Do The C8 Corvette's Ultra-High Performance All-Season Tyres Make Any Sense?

Chevrolet raised a few eyebrows by fitting the C8 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray with all-season tyres as standard. Specifically, it wears Michelin Pilot Sport All Seasons from the factory.

Michelin claims these are ‘ultra-high performance all-season’ tyres, which sounds like a massive contradiction. An all-season tyre needs bigger tread blocks and a different compound compared to a normal UHP boot for when the temperatures drop and surfaces become slippery. The trouble is, this tends to introduce an element of flex into the surface of the tyre, robbing the driver of feedback and making the car feel less immediate.

To find out if a tyre really can be both all-season and ultra-high performance or if that’s all just marketing twaddle, we need the expertise of Tyre Reviews. Founder Jon Benson decided to try and answer this question using a C8 Corvette, which he took on a road trip.

This is more of a subjective assessment rather than one of Benson’s usual timed tests, but it’s still a thorough one. The car was taken from hot, desert-like conditions just outside LA to a chilly mountainous region near Salt Lake City, to see if the Pilot Sport All Season is as versatile as it’s supposed to be.

We’ll let the man give you his full verdict, but suffice to say the tyres end up being very impressive. The cold weather performance is brilliant, with feedback and immediacy only suffering in warm, dry conditions right at the limit. They’re so good, it begs the question - why don’t we get boots like this in Europe?