The Chevrolet Corvette came of age with the C6 generation.

This was the model that finally stopped all the jokes about American sports cars being unable to go round corners and with a great chassis, superb V8 engines and a competition record to rival the very best, the Corvette C6 is undoubtedly a serious sports car.

It’s predecessor, the C5 was unquestionably fabulous to look at but didn’t fare too well in the UK.

With 345bhp, it was certainly fast but was just too big and unwieldy for British roads.

Only available in left-hand drive, it wasn’t a comfortable experience to be brushing the kerb on the nearside with your offside wing mirror in the opposite lane.

For the C6, GM reasoned finally that to keep its legend alive it had to compete head on with the very best the Europeans could offer, hence the new Corvette was lighter, smaller and significantly faster than the model it replaced, not to mention better-made, more economical and a great deal more sophisticated beneath the ski...