2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 vs. Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica, McLaren 765LT: Club Supercar

The high-end supercar segment is a little like Formula 1 racing—it's a club that doesn't include many Americans. Of the nearly 800 drivers who've ever competed in the series, fewer than 7 percent have been Americans, and a pitiful number of them have won many races, with the last to do so being Italian-born Mario Andretti—in 1978. Perhaps not coincidentally, of all the hyper- and supercars available globally, just a meager handful are built here in pickuptruckland—mostly at boutique shops like Hennessey, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, and SSC North America—and mostly at seven-figure prices.

Into the breach comes the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 with Z07 package from the decidedly un-boutique house of General Motors, seemingly meeting all the qualifications for membership in the fraternal order of supercars. Should buyers contemplating purchase of an Olde World supercar from the likes of McLaren (eight F1 constructors' championships) or Lamborghini (seven GT3 championships) also be kicking the tires of the mid-engine Corvette Z06, developed by Corvette Racing (eight LeMans class wins)? To find out, we rounded up a Z06 and two of the hottest new supercars available—the 2022 McLaren 765LT Spider and the 2023 Lamborghini Huracán LP 640-2 Tecnica—and spent a week flogging them in our initiation trials. And let us state right here at the top that these cars enjoy parity on performance—not price, as the cost difference between each is roughly the price of this Corvette.

The Corvette Stingray and Z51 are dynamically brilliant, but their pushrod muscle car engine precludes them from supercar consideration. So Chevy tapped its Corvette Racing team partners Pratt & Miller for assistance co-developing a road car engine alongside its GTLM engine. Together, they've developed what seemed impossible: a 5.5-liter naturally aspirated flat-plane-crankshaft V-8 that doesn't shake itself to pieces. Without racing restrictor plates, it churns out 670 hp at 8,400 rpm and 460 lb-ft at 6,300 rpm, ranking it as the world's largest and most powerful V-8 of this configuration. And prior to road car production, the design survived three grueling years of endurance racing. The icing on the cake is its delightful engine bark, which sounds like a Ferrari 458's tenor aria being sung by a barrel-chested baritone—much more supercar than muscle car.

Lamborghini's high-strung 5.2-liter V-10 produces almost precisely as many horses per liter as the Corvette but fewer lb-ft, so it feels noticeably less torquey. But oh, what a joyful noise those 631 horses and 417 lb-ft make! Extremely exotic and far more mellifluous than most production 10-bangers—think Lexus LFA as opposed to SRT Viper V-10. And it makes a lot of it.

McLaren's wee 4.0-liter V-8 leans on two twin-scroll turbos to deliver 56 percent more horsepower and 80 percent more torque per liter than the two naturally aspirated engines can manage. And as the current top-dog offering in McLaren's mid-tier "supercar" lineup, it produces a whopping 755 horses' worth of right-now power and 590 lb-ft torque. Drop the hammer in any corner exit, and the shove against your back feels considerably stronger than that of the free breathers, but the engine sound is vastly less pleasing.

Combustion-powered supercars mostly use twin-clutch automatic transmissions, and each of these cars puts its own spin on the concept. Lamborghini's Doppia Frizione and McLaren's Seamless Shift Gearbox (both built by Graziano) employ seven ratios, while the Corvette's Tremec box features eight. That's because the Corvette is aiming for both 0-60-mph bragging rights at the low end and quiet cruising with decent highway fuel economy at the top end. Hence it features the shortest first gear ratio (by 3-7 percent) and the tallest top gear ratio (by 42-84 percent). The Lamborghini gets the closest and most evenly spaced ratios, designed to maximize leverage across the entire speed range and to hit its 200-mph top speed at redline. (The Corvette's eighth gear could theoretically hit 370 mph in a vacuum.) The McLaren's gearing slots somewhere in between, imperiously disinterested in 60-mph sprinting, comfort, noise, or fuel economy.

Each offers automatic and paddle-actuated manual shifting, with paddles mounted to the wheel on the Corvette and 765LT and to the column on the Huracán. The Corvette's automatic shift strategy is most ideally pegged to the drive modes, with Track mode being the most aggressive at holding gears or preemptively downshifting, prompting features editor Scott Evans to declare: "They've cracked the Porsche PDK code. This thing shifts as well as any Porsche I have driven." The McLaren box was nearly as astute and also permits auto shifting in all drive modes. In the Lamborghini's top Corsa mode, there's no automatic shift option, but at least its shift warning system is brighter and more obvious than the one in the Chevy's head-up display, and it's more comprehensible than the McLaren's three-segment green-red-blue indicator system. However, Evans found fault with the shift "quality" of the Lamborghini in Corsa mode, which he likened to "a shovel to the back of the head."

This particular Corvette contending for supercardom comes fully optioned with the Z07 Ultimate Performance package ($8,995), which buys slightly stiffer springs, unique tuning of the Magnetic Ride Control suspension, plus carbon-ceramic brakes and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires. Its $11,995 carbon-fiber wheels shave about 10 pounds of both unsprung mass and rotational inertia per corner. Finally, there are $10,495 worth of carbon-fiber aero enhancements, including a high wing, dive planes, and a more aggressive splitter, diffuser, and ground effects. (Note, skinflints can shave $2K off both those latter prices with painted instead of visible-weave carbon.) But the Corvette's structure is still mostly aluminum, and our 3LZ test model is decked out with lots of creature comforts, so it weighs the most of this trio by 216 to 463 pounds.

Meanwhile, our Tecnica slots into the rear-drive Lamborghini Huracán lineup between the EVO and STO performance versions, with its suspension softened a bit and its aero downforce and drag reduced slightly relative to the most extreme STO. It shares that model's rear-wheel steering and Bridgestone Potenza Race tires, however.

The carbon-tub McLaren is by far the lightest and most extreme car here, with its titanium exhaust and thinner, lighter glazing paring away precious ounces. The Spider's roof mechanism adds 130 pounds without altering the structural rigidity, but tuning revisions to the Spider's hydraulically cross-linked suspension actually improve the overall behavior of the car, potentially making this the preferable version even if you don't lower the top. The splitter and rear wing create substantial downforce, and the wing flips up nearly vertical when braking for added stability. Brakes are borrowed from the mighty Senna, and lightweight forged alloys are shod in Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires.

We doubt supercar owners drag race their cars very often, but each of these cars comes equipped with a launch control mode just in case. The Corvette and Lamborghini systems dumped the clutch at about 4,500 rpm, while the torquier McLaren only dialed up 3,000 revs. The Corvette alone benefited from a pre-launch burnout to warm and soften the treads. It should be noted that testing the Lamborghini triggered an Apple Watch loud-noise warning, so wear ear plugs on track days.

The Corvette's gearing gambit pays off with the quickest sprint to 60 mph (2.8 seconds, a tenth ahead of the others), but taller gearing from there on blunts the Corvette's acceleration enough to let the others pull away from 80 mph on up. By the quarter mile, the Huracán is 0.2 second ahead, the McLaren 0.5, with trap speeds telling the real weight-to-power story—the McLaren hits 142.6 mph, the Lambo 134.5, and the heavier, aero-drag-bedeviled Chevy just 128.2.

You'd expect three mid-engine cars with 40/60-ish percent weight distribution and carbon brakes averaging 15 inches in diameter all around to stop similarly, and you'd be right: They each need 93-96 feet to stop from 60 mph. But here again the braking systems demonstrate unique personalities. The McLaren's pedal barely moves, but response to pressure is linear and predictable, and our team quickly acclimated to the system's seemingly bottomless reserves of whoa. By contrast, senior features editor Jonny Lieberman described the Lamborghini's non-linear brakes as its fatal flaw. "Up in the canyons, the fact that there's almost no travel whatsoever kills the experience," he said. "Jumpy is the best way to describe it." Meanwhile, the Corvette's stoppers felt plenty linear, but their brake-by-wire pedal-force transducer lacked feedback, disappointing executive editor Mac Morrison. "I found myself figuring out my braking distances almost by vision alone rather than a normal combination of vision and feel," he said. The Corvette's brakes were also the only ones to squeal upon initial application, which saps some psychological confidence. But there's no debating their capability, which is even more impressive from 100 mph, where the Corvette stops in just 252 feet—2 feet shorter than the 463-pound-lighter McLaren with its Senna stoppers and air brake (254 feet) and 6 feet better than of the Lamborghini (258 feet).

Let's face it, this is where seven generations of front-engine Corvettes really came up short relative to supercars. They could generate a competitive lap time or lateral grip number but only by leaning heavily on the tires, causing lap times to plunge as tires heated up and wore down. The C8 Corvette's inherent eagerness to turn allows the Z06 to maintain a competitive pace longer—especially with the Z07 and Aero packages. In fact, our Z06/Z07's acceleration, braking, and stout 1.16 g lateral grip helped it string together MotorTrend's second-best figure-eight performance ever: 21.9 seconds at 0.99 average g. Wanna guess our number one? This very McLaren 765LT Spider, which managed 1.17 g lateral grip and charged harder out of the corners to finish its lap 0.05 second ahead of the 'Vette, in 21.8 seconds at 1.01 g average. The comparatively lumbering Lambo's 22.6-second, 0.94 g (avg) lap ranks way down in 31st place.

For a change, these numbers accurately represent what the cars are like to drive on the road and the track. Our "accomplished amateur" editors all reported building confidence surprisingly quickly and easily in both the McLaren and Corvette on the track, swiftly developing trust in each car's exceptionally high cornering and braking limits, with each communicating grip levels clearly and behaving commendably at the limit. This was a welcome surprise in the McLaren Spider. Its fixed-roof sibling has struck us as a bit too extreme, but Lieberman lauded the softened front-end spring rates and damping for making this "one of the best cars I've ever driven on the street—up there with Paganis and Bugattis, for millions of dollars less." Meanwhile, the Huracán's Corsa mode damping was deemed too extreme for anything but pristine pavement, and many felt it just seemed less confident and planted than its STO sibling, let alone these other two high-limit smooth operators.

The cockpits contribute to driver confidence, too, with the McLaren's canopy-style windshield affording the best visibility, its wheel and pedals positioned ideally, and its hard-shell seat and shoulder wings resisting the most extreme lateral forces. By contrast, the Lambo is hard to see out of in any direction, and its cramped footwell compromised the driving position for some. The Corvette strikes a reasonable middle ground with good visibility, the most comfortable seating, and reasonably placed controls (though many fault its "squircle" steering wheel). Chevy also enhances the driving fun with features like a g-meter in Sport mode's head-up display, which retains peak g figures long enough for the driver to note them after the road straightens out, and a performance data recorder that captures video of a track session or back road run, overlaid with speed, tach, g-meter data, and more for subsequent study or to share with friends.

There's only one car here that sane adults would contemplate driving for more than an hour, and that's the Corvette. Its Tour mode is far and away the quietest and most comfortable by several orders of magnitude, its comfy seats are heated and cooled, you can hear and enjoy its Bose sound system, and there's room to carry up to 12.6 cubic feet of luggage (or the roof panel plus a carry-on suitcase). The Lamborghini interior looks the most upscale exotic, but the din at highway speeds is (perhaps literally) deafening, and the frunk can barely accommodate a helmet. And comfort was obviously absent on the priorities list for those designing the McLaren. Its seat becomes a borderline torture device about 10 minutes after the lateral g forces subside, controls for things like the cruise control and mirror switches are inscrutable, the B&W sound system is hopelessly outmatched by the V-8, and the "automatic climate control" simply isn't.

Our week with these three cars suggests the Corvette does indeed have the chops to run with the supercar crowd. We wish its design was a bit less busy and juvenile, and we hope an over-the-air update might improve the brake feel, but the car's dynamics and visceral appeal earn it legit supercar status as far as we're concerned. To wit: It earns a solid second-place finish among these two establishment supercars. So yes, we're crowning the McLaren the superior supercar, owing to its mesospheric performance limits and the ease with which we mere mortals were able to probe them. Now let the Corvette's unofficial supercar-club initiation ceremonies commence at track days, rallies, and Cars & Coffee events everywhere.

Verdict: Changes made to the STO reduce performance more than they improve livability, compromising its supercar mission.

Verdict: America's sports car—in Z06/Z07 guise—is now America's supercar.

Verdict: A hypercar at supercar pricing.