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"   Published in the February 2013 issue Over the last ten years, automotive progress has had virtually no downside. Horsepower has gone nowhere but up. Safety is through the roof, and there&amp;#039;s no such thing as an uncomfortable car \u2014 you can now buy hatchbacks at bargain-bin prices but get all the luxury of a Mercedes S-Class from fifteen years ago. And then there&amp;#039;s speed. Carmakers have spent the past two decades outshouting each other in a dizzying horsepower war (640-hp SRT Vipers! 700-hp Lamborghinis! 300-hp Chevy Malibus, for chrissakes!). I&amp;#039;ve driven a lot of absurdly fast cars, and though it may sound odd, faster isn&amp;#039;t much more fun past a certain point. If you have, say, a 550-hp Mustang, is a 662-hp one really that much better? Each can thrill you or bite your head off in an eyeblink. Also: Traffic continually worsens, and speed limits are no higher than they&amp;#039;ve ever been. What exactly are we supposed to do with more and more speed? Enter the 450-hp 2014 Chevrolet Corvette, the highest-profile and most-talked-about auto debut on the horizon. Given the sixty-year pedigree, it&amp;#039;s little wonder: The Corvette is the only mass-produced American sports car left standing \u2014 no other stateside company makes a two-seat machine this capable that the average man can afford. Traditionally, the Corvette has always been about bang for your buck: You paid relatively little ($50,575 for a 430-hp 2013 model, for example) and got an absurd amount of speed at the expense of refinement. Each iteration was much more powerful than the last, with the engine always a large pushrod-equipped V-8. The model represented a distinctly American philosophy \u2014 more for less! more because you deserve it! \u2014 writ large in steel and plastic. Only now that idea seems outdated. It doesn&amp;#039;t help that you can buy a lot of cheaper cars with more power; it also doesn&amp;#039;t help that the last range-topping Corvette ZR1, a 638-hp fire-breather, was almost too fast for most racetracks, let alone public roads. It was frightening on the street, and not always in a good way. So for the 2014 Corvette (and possibly beyond), GM reps admit power and speed aren&amp;#039;t their top priorities, which is amazing, because these guys love engines as much as anyone. They are instead turning their attention to improving the Corvette&amp;#039;s steering feel, its seat-of-the-pants vibe, and the car&amp;#039;s feedback to you \u2014 the visceral experience. If you&amp;#039;re grinning your face off, this thinking goes, you don&amp;#039;t care if you&amp;#039;re driving 50 mph or 150. This thinking could also signal a turning point in the horsepower war. There will be no more up (or at least no more faster-for-the-sake-of-faster), and carmakers will innovate and invest in what has come to matter most: driver involvement, not all-out speed. And if the Corvette can pull it off, the industry will pay attention (Hell, if the Corvette can do it...),and then, maybe, we&amp;#039;ll see a genuine moment of transition across the industry. We&amp;#039;ll still be driving very, very fast. We&amp;#039;ll just be enjoying ourselves more. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a18081/2014-chevrolet-corvette-0213/?src=rss>