New "King of the Hill" Corvette

[T3ts50]

Just found this on Carsales. Sounds pretty damn good.

All hail the king ... new supercharged Corvette will be the fastest to wear the illustrious badge


The storming 7.0-litre Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is about to be dethroned as the fastest production 'Vette by a long-awaited "King of the Hill" version, rumours of which have been circulating for several years.

Although it's been referred to by the motoring press as the "Blue Devil" and "SS" over the past five years, the official nomenclature for the imminent flagship Corvette is 'ZR1' -- a designation that hasn't been seen since the C4-based original was discontinued in 1995.

The newcomer will debut at the upcoming Detroit motor show and US sources are speculating it will cost circa-$100,000 in its homeland.

For this outlay, you'll get a monstrous coupe that has the on-paper credentials to hold its own against Ferraris and Lamborghinis -- and we're talking the range-topping versions.

As with any go-faster Corvette, the piece de resistance of the ZR1 is its engine. The 1990s iteration of the ZR1 used a Lotus-designed quad-cam, 32-valve small-block V8 (dubbed LT5), but the latest incarnation stays true to the familiar Chevy V8 configuration of a single cam and pushrod-operated valves.

No matter, though, because the new 6.2-litre engine (rather than the 7.0-litre LS7 unit of the Z06) is bolstered by an Eaton supercharger and is likely to thump out way more power and torque than any production 'Vette to date.

No official figures have as yet been released because the engine calibration is still being finessed, but insiders suggest the LS9 (as it's known) will dump 460kW-plus on the tar -- almost 100kW up on the already stupefying Z06.

The Carsales network has driven the Z06 and can confirm that it's mind-blowingly quick in a straight line, but its gearbox and handling dynamics are somewhat agricultural.

The ZR1 is unlikely to dramatically change that, but it should have the straight-line stonk to match or see off virtually any other production car -- short of the Bugatti Veyron.

That said, GM product guru Bob Lutz has gone on record as saying the objective wasn't just to build the fastest Corvette of all time, but also to create a vehicle that's docile around town. To this end, it's likely to be more user-friendly than the noisy, harsh-riding Z06.

Even though the supercharger (which sits in the valley of the V8) is topped by an intercooler, the ZR1's bonnet is only about 25mm higher than that of the Z06 as the engine has been lowered to compensate for its increased height. There's also a transparent lexan 'window' in the bonnet, through which the LS9 is partially visible.

Other visual clues that distinguish the ZR1 include a carbon-fibre roof (a la BMW M3 and M6) and front splitter. There's also a pair of vents in the front guards (rather than the single vent of lesser Corvettes).

Of course, the mandatory huge brakes are in evidence, and the multi-spoked rims are 19-inchers.

We await the ZR1's Nurburgring lap times. Can it come close to the 7min 38sec mark posted by the new Nissan GTR? Time will tell...