now my question to you is - why didn’t Chevy do this before ? what was stopping them from releasing a 1,000 hp Corvette in the past ?
there is NO new tech in this Vette. no electric anything. it’s just a regular twin turbo V8. they could have released it 10 years ago.
and the answer is simple - they didn’t NEED to.
the industry had a sort of a tacit agreement to keep cars slow and PRETEND that they are trying to make them fast, and then Elon came in and just basically ruined the entire auto industry by making the Plaid which worked for like 3 years and now Tesla is itself ruined but so is everybody else.
the entire Auto industry is in trouble now because there is nobody at this point, not even Elon, who has any idea how to sell cars and also consumers have no idea what they are supposed to be wanting …
Top Gear did several reviews of the Corvette - none of them had any instrumented tests versus the competition and all concluded that Corvette was not good without giving any reason why.
because reality is they can’t explain why it’s so cheap for the performance and also they can’t admit that basically every supercar is overpriced. they have in the past faced this issue with Nissan GTR which had 911 Turbo performance for $80,000. then Plaid, and now it’s ZR1s turn.
the job of Auto Journalists is basically to peddle manufacturer marketing to you and cars like GTR, Plaid and ZR1 throw a monkey wrench into their whole business of “explaining” to people ( on behalf of manufacturers who are paying them off ) that you need to pay a lot of money to get decent performance.
but yeah ZR1 is about 900 lbs lighter than Model S plaid and still has 1,000 hp. it is slower to 60 mph because it has RWD but it will be faster in basically everything that isn’t a drag race in a straight line from a standing start.
however with ZR1 it can’t be your only car because it basically has no storage so that makes it effectively more expensive than Plaid and GTR combined because those are practical daily drivers whereas ZR1 is weekend / track toy.
on the flip side the sheer lack of practicality of Corvette is also what makes it cooler than Plaid or GTR who may BE fast but they don’t LOOK that fast.
at least the Plaid looks expensive. GTR looks like dog shit and only impresses car buffs who know what it is.
the only excuse Chevy may have here for not doing this sooner is that the previous gen of Corvette had engine in the front so it didn’t have enough weight on rear wheels to put down 1,000 hp in a RWD car. which is true, but also they could have gone to mid-engine sooner or they could have given the old Vette AWD like Nissan GTR.
and in fact they can STILL make it even faster by using the electric front axle from the E-Ray on this ZR-1. this would not only take it to 1,200 hp but make it AWD in which case it would absolutely cream those Italian supercars.
but again, nobody wants to make cars as fast as possible - they just say they do. in reality they just want to make them fast ENOUGH.
anyway i maintain what i said before - this new generation Vette is a worthy alternative to 911. every version released so far - the Base, the Hybrid AWD ( E-Ray ), the Z06 and ZR1 are all competent and dollar for dollar hold their own against the 911.
frankly the ZR1 is probably better than any 911 ever made, but Top Gear will never admit this because they are European. we know they are full of shit, however, because they refuse to do any serious comparisons and simply claim that Corvette is somehow not on the same level without giving any explanation why. reality is they simply can’t admit the truth.
in 911’s defense it does have rear seats, but i am not sure if it can work as your only car like Plaid or GTR.
