Gotcha! The Chevy Corvette Stingray’s PDR catches valet joyride on video

By Alexander Kalogianni Published December 16, 2014

The beauty of the Performance Data Recorder in the new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is that it can also keep tabs of what your car’s doing when you’ve handed the keys off to a valet, as one owner found out after he dropped his off with the dutiful attendant outside the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County, California. Upon reviewing the footage and data, he saw how the attendant got a little too familiar with his ‘Vette for his liking.

In the video that the owner posted on YouTube, the attendant doesn’t seem to do anything out of the ordinary, and very mundanely takes the car away to be parked. It’s right at the end of the descent to a lower level of the parking garage where, after the turn off the ramp, where he comes to a very deliberate stop. We can see the open stretch of garage in front of him and already know what he’s thinking before he does it.

2015CorvetteValetMode-005 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Let’s face it: Valets are usually car guys, and getting a gig at a hotel or restaurant parking a multitude of different vehicles means that, depending on the location, these guys are treated to the occasional gem. It’s the car – like this Stingray – that makes the rest of the day worthwhile and the one car that they’ll tell everyone about at the end of the day. It’s when they get all Ferris Bueller with people’s property that’s the issue.

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This particular valet didn’t do anything horrendous, but he’s cavalier enough with this car to imagine what he’s done in the past with others. He probably would’ve gotten away with this one, too, if he didn’t conveniently stand in front of the vehicle assuring he’d be recorded as well.

The new Corvette Stingray is a great car. It’s got a great 6.2-liter V8 engine that pumps out 460 horsepower and the vehicle really knows what to do with it. It’s also got great features like the Performance Data Recorder that lets drivers record videos of their laps, with an overlay of speed, gear selection, rpm, and g-force. Tweaking this to also include a valet mode to record stuff like this video is a pretty good selling point, too.

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Alexander Kalogianni

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Alex K is an automotive writer based in New York. When not at his keyboard or behind the wheel of a car, Alex spends a lot of…

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