Plainly put, the 2025 Chevy Corvette ZR1 is a world-beater. It’s everything we hoped for and more. It has 1,064 horsepower, for goodness’ sake, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Rarely do we get so excited over a new car anymore. Five-hundred horsepower is so common we’ve become numb to it, as well as 600 and even 700 hp. But crank that up to four digits on internal combustion alone while incorporating crazy aero and selling it as a red-blooded American performance machine, and suddenly, the fire is stoked. This is the real deal.
It might be peak Corvette.
That Engine
There’s plenty of ink to spill on how sick this car is, but first, I’ll give you the powertrain deets. The new ZR1 runs a 5.5-liter, flat-plane crank, twin-turbo V8 that makes all that horsepower at 7,000 rpm and 828 lb-ft of torque at 6,000 rpm. It’s dubbed the LT7 and it joins the Z06’s LT6 as one half of the Gemini Small Block twins. Y’know, like the spacecraft. There are a lot of shared components between the two engines, but this is more than an LT6 with boost.
The forced-induction power plant was always part of the plan. As such, GM designed the engine platform to support twin-turbocharging and the LT7 has a laundry list of specific parts. For starters, the combustion chambers are larger, and the head castings have unique ports because the exhaust needs to be channeled to the center and down into a turbine rather than out and up into tubular headers like on the Z06. Almost everything in the crank train is different, including the pistons, wrist pins, and forged titanium connecting rods that are shorter on the LT7 because they sit lower in the combustion chamber. There’s even a secondary port fuel injection system because this sucker needs so much more gas than its naturally aspirated counterpart.
That’s partially because the dual ball-bearing, mono scroll, 76-millimeter turbos are so powerful. GM says they consume an entire Olympic swimming pool’s volume of air in just four minutes at full tilt. Their fans rotate at 1.7 times the speed of sound. They’re just flat nasty.
All this contributes to a total power output greater than two 7.0-liter LS7s combined. It’s wild to think that each four-cylinder power bank makes more than the C6 Corvette Z06’s vaunted engine. It’s the most powerful V8 ever produced in America by a car company.
It smokes the rear tires (and only the rear tires) after making its way through an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. I love a manual as much as the next guy, but there’s no way you could shift fast enough to match this ‘box. And if you’re still worried about engagement when you have that engine and those turbos immediately behind your noggin, pausing for just millimeters as you pull the paddle behind the wheel, then you probably need to check in with reality.
That Look
I want to point out a more subtle detail you might miss before moving on to the rest of the styling: The split rear window. Officially, this is the first production Corvette with such a feature since 1963, but it’s been hiding in plain sight on the Corvette Z06 GT3.R race car all along. In turn, it’s also functional, helping extract heat from the engine compartment—which, by the way, Corvette Executive Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter tells me is a real necessity:
“When we go on our ride trips, you can see the heat sort of boiling out, and when somebody takes off hard, so much hot air comes out of the exhaust it’s like the whole car disappears into a mirage. You can see all these heatwaves coming out.”
Sick.
All the photos you’re seeing of this yellow ZR1 show what Chevy calls the ZTK Performance Package. It’s the mightiest spec by far, producing 1,200 pounds of downforce at top speed. Thanks to that and the optimized weight distribution of the mid-engined layout, the rear tires stand a chance of keeping traction and the body, on the ground.
The rear wing is the most striking visual of all, but notice also the dive planes and the Gurney lip on the hood. These combine with underbody strakes to keep the front planted. I imagine it’s mighty easy to make the back-end kick out, but just as important as that is getting the turning tires to stick to the track.
In addition to the aero upgrades, ZR1s with the ZTK kit get stiffer springs and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires rather than the standard model’s Pilot Sport 4S rubber. Customers who prefer the wild look but a softer ride can get the Carbon Aero package, which offers all the same aero without the other track upgrades.
The ZR1 will be sold in all the same colors as the Stingray, with Competition Yellow, Hysteria Purple, and Sebring Orange added to the mix. That last one was the hero color on the C7 ZR1 and I can’t wait to see a C8 done up that way.
Those Brakes
Even with everything that’s visually striking on the C8 ZR1, there’s a lot going on that you can’t see on the surface or when the hood is popped. Most relevant to performance would be the carbon ceramic brake rotors, which measure 15.7 inches up front and 15.4 inches out back.
There have never been larger brakes mounted to the front of the Corvette, and they help the ZR1 go from 80 to 200 mph and back to 80 mph in only 24.5 seconds. Kind of a specific stat, I know, but it’s apparently one Chevy has been measuring for a while as it says that’s 22% quicker than the C7 ZR1 and 53% quicker than the C6 ZR1. Wow.
Visible ducts behind the doors funnel cool air to the brakes, which is hugely important when you’re carrying crazy speed into sharp corners. The Corvette team highlights that they’re using a different manufacturing technology that yields greater braking strength and also reduces temps. It’s a multi-level approach, see.
Those Results
I’ve been spewing stats this whole time, but they’re just fragments of the bigger picture. To get a better idea of what this performance translates to, Chevy says the car’s first lap around GM’s Milford Proving Grounds track was quicker than the C7 ZR1 ever managed. Also, it runs the quarter-mile in less than 10 seconds. Also, it hits 200 mph in more than one spot around the Nurburgring. Also… you get the idea.
Chevy won’t say yet just how fast the ZR1 is around the Nurburgring, but I get the sense they’re gunning for a record. I can’t imagine they’re far off, either.
If you want to buy one of these machines yourself and you have the means to do so, get your checkbooks ready. Chevy hasn’t said how much the ZR1 will cost, but since the Z06 starts around $115,000, I imagine this will come close to hitting or exceeding the $200,000 mark. It will enter production at the Bowling Green Assembly Plant in 2025 so at least you have some time to save up.
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