Corvette Z06

Motor has crossed the Pacific to spank the new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 at Road Atlanta a 4.088km road course in Georgia, USA. Behind the wheel is Randy Pobst. Who? Known as “The Rocket” (for obvious reasons) Pobst is the winner of the ‘96 North American Touring Car Championship and twotime class winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona. So, where’s Luffy? Busy doing burnouts in Queensland.

Pobst idles into pits and climbs out of the Z06 after a few hot laps. A small group of Chevrolet engineers approach, eager to hear his thoughts. “The power felt great. Honestly, I want another 100 (hp) more. It’s stable enough. You don’t feel threatened.”

It’s a strange comment when you consider the last-generation ZR1, whose powerband made you keenly aware of its awesome potential. Back in 2009, after driving the ZR1 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Pobst even said of it: “It’s one of the very few cars I’ve ever driven here where I didn’t want to keep my foot down over Turn 1.” 

This new Z06 not only generates more power, making it the most powerful vehicle General Motors has ever produced, but it also has an automatic ’box and a removable roof (it’s available as a convertible). And, Pobst still wants more power! The world’s gone mad.

Tadge Juechter, the chief engineer of Corvette, is in the group. Earlier he told assembled media that the automatic gearbox and roofless construction were part of the goal, but supplanting the ZR1 wasn’t. They’d started with a highrevving, big-displacement “spinner” V8, like the 7.0-litre in the last Z06, but they couldn’t hit emissions targets. So they hit reset and started again with a supercharger.

EXERCISE SOME PATIENCE AND YOU’LL REACH THE QUARTER MILE IN 11.3SEC AT AN ABSURD 203KM/H

It’s a compact Eaton TVS Roots-type unit, smaller in displacement and more compact than the blower atop the ZR1’s mill. Versus that engine, at 476kW and 819Nm of torque, the Z06’s LT4 V8 makes more power (9kW and 62Nm), weighs 15kg less, and employs direct injection and cylinder deactivation.

Advancements in aluminium construction permitted a stronger chassis that doesn’t suffer a performance penalty when you remove the roof. It is heavier, though. The Z06 we tested had a Z07 package ($7995 for carbon-ceramic brakes, third-stage aero package, and gumball tyres), a seven-speed manual and it hits the scales at 1577kg. That new eight-speed auto must add more, right?

Nope, it appears to be the product of the ‘Have Your Cake and Eat It’ department. Chevy engineers looked into twin-clutch gearboxes but couldn’t find one that withstood the torque output, fit the packaging constraints, or met weight targets. They built an automatic that would, and the remarkably compact result weighs only 3.6kg more than the manual. With faster and more aggressive shifts, a wider ratio spread, and a tall eighth gear (1200rpm at 97km/h), it benefits both performance and fuel economy. It also helps produce an utterly satisfying bark on full-throttle upshifts.

Leave the transmission to its own devices in Track mode, and it makes impeccable gear selections, even finding speed by shifting in places you normally wouldn’t. Road Atlanta’s Turn 3 (a short right hander with a big kerb) puts two wheels in the air at race speed. You want to downshift for the next corner, but there’s no time to take one hand off the wheel. “Consistently I’d go over the bump,” Pobst said. “The landing is sweet, so sweet and I’d go to the power and say, ‘whoa!’ I was not expecting to be in that low of a gear, but it put the power to the ground.” The automatic makes the shift in the air.

While the automatic makes the Z06 the faster car, limited vehicle availability meant we could only run performance tests on a manual. As with the last-gen ZR1, launch control is more consistent but ultimately slower. Exercise some patience, find the right amount of tyre chatter, and you’ll reach 97km/h in 3.2 seconds and the quarter mile in 11.3 seconds at 203km/h. Peak stopping performance 27.74 metres from 97km/h remains as absurdly low as the last ZR1, and all stops during this test stayed under 30.48 metres (100 feet).

Would it be shocking to call the Z06’s lateral capabilities more impressive than its acceleration? Its 22.5-second lap on the figure eight sits just behind the Porsche 918’s 22.2 seconds; the Z06’s 1.16 average lateral g is the highest we’ve seen from anything that wasn’t a race car. Credit the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres included in the Z07 package. Their bare shoulders have small “vestigial” tread marks, thanks to Tadge Juechter.

The section between Road Atlanta’s Turn 3 and Turn 5, a rapid switchback of esses, exhibits just how much cornering force is at the Z06’s disposal. The data from Pobst’s lap shows six alternating 1.0g moments in the span of 14 seconds. Although our test cars had the optional bucket seats, they weren’t enough. “The seat is actually really supportive for a street seat,” Pobst said. “But this is not doing street things out there. I need belts or something to hold me in place.”

THE CORVETTE MAKES MORE DOWNFORCE THAN ANY OTHER CAR TESTED IN GM’S WIND TUNNEL

It may sound like the Z06 follows the simpleton approach to fast car development: low weight and ludicrous quantities of power and tyre. But there’s sophistication between those parts. Fast-reacting magnetorheological fluidfilled shocks provide excellent control, especially when you have two wheels in the air. An electronically-controlled locking differential biases power where and when it’s needed, even helping to prevent the tank slap-like behavior you get when you don’t come out of a powerslide perfectly.

Chevrolet’s fantastic Performance Traction Management allows you to learn and explore the car’s limits with less fear. These components make the Z06 controlled, compliant, and easy to approach. Another neat trick: a Performance Data Recorder stores images and data from a front-mounted camera, vehicle sensors, and a 5Hz GPS sensor to a video file on an SD card. The YouTube-ready file shows throttle and brake position, g readouts, and so on. Provided software incorporates top-view satellite images to show your placement lap by lap. Owners can even use the system to discourage would-be hot-shoe parking valets.

But for the technical prowess, you might be surprised to learn that the Z06 eschews active aero for a far simpler solution: three aero packages of increasing aggressiveness. The first is the Z06’s standard equipment, the second adds a front splitter with end plates, more aggro side skirts, and a spoiler all of it in carbonfibre, and all of it fixed. The third stage uses the second-stage components as mounts,
attaching larger end plates to the splitter and an adjustable Gurney Flap to the spoiler, like the Z/28’s. The Chevy team says there’s extra meat on the movable parts should the more serious owners want to drill their own holes.

Juechter claims that in its most aggressive setting, the Corvette makes more downforce than any other car they’ve tested in GM’s wind tunnel. Keep in mind that some cars that GM has tested include the Porsche 911 Turbo S, the Ferrari 458 and the McLaren 12C.

Considering the capability of the optional tyres, brakes, and aerodynamics, we were surprised to hear that when Pobst pulled back into the pits after his fourth lap, it wasn’t because he wanted to stop. The car had flashed an oil-temperature warning on the back straight. “So I stuck it in neutral and let it idle even though we’re going 140mph (225km/h),” he said. It’s something to be aware of if you hold wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona or SCCA World Challenge GT series and plan on tracking your Z06 on a warm, humid day.

For the rest of us, the extreme level of performance available leaves plenty of headroom. You’ll also find it bizarrely easy to drive around town. At low speeds, it’s like a normal Corvette, with nimble steering and ample boot capacity. The powerband’s sheer breadth means you can treat the manual like a three-speed. The infotainment system hides adjustments for the exhaust volume, from full-on freeway-droning madness to near silence. It has cooled seats and even Wi-Fi.

The price makes this all the more bewildering, as you’d need to spend around $1m elsewhere to reach the performance our Z06, with the Z07 package, offers at an as-tested US$105,210. That’s around AU$128,000, though if the Z06 ever makes it to Australia (there’s plenty of speculation it might). With that comes the clear message this car sends to the rest of the world: bring it on.

MEET THE C7.R
Want another Z06 bragging right? It’s more powerful than its C7.R road racing counterpart you’ll see at the Tudor United SportsCar Championship and 24 Hours of Le Mans. The C7.R makes around 373kW because regulations limit displacement to 5.5 litres and forbid adding forced induction and variable valve timing.

The engine is based off the one in the C6.R and still uses a six-speed sequential transmission, but it now has direct injection, which improves throttle control and fuel economy pit stops matter. The same new types of aluminium construction that improve the Z06 translate to the C7.R.

Using the production car’s aluminium frame increases the race car’s stiffness by 40 per cent over its predecessor, according to Chevrolet. Both race car and street car chassis are built in the Corvette’s assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The two cars look similar, too, sharing similar ideas about airflow. Never mind that the C7.R is 8cm lower and 12cm wider. It also omits the inlets above the production car’s rear wheels in favour of airflow.

The C7.R also dons Michelin racing slicks and smaller-diameter steel brakes with beefier braking hardware (six-piston rear calipers), and it eschews the road car’s transverse leaf springs and MR shocks for race-specific coil-overs. As it’s a race car, it can do without the things that make commuting more pleasant bye bye cooled seats and Wi-Fi. And despite the 112kW power deficit, the C7.R is faster.

BODY / 2-door, 2-seat coupe
DRIVE / rear-wheel
ENGINE / 6162cc V8, OHV, 16v, supercharger
BORE/STROKE / 103.25 x 92.0mm
COMPRESSION / 10.0:1
POWER / 485kW @ 6400rpm
TORQUE / 881Nm @ 3600rpm
POWER/WEIGHT / 303kW/tonne
CONSUMPTION / N/A
CO2 EMISSIONS / N/A
TRANSMISSION / 7-speed manual
WEIGHT / 1603kg
SUSPENSION / double A-arms, adaptive dampers, transverse composite leaf springs (f/r), anti-roll bar (f/r)
L/W/H  / 4519/1965/1235mm
WHEELBASE / 2710mm
TRACKS / 1613/1588mm
STEERING / electrically-assisted rack-and-pinion
BRAKES / 394mm ventilated/drilled carbon-ceramic discs, 6-piston calipers (f); 390mm ventilated/drilled carbon-ceramic discs, 4-piston calipers (r)
WHEELS / 19 x 10.0-inch (f); 20 x 12.0-inch (r)
TYRES / 285/30 ZR19 (f); 335/25 ZR20 (r) Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2
PRICE / US$78,995 (AU$96,000 approx.)
PRICE / AS TESTED US$105,210 (AU$128,000 approx.)* *ZO7 package