2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
First Drive Review

Just past the curve in which Bruce McLaren bought it, and right before the corner where Niki Lauda had his face burned off, we ­realize the truth: General Motors must still be mad about our review of the 1980 Olds Omega Brougham. The company is trying to kill us.

Back in 2004, GM rolled the last steaming clod of asphalt onto its Milford Road Course (MRC), a 2.9-mile handling circuit at the company’s proving grounds an hour northwest of Detroit. The “Lutzring,” as employees have dubbed it in honor of GM’s meat-eating vice-chairman, Robert Lutz, plunges 135 feet from hilltop to trough and was pieced together like bathroom plumbing from some of the more treacherous corners in motor­sports. The 20 elbows, kinks, and blind whoop-de-dos are crowned by the 45-degree banked “Toilet Bowl,” which resembles the Nürburgring’s Karussell and which has already had its guardrails replaced at least twice. Only 16 of GM’s 266,000 employees are permitted to drive the MRC.

Naturally, a man-eating track you’ve never seen before is just the place you want to be in a 638-hp Corvette you’ve never driven before.

Speaking of Corvettes, our February 2008 cover story on the new supercharged ZR1 all but supplied you with blueprints to build your own. Hoping to squeeze the slavering media like ripe kumquats for more ink, GM invited us to the Lutzring for a brief half-day nibble of the $105,000 ZR1 before the full feast of testing commences this fall. Obviously, the gambit worked.

The track’s nefarious reputation notwithstanding, the ZR1 is just the aluminum-frame, carbon-fiber-paneled, balsa-wood-floored Corvette Z06 with afterburners, right? Which means it will be a little vague in the steering and a bit floppy at the apex but basically fun and, above all, safe. Turn up the A/C, tune in the XM, and let the electronics make us heroes on a track where something like 265,984 people dare not tread.

Certainly, the ZR1’s cockpit has the familiar Bat Cave atmosphere of the regular Corvette, except for the manifold-pressure gauge where the voltage meter normally lives. That, and the carbon-fiber hood’s window, which lets you watch the engine twitch in rhythm to the gas pedal. So far, so what?

Then, while exiting the pits on our first lap, the ZR1’s 6.2-liter LS9 V-8 suddenly cracked the heavens with a feral wolf call. The accelerative g’s rolled into us like the breakers of a Category Five, and breathing became strangely difficult. Uh-oh.

Turn One of the Lutzring starts as a long, seemingly predictable sweeper. Then it kinks inward, then jerks straight, then suddenly cramps in again before lurching up a blind hill that death-drops the car into a ditch. After that you’re tossed over another blind crest with a negative camber pitched to slide the Corvette sideways into next Christmas. Assuming the car doesn’t go airborne.

In the ensuing Toilet Bowl, there were safety cones—which we scattered, ingesting some and dragging others to the next turn, which looked suspiciously like the patch that claimed Jimmy Clark. Then our first lap got uglier. There were screams.

Here’s what we learned: The ZR1 is about as suitable for a Lutzring virgin as an alcohol-fueled Funny Car is for driver’s ed.