-eztrader-

3600 pounds?

Looks like an 8 year old child designed this exterior...just awful

Hoping they right the ship with the mid engine car

A/S

a 2017, it comes with the Grand Sport suspension tune standard, an extra oil cooler, and the larger supercharger intercooler.

A 2015-2016 won't complete a lap at the Ring before going limp, and Chevy won't fix them.

Bossing

ajag

So true. LOL!

Nizer

This is the one I'd pick if ever compelled to own a Vette.

Interesting that this thread got booted. You can put a lot of OT stuff in the GT3 forum but apparently the mods draw the line at Vettes....

Big Swole

I know they're BadA$$ but I've just never been able to get excited about a Vette.

mykalz71

To each their own. To me the C2 is still one of the most beautiful cars I have ever seen. Much more attractive than the old bathtubs.

ipse dixit

They must feel threatened.

montoya

IB owns Rennlist and the Corvette forum so I don't think so!

The look of this thing is dictated by modifying the existing chassis for what looks like 3X the cooling since the Z06 had real problems at 650 HP, so you could imagine trying to get the ZR1 cooled. Look at the GT2 and all the cooling there, it's similar, just aesthetically better looking (or we are used to it).

No doubt this car will have major street presence, good and bad!

Para82

My local dealer just slapped a 22,000 discount on the windshield of their 2017 Z06 which has been sitting there for a while. Definitely some great deals.

I got nearly 10k off my GrandSport last July and that was a perfect spec car (7speed Manual, Z07 Aero package, Sport Exhaust, NAV/Data Recorder, white, coupe). I love these new Corvettes.

mykalz71

Many ‘17 Z06 now at 20% off MSRP. Excellent deal/car for that kind of money.

StudGarden

Oh absolutely. Ugliest rear end of any car made but if you can look past that every model in the range is a really great value considering what they are selling for.

kingjr9000

2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1: The 755-HP Front-Engined Vette To End All Front-Engined Vettes
To make a Corvette even mightier than the Z06, you need only two things: power and downforce.


2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1: The 755-HP Front-Engined Vette To End All Front-Engined Vettes
There’s no pretending anymore that a tectonic shift isn’t on its horizon, but the Chevrolet Corvette as we know it is still evolving as if it’s in a time-lapse video. In 2013, the Z06 was a 505-hp middle manager toiling in the shadow of the supercharged ZR1; just a generation later, it outearns its former boss with a 650-hp blown LT4, establishing itself as the greatest performance value of all time. At Virginia International Raceway for our annual Lightning Lap track extravaganza, the current-generation Z06 fell short of an $875,000 limited-production hypercar by only a second and a half—at a savings of some three-quarters of a million bucks. It’d be pretty easy to make a Z06 faster with another $775,000.

Or you could let Chevy do it for you at a significant discount. Final pricing for the 2019 ZR1 isn’t settled, but expect it to track the C6-generation ZR1 and start just above $120,000 when it reaches dealers in spring 2018. It’s not wrong to think of the ZR1 as a Z06 with more. Both have supercharged engines, and aside from that, their drivetrains—either the seven-speed manual or the eight-speed automatic—are the same right down to the gear ratios. Suspension differences are limited to tuning. There are no fancy spool-valve shocks here as there are on a Camaro ZL1 1LE; as with the Z06, the ZR1 uses magnetorheological dampers. The ZR1’s front wheels are a half-inch wider, changing the tire’s shoulder geometry, but its standard and optional rubber are the same pieces Z06 buyers get, and the ZR1’s brakes are the Z06’s optional rotors and calipers with new pads.


But the ZR1 is precisely one step beyond just “more.” Longtime Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter describes the ZR1 as “the most we know how to do.” Here, the most means 755 horsepower and 715 lb-ft of torque. And it starts, as it did in 1990 on the first ZR-1 that most people remember, with an engine called LT5. With pushrods instead of its ancestor’s dual overhead cams, though, this LT5 is an evolution of the 6.2-liter LT4 powering the current Z06. Like the Z06’s engine, this one is capped by an Eaton supercharger. The blower is bigger than the LT4’s, pumping 52 percent more air with each revolution, and taller by 2.9 inches. Corvette exterior design manager Kirk Bennion says that, when the design team tried to maintain typical hood clearances, “you got behind the wheel, and you couldn’t even see the right side of the car.” Faced with this difficulty, his team decided to stay home.


Stay home from Europe, that is. Forgoing European sales and ignoring the Continent’s rulebook meant not having to meet its stringent pedestrian-protection regulations. In Europe, the head of anybody who steps in front of a moving car is entitled to smash through a minimum amount of (relatively) soft material and space before contacting hard engine parts such as intake manifolds, superchargers, or intercooler bricks. Here in the U.S.A., we have thicker skulls—perhaps related to an above-global-average dairy intake—and our regulators will let you bonk your noggin on an engine that sticks up through the hood. The largest chunk of that carbon-fiber strip running down the center of the ZR1’s nose is, in fact, the intercooler cover. As Juechter describes it: “You’ve got no air gap between the engine and the hood, you’ve got no hood blanket, you’ve got no construction between the hood inner and outer. All that stuff usually stacks on top [of the engine], but we consumed all of that and then let the engine crawl out another inch, inch and a half.” Adds Bennion: “It was a challenge to get that hood right. It could get real backwoods on you real fast.”


While you can now see the right side of the car, the view from the driver’s seat is still plenty dramatic: Luke Skywalker’s as he zooms down the trench toward the Death Star’s exhaust port. And, Juechter promises, it’s even more dramatic when you start the car. “[The engine] moves around on you. You step on it, you can see the engine trying to pick the front of the car up and come out of the hole. Every twitch of your foot, you can see how the driveline is moving. It’s part of the charm.” In much the same way a great white chomping on the bars of your dive cage is part of the charm. We’re also told the LT5 will shoot flames from its exhaust, so there’s even charm for the people behind a ZR1.


That last bit is a conveniently bad-*** byproduct of the engine’s new fuel-delivery system, which uses both port and direct injection. At the other end of the combustion cycle, there’s another benefit to Corvexit: louder exhaust. U.S. pass-by noise regulations allow more decibels than do the European Union’s. In addition to the electronically controlled butterfly valves in a Z06, the ZR1’s exhaust system incorporates a newly patented internal valve that Juechter likens to the flap on top of a semitractor’s exhaust pipe. A spring holds it closed under light loads, but as exhaust flow grows more urgent, it overcomes the spring pressure and pushes the valve open, allowing for a smoother rise to the volume than the all-or-nothing character of the butterfly valve alone.
Beyond the larger supercharger and the fuel-injection system, the biggest differences between the LT4 and LT5 are the latter’s larger throttle body and strengthened crankshaft. Even with the computer dialing back the torque output in the lower gears, Chevy figures the ZR1 will hit 60 mph in less than three seconds, clear the quarter in less than 11, and top out beyond 210 mph. Juechter says: “Some companies, when they go up in horsepower, what they’re really doing is just extending the torque curve . . . the peak torque isn’t higher at all, it just extends a little bit. We’ve elevated the torque across the range. It feels stronger than a Z06 all the way through the gear run-up, not just a little extension at the end.”


“If you’re going to engage in an endeavor like this,” adds Tom Peters, “you need that noticeable transition or contrast. You know a customer is going to expect it.” As design director for performance cars at General Motors, Peters shouldered much of the responsibility for the other half of the ZR1’s story: aerodynamics. Aside from the rear wing and different wheels, the Z06 and ZR1 are identical aft of the A-pillars. Forward of them, no bodywork is shared, and engineers crammed an additional four heat exchangers into the nose. Each outboard nostril contains a new radiator and intercooler. The two intercooler bricks underhood are enlarged to twice the size of the LT4’s. The ZR1’s larger blower and additional coolers add some 140 pounds to the Z06’s curb weight, most of it concentrated in the nose. A chief collaborator on the ZR1’s styling was air. Maximizing airflow through all those exchangers meant extensive wind-tunnel development, using both scale models and full-size cars in a rolling-road wind tunnel. “We see aerodynamics as an opportunity to make the car more unique, more pure and genuine,” Peters says. “To me, that’s universal truth, and that’s design.”


Not all ZR1s will wear as extreme an aero or color package as the car in these photos. This one is fitted with the ZTK Performance package, which includes Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber, specific tuning of the magnetorheological dampers, and that mondo wing. A smaller one is standard. This car is also wearing the Sebring Orange Design package, which brings the blazing hue to the brake calipers, rocker panels, seatbelts, interior stitching, and stripes on the splitter. The ZTK wing offers 10 degrees of adjustability and generates a claimed 950 pounds of downforce at top speed. That’s more than the Z06’s wicker bill generates, and it’s a vastly more efficient way of making downforce, which explains how the ZR1 can tack another 25 or so mph onto the Z06’s top speed.


“You see a lot of poseurs out there who just bolt the wing to the hatch, so it goes up with the hatch,” Juechter notes. “But if you’re generating true downforce, like epic quantities of downforce, you can’t route that through the hatch. You’ll crack it.” So his wing mounts aft of the hatch opening, where two aluminum castings tucked inside the fascia tie into the back of the car’s composite tub and transmit that load down to the bumper beam. He demonstrates the sturdiness of the setup by yanking on the wing with both hands, which shakes the whole car.
ZR1s without the ZTK Performance package will have the same carbon-fiber front splitter as the car shown here, but the ZTK adds spindly vertical end plates that owe their toe-lopping thinness to the decision to stay out of Europe. According to Juechter, the EU’s pedestrian-protection rules mandate “very doughy radii” on such pieces. Why two different aero packages on such a low-volume model? “We wanted to have the aerodynamic performance for our top-level track car,” he explains, “but we also wanted to have a car that people could drive to the country club and put their golf clubs in the back.” Or, for that matter, stow the removable roof panel. That big wing is going to complicate loading and unloading.


The ZR1 might be the ultimate track Corvette, but its creators don’t see it as being the craziest. That title still belongs to the Z06. Their goal with the ZR1, Juechter says, is “to have the performance accessible, to have people who are not necessarily professional drivers be able to get into and experience a 750-hp car and be able to get close to its limits and feel comfortable doing it.”


To that end, the springs, dampers, and electronically controlled limited-slip differential are all calibrated to be forgiving. Unlike the positively brutal Camaro ZL1 1LE, the ZR1 is a “have your cake and eat it, too” kind of car, according to Juechter—a high-powered grand tourer. It will still be faster than the Z06, of course. Chevy’s team uses a different track configuration than we do for Lightning Lap but says the ZR1 laps VIR 2.5 seconds quicker than a Z06. If we can replicate that performance on the longer Grand West Course, the ZR1 should set a new Lightning Lap record.


It seems that Chevy is gunning for a sales record with this ZR1 as well. We’ve seen spy photos of ZR1 convertibles in addition to the coupes, so it appears that this generation will be available in all the flavors of the regular Corvette lineup. Regardless of transmission or body style, the ZR1 promises to run away from more expensive machinery on a racetrack for a fraction of the price. No matter how much the Corvette might change, that’s one thing that never will.

kingjr9000

2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1: Here It Is, In All its 755-HP Glory
The King of the Hill is back.
CHEVROLET

The pack leader is finally here, launched in Sebring Orange to make sure you notice all the significant upgrades that no doubt make it the fastest street car GM has ever made.

Not all Corvette generations spawn a ZR1, but the previous one from 2009 left quite an impression with its 638 horsepower LS9. Eight years wiser, the Corvette team used all they had to create a worthy successor. Looking at all the figures, the C7 ZR1 shouldn't disappoint.

It all start with its big, bulging exposed carbon-fiber hood. Apparently, GM put a lot of effort into coming up with the C6 ZR1's transparent hood window, only to find that some customers thought it looked like a cheap piece of plastic. So this time around, they went all in.


CHEVROLET
The trick is that one of those two pieces is the actual carbon fiber intercooler cover, meaning that the engine is out in the open through what GM calls a "halo" hood. The carbon weave is perfectly aligned with the body panel, but the intercooler cover will move around when the engine is running, since it's part of the drivetrain. Now that's just bonkers.

What's more, the two openings in front of the cover extrude hot air from the engine bay, which is much needed, since the ZR1 packs eight very angry cylinders.


CHEVROLET
Despite all the wishful thinking, the new LT5 doesn't come with a DOHC head like the Lotus-enhanced original did in the nineties. Instead, the ZR1's new pushrod V8 features a 52 percent larger supercharger than the Z06's LT4, as well as GM’s first dual-injection system to get 755 horsepower and 715 lb-ft of torque out of high octane and dense air.

This dry sump motor also features GM's largest ever throttle bodies at 95mm, as well as an upgraded crankshaft with a wider key slot. What's even cooler is that the whole thing is connected to a patent-pending active exhaust, which should give you a wider range of nasty noises, promising Motörhead-levels of decibels in race mode. And since they don't expect to sell more than 3000 ZR1s a year, all of the LT5s will be hand-built in Bowling Green.


CHEVROLET
To keep all that power on the asphalt, Chevrolet came up with an equally serious aero package in a rolling wind tunnel, with both versions of the ZR1's available rear wings bolted to the chassis itself. Not unlike on Corvette Racing's C7.R.

Chevy claims that after benchmarking a few sports cars with active wings, they came to the conclusion that those serve more of an aesthetic purpose than anything else, creating the least drag and the most downforce at their fully extended form. That, and the fact that an active wing would have been a packaging nightmare on the C7 led to a pair of fixed wings, as well as a clever front underwing designed to balance out the additional rear downforce without making the car unusable on the street. It gives the ZR1 an estimated 950 lbs. of downforce near its top speed.


CHEVROLET
Said top speed is "somewhere above" 210 miles per hour, as long as you stick to the standard wing.

Talking of sticks, there's a seven-speed manual with rev-matching that's "more robust for track duty," but for the first time ever, the ZR1 will also be available with GM's 8-speed automatic. The 10-speed simply didn't fit, as it was never intended for the C7 platform.

If you must know, the final drive ratios are 3.42 (manual) and 2.41 (automatic).


CHEVROLET
Dual-injection means the LT5 uses primary direct injection as well as supplemental port injection, to get 755 horsepower out of 6.2 liters with the help of that gigantic supercharger. And those "conservatively estimated" 755 horses have to motivate 3560 lbs. of Corvette.

Huge forces demand lots of rubber, so the ZR1 comes with 355 wide rear tires, as well as half an inch wider front wheels with an open design for improved cooling. The brakes are equally monstrous two-piece carbon ceramic rotors, with fixed six-piston aluminum calipers at the front.

Remember the Z06's overheating issues? GM does too.


GM
Not only does the ZR1 have a more-efficient intercooler system with a heat extractor hole on its hood, but it also packs four new radiators, bringing the number of heat-exchangers to 13. A Bugatti Veyron has 10.

While this car contains the most carbon fiber GM has ever put in a vehicle, the extra fluids, coolers and the wing adds more weight than the composites can shred, and that's why the ZR1 is slightly heavier at 3560 lbs.

Suspension-wise, it has a double wishbone setup all around, with cast aluminum upper and lower control arms, transverse-mounted composite springs and Magnetic Ride Control standard. The base package also includes a performance-focused traction control system, the electronic differential, and that super loud exhaust.


CHEVROLET
In terms of design, the ZR1 comes with a completely new front that's basically one giant air intake, as well as the wider body, and lots of optional exposed carbon bits, including the hood, the quarter panel inserts, the side rockers, the front splitter, the rear wing and the removable top.

The brake calipers can be black, gray, yellow or red, while due to popular demand, Chevy kept the chrome wheel option. Luckily, younger buyers can choose from three more tasteful wheel finishes.

Going back to the wings, the standard one generates up to 70 percent more downforce than the Z06’s base aero package, while the available two-way-adjustable high wing grants about 60 percent more than the Z06 with the available Z07 Performance Package.


CHEVROLET
That's 950 lbs pushing down the back, and to complement that, the ZTK Performance Package also includes a front splitter with carbon-fiber end caps, Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires (instead of the run-flat Super Sports), and specific chassis and Magnetic Ride Control tuning for greater cornering speeds. Plus the bucket seats, naturally.

Of course if you prefer your ZR1 somewhat milder, you can spec it with heated and vented Napa leather-trimmed seats, and a Bose audio system. Yet options such as the carbon fiber-rimmed steering wheel and the Performance Data Recorder feel more appropriate.


CHEVROLET
Just to tease us further before the ZR1 goes on sale next spring, the launch car features the Sebring Orange Design Package, which gives you this exterior color, as well as orange brake calipers, rocker and splitter accent stripes, seat belts and interior stitching, with the competition seats and a bronze aluminum interior trim.

It's pretty, and pretty much everything you could want from a Corvette. The Dodge Viper ACR might be dead, but there seems to be a new King of the Hill.


CHEVROLET
Get your checkbooks ready for next spring, with prices staying "at the usual ZR1 levels". More to come soon!

RobertR1

Per motor trend, the weight penalty is 60lbs, no 140lbs, which is bit more tolerable.

Laptimes will tell the tale I'm sure. I expect it to be neck n neck with an ACR-E. If not, quite the failure.