I’ve been very fortunate and very blessed and in many ways.
My dad always taught me to do the right things, behave, tow the line, be responsible, do your homework; and life would be a lot easier and more likely to go my way.
I scoffed then. Much later, I’ve often said I’ve had a sheltered adult life. So many rewards bestowed upon me. I’m finally realizing how blessed I am.
Corvettes have been just one aspect, albeit material, but to me Corvettes are part of my life, almost spiritual.
I’m fortunate to own two ZR1s, a C6 and a C7.
I bought a new 2008 base Corvette in the depths of the ’08 financial debacle that bankrupted GM. Amazingly a few months later the magazines covered the ’09 ZR1. I hungrily read those previews and, a bit later, road tests, like a kid looking over the fence – admiring from afar.
2016 rolls around, my business is doing better, my parents are, sadly, both gone, my kids are grown and graduated. I’m watching the ads for a C6 ZR1. Prices are coming down. They’re ‘used cars’ now.
I find an ad for a ’13 ZR1 in my favorite color, Crystal Red at a Chevy dealer in Washington, IL, near Peoria.
On a really nice late January day I drive the 200 miles to see it. Maybe to test drive it. Maybe to buy it.
I meet the sales guy, a young man, respectful demeanor, office with Corvette memorabilia: sales schools, driving schools. He takes me to their delivery show room, clean, shiny tiling, and there it is, deep finish, great luster. Yes, there are some ‘wide-body’ stone chips on its hips. A small chip on the windshield. I’m not too put-off, ‘cause I want a driver.
But pretty darn nice and for something over half the original MSRP.
We take it for a test ride. I ask the salesman to drive first so I can focus on the car. He drives it carefully, timidly. Nothing especially impressive.
Then I drive. We’ve got a red light on the dash. I’m not too worried, thinking it’ll help me get a lower price. Turned out to be an unplugged connector under the seat. I hadn’t driven a manual trans in some years, so I’m a little tentative. The car feels much wider than my ’08 base Corvette, and the steering is weighted heavier. I dip into the throttle a little, and WOW! what a torque monster! (and said that out loud to the salesman, there went my aloof impartiality). It feels like a brute and reminds me of my first car, a 427-435 Corvette roadster, but much faster, much tighter, and far less twitchy.
OK, this is for me.
We make a deal. I think they were glad to get rid of it – this was January, 2016 and they’d had it since late summer 2015, taken on trade for a repeat customer who bought a new ’16 Z06. Part of the deal were some spares, like new floor mats, front air dam, and a new carbon fiber splitter – the original splitter was fine, but I figured if I had a spare then nothing would go wrong with the original. BTW, when I got the new splitter, and in a box almost as tall as me, the box feels empty, so light is the large carbon fiber part inside.
In the months that follow, I get better acclimated to the ‘torque-monster’.
Some idiosyncrasies:
You get in. The car senses your fob and you get the green ‘halo’, you press the button: and nothing happens, and you think “Shit, it’s dead,” but half-a-second later, it cranks over and starts properly.
And it starts with a dual-mode muffler bark and settles into a very smooth idle. Too smooth. A little lope, or chop would be nice, but supercharging means there’s little need for an aggressive camshaft.
If your window’s open, or if you get out to check things under the hood, there’s a peculiar “chittering” sound at cold idle which I’m told is due to retarded ignition timing (hotter exhaust gas) after a cold-start to light-off the catalytic converters quicker.
You learn to slam the hood a little because if you just drop it, the hood is carbon fiber and it’s so light, it doesn’t latch.
You push in the clutch, which is easy – it’s a dual disc – and slot into gear, also easily. If you’re backing up, be super careful ‘cause the view out the rearview mirror is pathetic, like looking through an old mail slot. No rear-view camera on a C6!
You ease out the clutch – it’s perfectly smooth, no juddering; perfectly aligned. But, when you’re backed out and ready to go forward, you have to give it a little more throttle to avoid stalling, and it’s surprisingly easy to stall. The compression ratio is only 9.2:1 which provides less off-idle torque than a base Corvette, first gear is a little taller than in a base 6-speed,and the dual disc clutch means smaller diameter clutch discs for less flywheel effect. And if you lug it, you get more of that weird “chittering” noise. So don’t drive it like a truck – like a couple of friends have when I let them try it. Give it a little throttle and you’re on your way!
Oh, and if you’re turning tightly in your driveway, do not muscle the wheel at a stand-still! The tires are wide and sticky and need an enormous amount of force to steer them at a standstill… only turn the wheel when the car is roiling. Anybody who’s driven a non-power steering car understands this! And a tight turn forward or backwards causes a strange bumping and chattering from the front tires: called wheel-fight. Apparently Chevrolet decided the usual Ackerman-effect diminishes maximum cornering capability, so the steering geometry has the wheels steered about the same number degrees, instead of having the inner wheel steered tighter than the outer.
Fussy part’s over. You’re out onto the road.
Warm it up carefully, there’s about 10 quarts of oil to heat up, but after that:
The big Michelin Pilot Sports spin easily in first and second gear. Also pretty easily in third gear. Which means wheel spin as you cross into triple-digit speed. Things happen fast, there, so traction and stability control are definitely your best friend and savior. Yet the electronic ‘nanny’ allows some slip and spin before cutting back the power. So, you get plenty of practice with throttle control – and easily buzz the rear tires. You’ll wish for more grip. And you can hang the tail out, discretely, sort of, and easily controlled at every low-speed corner – just like my old 427-435. What a treat!
But don’t spin too much, or traction control finally cuts in and really cuts back on the power, especially if you then short-shift up a gear and you’re then way down on the torque curve, rich as it is.
But work it right, which is easy, and you catch each next gear, like a motocross bike, pulling crisp and hard, no waiting for nuthin’. And there’s hardly any noticeable reduction in pull in each higher gear – it pulls each gear with gusto. And on top of that the ZR1 has a wonderful, ripping exhaust note that excites every time. Really, really satisfying!
You know that particular, hard-to-describe scent you smell when a car in front of you gets on it with modern gasoline? Well, you get some of that scent when you get on it in the ZR1 – in the ZR1! Something about the airflow and the higher pressure out of the exhaust, I guess, you smell your own fumes. But it’s not offensive at all.
I gave my daughter-in-law a ride one lovely, cool Fall morning, and BTW, Pilot Sports are summer tires, with far less traction when cold, so don’t bother trying a drive at temps under 40 F. We had warmer temps and lots of open, wide, long-view roads in northern IL. I got on it about halfway, just surfing the rich torque curve up to fourth gear. She was stoic and said nothing. I let her drive the car and she drove it with very early shifts, kind of like a truck (well she is a truck driver and tower crane operator). Again, she said little.
But when we got home, she bubbled over to her husband, my son. “That thing doesn’t push you back in the seat. It HURTLES you back in the seat!” And she’s right. I noticed her head snapping around on her neck during the ride, and her torso shifting forward against the seat belts, then back against the seat each time I eased off th throttle, upshifted and got back on the throttle. It reminded me a little of Apollo 13 when one rocket stage burned out and the next stage lit – though I know the ZR1 Gs are a small fraction of a Saturn V’s. But it’s still a ton of fun!
Acceleration in the ZR1 is like “ Who cares?! This is easy.” Traction is always the issue. Sometimes the car feels almost alive – like it’s clawing for traction like a wild animal on the run. Shift up and it pulls hard in every gear. No bogs.
The dual-disc clutch is perfectly smooth. The Tremec six speed shifts easily, with great synchro action.
The car does feel wide, but the steering effort is well-weighted. As easily as this car spins the tires on acceleration, I sort of expect a lot of slipping and sliding on corners, but cornering Gs build smoothly and dependably.
A couple of my favorite YouTube videos are of the ’09 ZR1 and ’12 ZR1 lapping Nürburgring.
The resolution of the ’09 video shows its age but the ’12 video still looks good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mEirkQN8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9tyopZfHWg
One major difference in these two C6 ZR1s is the tires. The ’09 has Michelin Pilot Sports (like mine) and the ’12 has Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 tires. Notice how much less the driver ‘saws’ at the wheel in the yellow ’12? I want that.
Amazing for a low-production (482 ZR1s in 2013, only 27 in Crystal Red: https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/specs/c6/corvette-zr1-registry/ , designed over 15 years ago, that might never have been released in an era that nearly killed GM. A Corvette that gave you a lot at list price and is simply incredible at used car prices. The C6 ZR1 includes exotic stuff I heard of as a boy but rarely made it to street cars, like:
Aluminum chassis.
Aluminum cylinder block and heads.
Cross-bolted main bearing caps.
Supercharging.
Intercooling. BTW, I changed all the fluids in the car, and when scan-tool commands the intercooler pump ‘on’ to bleed the system, it sounds like a toilet flushing! Lots of coolant flow though that intercooler.
Six speed transmission.
Transaxle.
Foot+-wide tires.
200+ MPH top speed.
Plus, equipment and features I never imagined when I was a boy:
Carbon fiber body parts!
Carbon ceramic brake rotors – light, heat-resistant and long-lived.
Six piston front calipers.
Dual disc clutch.
Titanium connecting rods.
Titanium intake valves.
Sodium-cooled exhaust valves — sodium is a highly reactive and conductive liquid metal at room temp and above. It’s trapped in the hollow stem of the exhaust valve and sloshes up and down with valve motion to conduct heat away from the valve head to the liquid-cooled valve guide. (I didn’t know of this technology as a boy, but it was used in WWII aircraft engines.)
Over 1 G cornering. The ’12 Nurburgring YouTube shows 1.7 peak Gs, numerous times.
Cruising easily, I can get well over 20 mpg!
This is my favorite car of all time, even including the C7 ZR1 and I’ll tell you about that next time.
