Yes, its cabin has plenty of ergonomic quirks and it still lags behind the best for perceived quality, but we can’t help but feel grateful that a car like the Corvette exists at all, and in right-hand-drive form to boot. It’s not an unequivocal recommendation, but the caveats are small and easily offset by the car’s big-hearted character.
Meanwhile, for those with bigger budgets and appetites, there’s also the bewinged Z06 version, with its waspish flat-crank V8 and trackday-ready temperament. Memorable indeed.
Read our Chevrolet Corvette C8 and Chevrolet Corvette Z06 reviews
8. Jaguar F-Type
Pros Plenty of bang for your buck, plenty of front-engined, rear-driven dynamic attitude
Cons Not very practical even by two-seater standards, cabin is showing some age
Nearly a decade after its debut, the Jaguar F-Type is beginning its farewell tour. Jaguar has announced its flagship sports car will die, with no direct replacement in the pipeline. In fact, the sales fortunes of the British brand’s much-hyped successor to the legendary E-Type will tell you much about the development of the modern sports car market.
When it was launched in 2013, we imagined the buying public would value it as a sort of prettier and more dependable modern TVR, favouring the biggest-hitting V8 engines and viewing it as a cheaper and more powerful front-engined rival to the 911. And for a while, they did exactly so. But as the car aged and the focus of the purist sports car market migrated (both upwards towards mid-engined super-sports cars like the Audi R8 and downwards towards cheaper mid-engined machines such as the Cayman and A110), the F-Type had to move with it. The six-cylinder models grew in popularity, until Jaguar created another wave of interest in the car by furnishing it with a four-cylinder engine.
So after its 2020 facelift, the F-Type straddles even more market territory than it used to, despite the decision to axe the V6, which was becoming increasingly difficult to clean up to meet emissions regulations. At the top of the range, the new R version remains a bleeding-heart, 567bhp upper-level-911 and cut-price Aston Martin Vantage rival; at the lower end, it costs less than £60,000 and makes do with just under 300bhp; and in the middle, the V8-engined, rear-wheel-drive, £70,000 P450 version might even be the pick of the range.
