We agree. However if a manufacturer is touting the "performance car" as track capable, if thats the sales speil and part of the cars cred, then past a certain weight its really a con. The gross example is a bugatti veyron which is the "fastest" car but way too heavy to track, cool for what it is but a barge. In the case of the Zr1 and z06 for that matter no one who seriously goes tot he track thinks of either of these monsters as trackable cars in any serious form. At the other end of the spectrun, very few people think of a 2000lbs lotus as a seriously useable or desireable street car. Few people bought vipers too. What people buy is luxury Gt cars with lots of hp masquerading as sports cars. Thats fine and an excellent buisness case, but lets not fool ourselvs as to what these cars are. And each manufactuerer also builds a so called purst version for cred, and or races somehting that looks like the street car to add cred. in the case of the Gt3, well the street car is really a street legal version of the race car. Weight may make a car more comfortable, or the weight is a consequence of comfort, electric seats leather etc. We see in a street legal car the $1mill senna at under 2700lbs what can be done with cubic money in terms of light weight and high hp, its a nth degree street car. The vette by contrast is an affordable production car and loosing weight is money. So what can be done off the vette platform for reasonable $$. We have seen a C5 at 3000lbs and a C6 at 3150, the c7 is essentialy the same platform as the c5 and c6. GM realized that the C5 and C6 z06 were niches products and not huge sellers(not sure the zr1 is a huge seller). So by GMs logic, you could spend money developing the track star version of the vette and sell a few thousand. Lets say the c5 and C6 z06 were halo vettes the ones that gave the car some real cred amongst "drivers" and by extension others, as say a Gt3 gives the 911 real cred. By the time they got to the C7 the Ls7 was not avialable. We read that the LS7 would not work with cylinder deactivation, and that it was expesive to build. Somewhere the ls7 program got scrapped, while the rest of the car, chassis for z06 etc was already nearly done For Gm the easy option was to add the supercharged motor from the prior zr1 camaro cadillac etc, a motor in series production and costing way less, it also worked with an auto. you can look at the weight difference between a Gs and a z06, or the prior gen camaro zl1 and z28 to see what the supercharger and atendant cooling adds. Theres a reason the camro 5 had a zl1 and a z28, and yes the z28 sold less and was way more expesive. What GM discovered is they sold a bunch of cheaper/easier to produce supercharged cars anyway. That they lost the trackday owner in the process and the vette arguably moved down a notch appeared not to matter in terms of sales(for a while) and with sledgehammer power in the zr1 it establihed its own veyron type cred. In the C7 we never really got a real z06, and we also never saw a z28. Some say the stock motor at 460hp is so close tot he LS7 it does not matter. But if someone is touting the current cars as trackday machines in the ilk of the predescessors c5 and c6 z06 theyre conning themselvs or being conned by Gm. Other companies from porche to ferrari see fit to make a lightweight(relatively) version of an existing car, for those who care, theye can charge a premium and sell a few thousand, hopefully we'll see this in a vette again and the vette does not become only something like a jaguar Ftype, maserati etc really fast and really heavy Gt car. Its a cycle with the vette and often Gm holss back. The C2 vette was serious attempt to build an american car that could run with the euros, for its time it had great spec irs etc and some versions were the equal or near equal of a euro car(ferrari) to drive. Then we had the malaise era and the C3 which was a gold chain special but kept the fres burning. They got some budget with the C4 which had some really neat pieces and the C4 Zr1 was truly something special, although build, lack of rigity and hard plastic worked against it. I had a C4 Zr1 and a countach and I know which was the better car, although a period turbo porche was probably better still. For the C5 they spent the money on the supesion and on the C6 it all came together(except interior). The C6 z06 Vette was finaly a contender amongst its peers. Personaly I always thought the C7 was way better looking and stylisticaly far more cohesive than a ferrari f12, in fact had the C7 been the ferrari people would be hailing it for its great design. But on the C7 Gm dropped the trackday track car theme except in marketing. Without the supercharhger it didnt have the power to compete and was a little heavy, and with the supercharger its too heavy. A mid engined car promises by defintion better performance potential. I fear like the NSX it will put down numbers but be really heavy. Hopefully we will see some version that is light and a contender, all it takes is will, the vette team has the talent. But if the c7 is an example of where the vette is headed we wont see it, because as many here attest, as long as the paper numbers are there (and with 850hp and dct it will put down numbers) people will buy so what does it matter. Still these are different economic times and maybe this time GM will let the vette team explore a fuller range of niche off the platform and once again we will see a real contender, that 120k 3000lbs car. Heres hoping. Meanwhile the c7 zr1 is one awesome street machine and the vette to collect for posterity.
How dare you use facts! There are lots of different types of tracks, some only turn in 1 direction, some turn in both directions, some only go straight for 1/4 mile, some go straight for 1 mile... A Veryon may be a barge on a road course or autox, but i would put my money on it for a 1/4 mil, 1/2 mile, full mile, etc..
Funny I thought we were talking about the ZR1 on a road course. Of course a veyron will smoke others on long straight, as will a Zr1. As for the facts, a 4l turbo race motor can easily make 800hp even a 2l turbo street car makes 350, supercharged 4lites are easily 600hp.. That Gm went with a Na 390 hp for the C7R says much about their road course priorities in racer, which was weight and or fuel consumption. Lighter car with less hp faster on road course than a heavier higher hp car, especialy if you have to think of tires and brakes and fuel consumption. Same rules apply to a trackday car.
You don't think series rules and the BOP nonsense played any part in their GM/Chevy's engine choice decision?
Sure it did. Its all a formula in racing, a formula lookign for the optimal combination for road course. Chevy probably needed a pushrod V8 too. A 5,5 could also make a lot more power than this race car, but they probably needed to considder durability and fuel consumption, hence the output. Thing is light weight is more important than more hp and more weight on road course. This was the optimal solution for that platform for road course racing. I know of more than a few 3.5litre V6 that are supercharged to make over 500hp on pump gas, , so a 4l supercharged v8 optimised for racing could make even more, but the cost in weight for cooling etc would make a slower car over all, otherwise chevy would have gone that way.. Look at it this way. The Camro 5 came in a more powerful zl1, but chevy went to a lot of effort to make a lighter version(although not that light) for track duty in the z28. The extra power of the supercharged zl1 came with so much extra weight that for street/track duty chevy went with a lighter less powerful NA motor for good reason. Theres a big difference between few fast laps and sustained fast laps. IMO the C7 ZR1 and even z06 can do a few really fast laps, but they cant do a lot of fast laps and thats because of weight. But yeah if I lived somewhere where there were runways to speed down and big open roads the heavier more powerful car is the way to go, thats why we see 15000hp turboed lambos in Texas. But for road course which is what i am talking about no one builds car like that.
FWIW, I agree with Boxerman. Weight is very important. It’s not everything obviously, but for road course work, weight is very important. The ME must be below 3500 and really should be closer to 3000, or at least a racing edition model should be.
A friend brought this to dinner last night..... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Will GM over-produce the ZR1 compared to actual demand? Dodge over-produced the HellCat in 2016 based on anticipated sales driven by the 2015 debacle of not being able to meet consumer demand. What followed created some really good deals on 2016 HellCats, similar to the NSX case recently. My HellCat lease is up in 19 months and would look at this car if it was under MSRP.
Way late on this post...I've owned and tracked(Road Atlanta and Daytona Rolex) some really great cars over the past 6 or 7 years. 458 Italia, Lamborghini Huracan, Porsche TTS, Audi R8 V10+, McLaren 650S Spider. Well I just couldn't resist and took delivery on Sunday on my 2019 ZR1 7 speed manual...most powerful manual speed production car in the world! Drove straight to the North Georgia mountains to Suches and Blairsville. WHAT A BEAST. Road Atlanta the end of November and Daytona Rolex the first weekend of December. Previous best times Daytona-2 min. 6 sec. (Porsche TTS)Road ATLANTA-1 min. 36 sec. (McLaren 650S Spider). We'll see...
Congrats! Big issue now is will it be a one year car? Most, if not all, productions are taken for either customer cars or dealer stock for ADM.
