The Chevrolet Corvette C8 was clearly not made for drag races - it’s too luxurious and comfortable for a true drag racer. That doesn’t mean it’s slow, it simply has to answer too many questions as an everyday car, a track car, and a weekend car. Obviously, that means there are certain compromises in terms of standing-start races.

We are not here to take sides and that’s why we decided to share the video at the top of this page with you as an example of that compromised acceleration. In a direct drag duel, the Corvette C8 meets a Mercedes-AMG GT 63 4 Door and the result from the race is speaking for itself.

There’s no detailed description of the two cars but we suppose they are both unmodified. This means the Mercedes has a twin-turbo V8 with 585 bhp (430 kilowatts) channelled to all four wheels for a 0-62 miles per hour (0-100 kilometres per hour) sprint in just 3.4 seconds.

Against it, the Corvette C8 puts to use its 6.2-litre V8 with 495 bhp (369 kW). Mated to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, it should accelerate the supercar to 60 mph (96 kph) in just 2.9 seconds. 

The factory numbers show a curb weight of 1,527 kilograms (3,366 pounds) for Chevy’s supercar versus approximately 2,045 kg (4,508 lbs) for the German four-door performance beast. This is a significant advantage for the ‘Vette but is it enough to offset the power difference?

We are not going to spoil the result of the race, though we’d like to mention that the real gap between the two cars is probably even wider than what is seen in the video. The reason for that is very prosaic - the reaction times of both drivers were not especially great.