Let’s be honest – in every area save price, a McLaren MP4-12C will outperform a C7 Corvette Stingray. With a 616 horsepower twin turbo V8, 0-60 times in the 2.9 second range, and a 207 MPH top speed, the 12C is in a completely different world than the Corvette. But then again, it should be, considering its MSRP of over $239,000. So why the apples-to-oranges comparison?

Per filmmaker Jeffrey Hart, it came down to the cars available for the video shoot. “I was going to use a [Ferrari] 430, but that fell through,” he explains. “I was left with the McLaren or a Ford GT. I didn’t want to make fun of an American car, so I went with the foreign car.” The concept is still a fun one, though – America’s sports car making the exotic competition wake up in a cold sweat.

While the C7 (at least in its current “base” 450 horsepower version) won’t be showing its taillights to too many supercars, the beauty of Chevy’s affordable masterpiece is that once tuners get their hands on them, the sky is the limit. 

Put, say, half as much money into a C7 as it takes to buy a stock McLaren, and you’ll have a car that accelerates like an Estes model rocket, corners like it was on a giant orange Hot Wheels track, and stops like catching the third wire on a perfect carrier landing.

Even in stock form, the Stingray offers more performance than all but a handful of very talented people can safely utilize on public roads.

We think Hart puts it best, though – “Yes a McLaren is much faster, but for 1/5 the price the Corvette is pretty damn badass…”