When we talk about the car culture in America, we see the three kings which emerged from Detroit, Ford motors, Fiat Chrysler motors, or the FCA and General Motors. This time we are going to look at a car that changed the American Automobile history forever, this time it’s about the Halo car from FCA, the Chevrolet Corvette, and the car that gave the birth to front-engine car culture in America.
You see, Americans were always obsessed about making rear-engined cars, this lineage of Cars wasn’t broken down until in 1953 Chevrolet’s Assistant director in public relations proposed the idea of naming their new car after the smallest, most maneuverable class of Warship, “The Corvette”. Warships are cool, and when a road-going car is named after them, it becomes even cooler.
The Chevrolet Corvette has always since it was first proposed was a Front-engine sports car, now though the new eighth-generation Corvette is Mid-engined. With the launch of the C8 Corvette, Chevrolet has proved that they won’t stick to their design philosophies forever, they might introduce changes if the market changes. It’s the first time that the driver sits ahead of a V8 engine In a Corvette.
This implies that the C7 ZR1 is the most powerful front-engined Corvette ever. The world has seen the Transition of the Corvette from just being a Sports car to a High performing Supercar. The ZR1 badging means that this particular isn’t like any other Corvette, it’s the wildest form of the Corvette money can buy. It’s now in its fourth generation in the form of C7 ZR1, the ZR1 has quite a big name to live up to. The last-gen or the C6 generation even though very powerful, wasn’t particularly great to drive, it had a lot of issues.
When it comes to driving the Corvette, the first remarkable thing about this car which anyone will notice is the huge bump in the hood, it’s not a design feature to make the Corvette look bigger, it’s the sheer size of the engine, which happens to be a 6.2 Litre V8, already a huge engine, it has a 2.65-liter Supercharged strapped to it. The funny thing is that the supercharger alone has more capacity than most of the 4 cylinder engines today. The huge size of the Supercharger has a drawback though because it’s so large, it requires 110 horsepower just to spool up, so the actual output of the engine is at 755 Horsepower, for context, a 6.5 liter naturally aspirated V12 engine in a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ makes 759 horsepower. As the engine has forced induction, the torque output is more than any other supercar I have ever seen, 715-pound ft. or 970 Nm of torque. If we compare it with the McLaren P1 which is a hypercar, it has 900 Nm of torque and the Ferrari LaFerrari has 970 Nm of torque the same as the ZR1.
The ZR1 is a monster to drive, it’s one of the very few cars that might feel just too much power as per road-going cars. 3 modes of driving, touring, sport, and track. Sport is probably the best mode for driving on the road. Being, front-engined the ZR1 driving seat isn’t very low to the ground, thus the visibility is great along all sides…. except for the front, the huge engine takes quite some space from your visibility, and often the driver has to bend to get a clear picture of the road. But it’s all part of the experience of driving this monster.
The music package that comes with the car is what impresses me the most. No, I am talking about the actual music system, I am talking about the music that the engine of this car generates. The centreline quad exhausts have become symbolic of the ZR1. When you are hard on the pedal, you can feel the exhaust spitting about blood and thunder across the path. They occasionally shoot flames as well. There was a time when the Corvette’s used to be all about straight-line speeds, but as the brand aged, the Corvette was focused on being more versatile. A straight line monster and a swift as a lizard around the track. The ZR1 accomplishes that goal with a huge margin. The Aerodynamics of the car has been revised. The front splitter, the rear wing, and other aero bits come together to add a significant amount of downforce over the car. The tires on the ZR1 aren’t your normal Michelin Sport Cup2 tires, they have been specially developed for the Corvette ZR1, when you take a closer look at them, and you will seldom find the presence of any deep tread on the tire. It’s almost a slick tires with accidental tread marks that classify it as a road tire.
When you have a car so powerful, you need the power to the road through wide tires. The front tires of the ZR1 are as wide as those on a Bugatti Chiron, it’s the only car that matches the Bugatti in terms of the front tire width. 335’s in the back result in a superb amount of traction.
The performance numbers are staggering, the ZR1 reaches 60mph in 2.9 seconds and has a top speed of 212 mph, making it one of the fastest cars on the road today. It’s also the most powerful new car you can buy today with a Manual transmission. The decision of providing a manual transmission is the reason I praise Chevrolet so much. The Automatic transmission is bad, if not trash. It really is, the shifting through paddles is very laggy and it might even annoy you.
With, the launch of the C8 Corvette, Chevrolet doesn’t plan on making a front-engine Corvette ever in the future, they have shifted their platform. The C7 ZR1 Corvette marks the saga of 66 years. The Corvette will live along in the future but for the front-engined Corvette, this is the end.
The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 is and will remain an Automotive Icon, both on track as well as road.
That’s it for this time Guys
Thank you
Ciao
