For Just $50,000, Leave a Ferrari in Your Rear View Mirror
There hasn’t been such a roar of hurrahs, such a surge of suspender-snapping patriotism for a new American car since . . . um . . . well, not since. . . .
“I can’t recall when,” said Tom Hoxie, a spokesman for the Chevrolet Division of General Motors. “I’m not sure the (Ford) Mustang got this much attention when it was introduced. The (Chevrolet) Corvette in 1953 certainly wasn’t an early success because enthusiasts weren’t terribly thrilled by it.”
Yet this Chevrolet Corvette, this 1990 ZR-1 sports car has been enthroned as king, conqueror and automotive icon--while still five months away from Southern California’s showrooms and freeways.
“Every day, somebody is calling up wanting to make a deposit on it . . . but we’re not accepting deposits because we don’t even know if we’re going to get one of the cars,” said Dick O’Donnell, president of O’Donnell Chevrolet in San Gabriel.
He does know that only 4,000 ZR-1s will be produced next year and that supply won’t go far among 4,800 Chevrolet dealers in the United States. “I’ve had one guy ask me: ‘Just tell me what the price is and I’ll pay it.’ My guess is that he will have to pay $15,000 or $20,000 over sticker price.”
A Fast Sale
Al Shaw, executive manager of Clippinger Chevrolet of Covina, said: “If we knew we’d have a ZR-1 in here by 9 a.m. it would probably be sold by 9:10.”
Most of the frenzy for the ZR-1 has to do with performance guaranteed to flutter the heartbeat of America--numbers capped by an astounding top speed of 180 m.p.h. That’s faster than last year’s winning average speed at the Indy 500.
With 380 horsepower beneath its slippery, fiberglass snout, this two-seater can accelerate from stop to 60 m.p.h. in a little over four seconds. That’s less time than it takes the average motorist to buckle a seat belt.
In the hands of factory drivers and automotive journalists, the ZR-1’s favorite party trick is to thunder from zero to 100 m.p.h. and back to a dead stop in 14 seconds. Neither the Ferrari Testarossa, the Porsche 928GT nor any production car anywhere in the world can do that.
Yet, says David McLellan, chief engineer of Chevrolet’s Corvette program, “it’s a driver-friendly car with a broad (performance) bandwidth. You can drive it without hassle in city traffic, have the ease and reasonable comfort of a sports sedan for low speed driving . . . or you can light it up and drive it with aggression. Or literally put it on a race track.”
Big Difference in Price
This combination, say current issues of the nation’s automotive magazines, enthrones the ZR-1 as the first American car to outperform the European classics at their own game, and on their own gnarly roads. Also, at an anticipated price of $50,000--compared with $76,000 for the Porsche 928GT and $180,000 for the Ferrari Testarossa.
Commented Automobile magazine: “We have finally driven the ZR-1 Corvette and without equivocation, we can pronounce it the fastest and finest high-performance automobile America has ever produced.”
The ZR-1 has appeared on the covers of every automotive publication in the United States. It has been dubbed by one: King of the Hill. Another described it as: The Corvette From Hell. That reference (“buff-book silliness” sniffed a Chevrolet spokesman) pictured the car against a flaming Hades with Jason--the hockey-masked and immortal maniac from interminable “Friday the 13ths”--behind the leather-padded wheel.
Pussycat That Roars
Even Time magazine--with its automotive coverage usually reserved for the notorious, the DeLorean and the Yugo--ran a photograph of the ZR-1 and a story headed: The Pussycat That Roars.
In Florida, an after-market company has begun selling a fiberglass shell of the ZR-1’s distinctive, rounded tail section and rear-light assembly. The $495 retrofit slips over the rear of a conventional Corvette so purchasers can fool their neighbors into thinking they are first in their suburb with a ZR-1.
There was no doubting the message and notice served by this road warrior when Chevrolet air-freighted a dozen cars (and several dozen American journalists) to Switzerland and the South of France for the hands-on, road-and-track launch of the ZR-1.
And if space for the car’s rear license plate happens to seem a little oversized for American plates, it is supposed to be. But it is a perfect fit, said a Chevrolet representative, for a European plate. Then he grinned and thumbed his nose.
Chevrolet, however, hopes the ZR-1’s impact will reach beyond Europe and form a worldwide denial of the reputation of American muscle cars as super fast but unmanageable at almost any speed.
“Twenty-five years ago, when we did big block, high-performance cars, we tended to do one-dimensional cars,” McLellan explained in a car-telephone interview from his ZR-1 heading home from Detroit. “These cars went very fast in a straight line and you kinda hung on for this brief thrill ride.
“They didn’t do anything else very well. They didn’t have the brakes, the tires and the handling developments that we have today.”
The Equipment Today, he continued, all Corvettes--both the new ZR-1 and Chevrolet’s standard, slower, less expensive version--come equipped with broad, low-profile tires developed from Formula One racing designs. The brakes are discs bigger than dinner plates and guarded by a computer-controlled braking system preventing wheel lockup and skidding at all speeds on any surface.
The suspension is driver adjustable, a dial-a-ride system with a cockpit switch offering three primary settings: Touring. Sport. Performance. In addition, on-board computers respond to the speed of the car and automatically refine each of those settings with six finer adjustments.
And with the ZR-1 comes a device to save us from teen-agers, parking valets and vengeful in-laws. It’s a key switch that seals off a portion of the fuel induction system and reduces the engine’s output by 150-horsepower.
“The whole point is, it is not a one-dimensional car,” builder McLellan continued. “With its shock control system, its tires, the drive train, the brakes, getting all these things together . . . a driver with ordinary skills can enjoy the car by just using reasonable prudence.”
Development of all-humbling performance, however, is far from being McLellan’s total satisfaction from the ZR-1. “We have achieved a spectacular level of performance,” he said. “But we are still able to meet or exceed all government standards for fuel economy, safety, noise and emissions while using regular grade fuel.”
He is proud of the cosmopolitan nature of the car--brakes from Australia, transmission from Germany and an American engine modified by a British company.
McLellan also is concerned by any public preoccupation with the top speed of the car. Chevrolet, he said, did not set out to build a 180-m.p.h. car. That was simply a byproduct of designing a sports car with unbeatable low-end and midrange acceleration.
“You can’t use (the car’s) top speed anywhere,” he insisted. “Even in Germany, you can’t drive the top speed capability of the car other than very rare instances. What is really satisfying . . . is it will out-accelerate everything on those roads, yet remain a car that will support you as a driver, make you a better driver in fact.”
Visual differences between the ZR-1 and a stock Corvette are subtle and confined entirely to a slick derriere. It’s soft and rounded and three inches broader to accommodate 11-inch wide tires. Rear lights are rectangular instead of round. Decorum ends with a small vaunter peeping from beneath a molding: the ZR-1 logo.
Heart of the Car
The heart of the car is anything but genteel. It’s a V-8 engine built by Mercury Marine of Stillwater, Okla. A General Motors subsidiary, Lotus of England, reworked the motor for duties on dry land. The end result is a low-revving, high-horsepower engine more suited to Le Mans than La Canada.
Each cylinder has four valves (compared with two on standard engines) to achieve better breathing, more efficient fuel burning and a higher power output. Two overhead camshafts (one for intake valves, the other for exhaust valves) are mounted above each bank of cylinders.
The soul of the car is nothing short of dynamite in a microwave. That’s from an innovative multiple-throttle system linked to electronic fuel injectors and a driver’s right foot.
At soft pedal, the engine breathes a fuel-air mixture through smaller primary ports only. With foot hard down, wider, secondary ports open and the engine transitions to a full bellow of eight cylinders, 16 fuel injectors and 32 valves.
“It is virtually two engines in one with no performance compromises at either end,” an engineering spokesman explained. “One phase gives quick but tractable low speed. The other supplies impressive high-speed characteristics.”
Showing Off
Although the ZR-1 will not go into production until August, “pilot vehicles” have been assembled for public appearances at auto shows and race meets.
The Times’ test vehicle for 400 smug miles was one of the first ZR-1s to arrive in Southern California. It should be viewed, warned Chevrolet spokesman Hoxie, as “about 95% of what the production car will be like.”
Even with that piece missing, the ZR-1 clearly has more to offer than the best driver in the world would require for town or country or the Long Beach Grand Prix. To a driver who had never met the Corvette he couldn’t hate, the ZR-1 experience fell just short of Epiphany.
The Corvette has always been a magnum load. The ZR-1 is a magnum opus that accelerates until trees blur and G-forces build until you hope nobody in your general vicinity does anything dumb.
The Corvette has always offered pace close to shuttle re-entry speeds. The ZR-1’s top end is somewhere in the next life. It is significant that not one automotive magazine has crowed of taking the car to its limit.
All of which was to be expected from this macho machine.
Handling Surprise
The surprise is the heft and handling of the ZR-1.
This Corvette is no longer a rattling, knuckle-skinner where even the brave fretted high torque and inadequate tires and the risk of staring up your own tailpipe after an emergency maneuver.
This Corvette has a fully synchronized, six-speed transmission balanced to where shifting is more tactile experience than muscular ordeal.
In concert with a clutch lighter than most pickups, all that horsepower unwinds with a smoothness that only comes with optimum delivery and application of energy. And accompanied by a great gurgling growl fit for taping and admission to the Museum of Golden Sounds.
Engineer McLellan said it well. In the ZR-1, all developments and dimensions combine. Anti-lock disc brakes requiring only a medium hoof. Steering that transitions well between loafing and healthy gallop. A suspension for keeping wide tires flat in corners, for allowing great dollops of power and fast exits from tight corners without skip or judder.
In truth, the ZR-1 may not be everyone’s choice as easy, convenient wheels for humming to the tape shop or lunch at Jerry’s Deli. It is, indeed, leather bucket seats and bottoms close to the ground in a purposeful, even sinister cockpit. As McLellan acknowledges: “It does have its feet firmly planted as a performance car for enthusiasts.”
A Civilized Machine
Despite bewildering performance numbers--and the criticism they doubtless will bring from highway safety and insurance industry leaders--the ZR-1 clearly is a stable, civilized, responsible motor car ready for those previously closed ranks of European grand tourers.
Unlike the suddenly medieval Corvettes of last year, it is even possible to relax while driving the ZR-1.
When the car was premiered in Europe, one magazine editor relaxed a little too much. He fell asleep at the wheel and at a respectable rate of knots, his rare, expensive, brand new ZR-1 motored off a French road and into a ditch.
The car was injured. The occupants were not. Chevrolet representatives took it in stride.
“But first,” one said, “we wet our pants.”
