Farewell To The Corvette ZR1

    The newly redesigned Corvette Stingray has captured the hearts of many automotive enthusiasts. They find the interior aesthetically pleasing and comfortable, the handling to be sublime, and the engine’s ferocity to be intoxicating. Chevrolet’s weapon was named Car of the Year by Road and Track and also won North American Car of the Year at he Detroit Auto Show. All great news for Chevrolet. Even better news for individuals with enough money to purchase the vehicle. These changes were focused on the recent successes of European automakers. 

    Is this such a bad thing? No, not really. It doesn’t effect a lot of people. The Corvette ZR1 started at $112,600, which is understandably out of a lot of peoples price range. The reason why people loved the Corvette ZR1 was for its lunacy. It pumped out 638 horsepower and 604 lb-ft of torque. Which was a crazy amount, before the hybrid super car theory took off. Not only did it have the grunt, its handling capabilities propelled the vehicle to a lap time of 7:19:63 minutes around the Nurburgring. The Corvette ZR1 was fast, very fast indeed.
    So people can’t buy the Corvette ZR1 anymore, big deal. But what if you’re still interested in obtaining a Corvette with insane amounts of horsepower and superb handling? Not all is lost. The new Corvette Z06 was introduced at the Detroit Auto Show recently and provides all of the horsepower anyone could never need. 
 
    With a 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 the Corvette Z06 produces approximately (Chevrolet has not released official numbers yet) 625 horsepower and 635 lb-feet of torque. Plus with the weight loss program that the Corvette C7 went through, it’s a safe bet to say that the new Z06 will be just as fast, if not faster, than the ZR1. Power will be put through the ground via a seven-speed manual or the all new eight-speed automatic transmission. Chevrolet raves that the eight-speed automatic transmission is capable of switching gears eight-hundredths of a second faster than the Porsche 911’s PDK gearbox. All in all, it seems as if the Corvette Z06 has taken the place of it’s older, more brutish brother. But is that really a bad thing? 

   The Corvette ZR1 was an American muscle car down to its core. It practically bled red, white, and blue. It had a massive engine in the front, sent power to its rear wheels, and demolished anything in a straight line. However, it had a terrible interior and subpar build quality. The 2015 Corvette Z06 was engineered to beat it’s European rivals. Which equates to an all around better vehicle than the Corvette ZR1. 

   Chevrolet has decided not to produce a ZR1 variant of the 2014 Corvette Stingray. According to Autoblog.com, Chevrolet believes the amount of time and resources are not worth negligible gains. In other words, they put their heart and soul into the new Z06 and it should kick some serious butt. My only concern with not producing a ZR1 is the ability of Chevrolet to lose sight of who they are. The majority of American automakers have set their sights on fighting European automakers. While this is not a bad thing, it does show how American automakers are changing to get ahead of their overseas counterparts. With General Motors (GM) set to roll out approximately 15 new or highly revised vehicles this year, it will be interesting to see whether the war with Europe continues.