No Corvette owner yet, looking to add a sports car to my garage.

Choices are:

1. C5 corvette
2. Mid 90's Viper
3. Mid 90's Lotus Esprit

All these cars I'm looking at are specific to my budget. I currently have a 2005 Cadillac Escalade, and want a sports car for the weekends and such. All these cars I have always liked something about them. The Corvette is just an american classic. So I have gone to various forum boards to get some feed back from respective owners. Can you folks shead some light on the C5 Corvette for me?

Your on a Corvette Forum, you think we will vote for anything other than the C5 Corvette in your list?? :D

Might I suggest a 2001 or newer corvette convertible.Any C5 after '01 has had the fewest problems.I think you would enjoy a weekend cruising around in a convertible.

I suggest 1980 orange Ford Pinto, perhaps put some spinners on it? :D j/king. Course go with the Corvette, the newer the better.

All three cars are nice, Lotus - bad a$$ car, cool looking expensive to repair, the viper is just a racing machine, once again great car. The C5 Corvette is most likely the best bang for the buck in my opinion from a maintenance stand point, mods and so forth.

All three cars are nice, Lotus - bad a$$ car, cool looking expensive to repair, the viper is just a racing machine, once again great car. The C5 Corvette is most likely the best bang for the buck in my opinion from a maintenance stand point, mods and so forth.

Especially the Lotus will be a mechanical nightmare! Don't know how the Vipers are, being an American car can't image it would be any where near the upkeep cost of Lotus. Fortunately for the C5 or Corvettes in general there are a ton of parts and people who have experience working on these things!

I always liked Corvettes so you have have my vote!

All three are great cars. I know folks who own all of the above. A few observations:

1. Lotus is a tremendous handlling car. Remember it comes with R compound tires(good for about 6,000 miles). As mentioned above is expensive to repair. They are small and offer little protection in an accident. I road race vettes and specifically would not race a Lotus because of safety issues.

2. Vipers are great looking, have a ton of power and are more exotic say some, than vettes. That said, they have a rougher ride and can't stay with us on a road race track without a bunch of mods. They are heavier and are sluggish in tight turns.

The C5 is the safest best performing car of the bunch and the best value.

My take:
Lotus is the best looking and most exotic of the three. If you want to see people crash and get whiplash when you go by, go for this one. I was very serious about getting one back in the day, but after going through lotus fact files (you can google for it) I decided I'd rather drive a car more than work on one. They have TONS of nagging little issues, and a few VERY expensive major issues you'd have to sort through. Plus finding on in good condition...good luck on that quest!

Viper is just a hot car. It's a beast. I LOVE the look of a viper. But I'm a big guy, and it's uncomfortable for me to sit in. It rides terrible compared to my Z06. And my friend who has one has kept his in the shop too much for my comfort level. That could be just that he got a lemon, but I've heard and now have 1 experience, that they aren't reliable enough for me. His best time at the drag strip is a 13.63 (he's a stock 95 R/T) up at this mile high altitude.

My Electron Blue Z06 is also a beautiful car. But you DO see a lot of other pretty vettes around. There's something of a stigma about being a "vette owner", but that goes for all makes. It takes a special (read crazy to most people) person to buy ANY sports car over an SUV or Econobox. My Z is a daily driver, I drove it over 650 miles home from Dallas to Albuquerque and got 28 MPG. It's not stock, which was a bonus for me, because I'm a drag racer at heart. My third try at the quarter mile run, by the way, was a tenth faster than my friends best ever Viper run. That makes me a happy camper. Plus mine hasn't gone into the shop, where his has.

This is not to say that the Vette is perfect. The build quality is NOT on par with a 50K car. (I also have an Infiniti Q45). I'm having the devil of a time with the weatherstripping around the driver side door. The guy before me trashed out the car a little, obviously raced it, as the fourth gear syncro's are dead in my car. That's going to be an expensive fix (but any tranny is, and this will still be an order of magnitutde cheaper than pulling the transaxle from a Lotus!) I believe the viper has the same Tremec T56 tranny, so this was from racing abuse more than anything else. There are serveral common things on Vettes that fail. ABS/Traction control modules, etc...BUT there's a TON of information on various Corvette boards (like this one) on how to do it yourself (if you go that way) AND let's face it...Chevy parts are just plain cheaper. You'd think the same would be true with the Viper being a Dodge, but that isn't so, according to my friend. The Viper's coming up to 15 years, and how long has the corvette been around? That's right 55 years and counting...you've got some legacy there, AND the support system already in place to back you up even if you wanted/needed to rebuild the car from the tires on up!

So to sum: Z06 is a daily driver, faster than both viper and lotus (stock to stock, although that changes from year to year and car to car), better gas milage, easier to mod up, easier to find information on how to DIY, more vettes = more mechanics that have worked on them if you don't DIY, cheaper parts, and the legacy.

Oh, and Electron Blue is just a beautiful damn color! :D