run down to a reported 2.85 seconds.

The Corvette is a phenomenal performance machine, but when you’re actually preparing to buy one, you also want to know if it’s livable on a daily basis. That’s always been a Corvette strength. This is a car that’s built to be driven on normal streets, not merely raced on a track or coddled in a collector’s garage.

The available Magnetic Ride Control system lets you adjust the suspension’s dampers to prioritize everyday ride comfort during the times you don’t need maximum handling performance. The steering is light enough at low speeds that you don’t feel worn out after driving it in traffic. The big V8 engine has EPA ratings of up to 25 miles per gallon on the highway. The trunk is usefully large. It's a sports car you can live with. 

Overall, the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette is a complete package for a high-end sports car: It’s stylish, it’s comfortable, it’s powerful, and it’s fun to drive. But that rough outline can describe plenty of sports cars. It takes a standout to win the AutoWeb Buyer’s Choice Best Sports Car Award. So to win over the AutoWeb community, the Corvette masters that rough outline and then adds its own brand of world-dominating performance.

You can get plenty of sports cars with huge engines, tons of horsepower, and lightning-fast 0-60 runs. But if you want one that also drives like the Corvette — with Chevrolet’s balance of supreme handling abilities and everyday drivability — you won’t expect to spend as little as $55,900. The Corvette is wicked fast, relatively affordable, and also good to excellent at everything else a sports car should be. And with more than 65 years to get noticed, we’re not surprised that buyers are paying attention to this iconic Chevy.