2005 Chevy Corvette & 2005 Porsche 911

{{{Chevrolet Corvette}}} and {{{Porsche 911}}}. They're soul brothers. Survivors. They've weathered oil crises and recessions, safety nazis and boardroom bumblers; they've beaten rivals on road and track and showroom floor; and they've picked themselves up from the occasional pratfall--the clumsy 964, the asthmatic L82--to arrive in the 21st century leaner, stronger, and more fit than ever. Each is a true sports-car icon. And like so many icons, each is trapped by history.

They've clashed many times over the past 40-odd years, these two, but rarely has the contest seemed so evenly matched. Choose the right models, and they'll run identical quarter-mile times and lap Willow Springs racetrack within a second of each other. One has a top speed of 179 mph, the other 186 mph. They're even virtually the same size and weight--the 911 has grown larger and heavier over the decades, while the Corvette, having ballooned like Elvis in the Vegas years during the 1970s, has since gotten smaller and lighter, to the point where the C6 is actually an inch shorter, two inches lower, and 16 pounds lighter than the Porsche.

Ahhh, but that history... There's still no substitute for cubes in a Corvette, and the C6 rumbles to the tune of a 6.0-liter small-block V-8, with pushrods, just like they had in the 1950s. Porsche, meanwhile, stubbornly relies on a precision-engineered flat-six, slung way out behind the rear axle just like every 911 since 1963. Neither is quite what you'd expect of a 21st-century sports car.

Porsche calls its just-released Type 997 the "new" 911, but in truth it's a thorough rework of the eight-year-old water-cooled 996. Almost everything--engine, transmission, suspension, brakes, interior--has been tweaked, massaged, improved, or replaced. But Porsche also spent a large slice of its development budget deliberately changing almost every exterior body panel to make the car look more like the old-school 993 version of a decade ago, with round headlights and curvier hips. It's beautifully executed, but a bit like a digitally remastered Renoir. Depending on your point of view, new Porsche design chief Michael Mauer--the man who'll style the next-generation 911, due 2010--either has the easiest job in the auto business or the toughest.