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Telegraph-UK: Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 review

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Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 review

The Corvette ZR-1 is every inch the supercar, although perhaps not the ideal vehicle for a recession

Paul Horrell
Last Updated: 4:05PM GMT 27 Oct 2008

On the face of it, General Motors is being ridiculously flat-footed with the Corvette ZR-1, missing the mood of the times by about as far as it’s possible. A £100,000 supercar, a 20-odd-mpg two-seater, is hardly the ideal thing to launch while the American economy suffers engine failure and makes an emergency descent into Recession International Airport.

GM is reeling from a $15.5bn loss on a $38.2bn turnover in a single financial quarter-year. The Corvette ZR‑1 doesn’t look like what it needs right now. Instead the company needs simple, attractive, high-quality, good-value, economical cars to sell in big numbers.

Then again, why is it any more insensitive for GM to sell a 200mph car in hard times than it is for Ferrari or Porsche to do so? Few predicted the current economic malaise, certainly not when GM gave the go-ahead for the ZR-1. This is a staggeringly powerful supercar, but also a thoroughly developed one, and that sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. There’s three years’ work here. More than that, even though Corvettes are underestimated in the UK, back home in America they are a totem of national pride. The ZR-1 is their automotive Michael Phelps.

So given that GM’s ZR-1 can rival, in sheer performance and technical sophistication, supercars three times its price, more people might start believing in the competence of GM in general. Then they might consider its rapidly improving family-car range rather than instinctively bending their steps to the Japanese or Korean dealerships.

The Corvette ZR-1 is a sophisticated machine, even if it doesn’t look it. Its silhouette is like the basic £40,000 Corvette C6. But while a basic Corvette has a simple V8, a steel frame and a glass fibre body, the ZR-1 has an aluminium and magnesium frame. The panels are carbon fibre and the brakes are carbon-ceramic as standard, a £10,000 extra on most other supercars.

Such measures help keep the weight down to 1.5 tons (1,518kg). Not that this engine needs an easy life, for it’s a shattering force. Its cam-in-block design means it’s light and very compact. It’s got a new 6.2-litre aluminium block, forged steel pistons, titanium conrods, titanium inlet valves, sodium-filled exhaust valves and a dry sump. On top is a newly developed supercharger, so the net result is 638bhp and a torque peak of 604lb ft. A high proportion of the urge is available over almost the entirety of the engine’s working speed range. You don’t need to apply much brainpower to choosing the right gear, because any of two (or three) will do. In a car this fast, it’s nice to have that weight taken off your mind.

I begin by exploring GM’s own very tricky test track, full of dips, crests and blind corners. The ZR-1 generates colossal grip. So much so that at first it’s plain scary, simply because if you make a mistake you’ll be making it at a bewildering rate.

But it becomes apparent that this ’Vette gives you plenty of warning of a slide, and responds predictably to your measures to get out of one. The stability control electronics are well calibrated and rein the car back in if you foul up.

On the road, the ZR-1’s adaptive damping system does a good job of letting the suspension breathe. That doesn’t just keep the front wheels going where you point them and help the rear ones with traction over bumpy sections, it also makes the journey more comfortable.

Great stuff then. Great power – 205mph, and 0‑62mph in 3.6 seconds, 0‑125 in 10.3. Great grip – 1.05g lateral. Great brakes – 185mph to zero in seven seconds. And great track performance – faster than any other real road car around the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

But what’s actually so special about the ZR-1 is that it’s perfectly ordinary when you want it to be. Burbling between junctions and traffic lights, the engine’s manners are meek and obedient. On motorways it’s quiet, stable and smoother than many hot hatches. You sit relatively upright, and it’s easy to see out if it. The difficulty in Britain is that it’s left-hand-drive only, but there’s even a hatchback and a decent boot.

Of course, many of these practical details exist precisely because it resembles a regular Corvette. Sadly, by the same token the interior and dash are distinctly underwhelming.

In compensation you get an excellent sat-nav, loads of instruments, a useful head-up display, a stereo to wake the dead and highly impressive climate control. Unfortunately, the seats, while comfy in gentle driving, don’t support you enough for racetrack cornering.

On the outside, the ZR-1 can be spotted on careful inspection by the naked carbon-fibre roof and lower-body aero kit, the huge wheels and 335-section rear tyres, the stretched wheel-arches that cover them, four fat tailpipes, and by the window in the bonnet through which the intercooler moons. But look only for an instant when one passes you on the road and you might miss these visual clues.

And, as the old cliché goes, an instant is all you’ll get.
 

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