Took an 07 Z06 and a 2010 Shelby GT500 out for test drives this weekend.

The Z06 was not as comfortable, the seat bottoms were short, strange. It is a great car with tremendous torque all across the rev range. I especially liked the heads up display. Car is well balanced, 3300 ish lbs. Clutch take up took a little getting used to, it's hydraulic and it's essentially all or nothing, it engages all at once. Not a big deal but different feeling than mechanical clutches. This particular car however had headers and a non stock exhaust - sounded amazing but the sales guy told me after my test ride that it didn't come with any of the remaining warranty. It was the headers. He is checking but they are leaning towards installing stock manifolds which is ok but they want 4500 to do that. So that car isn't going to do it for me. Someone is going to take some heat at the dealer for buying a car that voids the warranty.

The GT 500 actually surprised me - I was not anticipating how impressive this car actually is. 550 hp and 510 tq is a little hard to put down but the car is very easy to drive with no surprises at limits (just driving on the road), it's comfortable, has great brakes, super short shifter, great steering wheel and the sound it makes is really incredible. A little front weight biased and a tad heavy around 4000 lbs but very predictable and easy to drive quickly and fast. The power feels flat across the band and when you spool up the super charger you can hear a whine (not too pronounced) that reminds you there is a blower under the hood - pretty cool.

Two very different cars, the Z06 is quicker and goes faster but I think the GT500 makes for a better daily driver.

I'm thinking about the GT500 as a convertible - it will give up some of the handling, lose some of the stiffness (it didn't have a jarring ride) but there really isn't anything like top down driving in the nice weather, especially with the sound coming from the engine and pipes.