From Chevrolet:
A regular C8 Corvette will get you to Publix with 495 horsepower. A Z06 Corvette has 670 horsepower and, thus, about the same power-to-weight ratio as an IMSA GTD Pro race car. What is the use case for the ZR1X in a country that has 342 million people (Census; perhaps 350-360 million if we believe Yale) trying to use roads designed for a nation of 150 million?
The heaviest Ferrari 308 was 255 hp and only a little lighter than the 495 hp Corvette. Nobody said that was an underpowered sports car. What balance of engineering considerations resulted in a 4,000 lb. car having more horsepower than a 10,500 lb. Pilatus PC-12 11-seat aircraft?
Also, in a country where the average IQ falls every year who is going to service this complicated machine? It’s awesome to own what will no doubt be a collector’s item, but will anyone have the skills to fix it 20 or 30 years from now?
Here’s a Facebook post about a 30-day repair to find an electrical problem in a Corvette with the base engine supplemented by an electric motor:
This is an aviation level of maintenance hassle for an in-production car where everyone at the dealer and everyone at GM should have fresh knowledge of how the E-Ray is supposed to work.
I guess I have to admit being in awe of the engineers who built a machine with this much horsepower that can also be sold with a 5-year powertrain warranty and the offer of an extended warranty!
Amazing how cheap corvettes now seem compared to the daily driver $100,000 Teslas clogging Greenspun country. Still just a dream for lions who run 2500 miles/year & drive 1000 miles/year.
Two use cases seem to be exclusivity and speed at the track (?drag strip or illegal street drag racing?)
Also they could make a Faster and Furiouser movie.
You might as well have asked a question like: “Who really needs an A19 Pro chip, a 48MP telephoto lens, and all the other features of the iPhone 17?”
Personally, I don’t, and I hope most folks don’t either. I’m perfectly fine using my used S20. Anyone rushing to buy the iPhone 17 is likely doing so either because: a) they have money to burn, or b) they want to stay on trend. Same applies to the Corvette.
George: the iPhone N+1 should be better in every way than the iPhone N. I’m not sure that is true when power is added to a sports car that already has sufficient power. The extra power comes at the cost of higher weight, which takes away from the nimble handling. Maybe you could argue that the C8 Corvette is already a bit too heavy to be considered a “sports car” and the ZR1X version doesn’t even try (i.e., it is a “supercar” whatever that means).
No one needs it but the appeal is primal. As a younger man once wrote, “A driver of ordinary skill can spend five minutes reading the owner’s manual and then zoom off into the sunset. Compare that to the last desktop computer application that you tried to learn.”
That young man sounds exceptionally wise 🙂
> No one needs it but the appeal is primal
Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson famously explained the appeal of fast cars. Young men want them because they think it will attract women, but they mostly attract other young men. What attributes of cars do women find attractive? #1 reliable (won’t break and leave them stranded), #2 practical (has room for their purse in front, and shopping haul in rear).
Anon: I don’t think it is always the case. Some men just like the fun of driving a fast car. It’s like running ultra-marathons, many men do it just because they like running very long distances to test their bodies.
In my opinion, you don’t really like doing any activity, A, unless you want to do even when you cannot tell anyone that you do it. That is one doesn’t really like A unless A is just done for its own sake. Some common A’s are meditation (Vivekananda), composing music, running (many ultramarathoners), art (Van Gogh) , mathematics (Grothendieck, Ramanujan) etc. All these men did the activities not to impress women, but because they liked them so much that they could reach the flow-state doing them. A story from from the famous astrophysicist that explains the limitations of doing A for others:
https://web.iucaa.in/~paddy/
However, on an average I agree with you that most people need an external entity to appreciate, approve of, reward, etc. in order to do an activity. On a lighter note, here’s a highly-recommend and very funny body-building equivalent of fast-cars’ explanation of Top gear:
https://youtu.be/vZWP-Tprpok?si=q6IWuhJGxgEJrCS-
Semi -official drag races is a staple close to my neck of the woods. The only requirement is that engine does not leak too much. This top power Corvette would be handy, but it costs a lot more then modified second hand vehicles that race here.
Aren’t there many well-known ways to address engine leakage? It’s an age-old problem that has been there since there have been automobiles, right? Hahahaha!
1/4 mile in less than 9.0 seconds? The old NHRA drag racing rules required roll-bar for cars running less than 11.49 seconds, and full roll-cage for less than 9.99. Here’s hoping nobody ever crashes one on the dragstrip, because its likely not survivable at 150 mph w/o a cage.
The Z06 is already too fast for those rules! It runs the quarter mile in 10.5 seconds and 131 mph, according to https://www.caranddriver.com/chevrolet/corvette-z06 (though maybe the default roll protection is quite good?)
Corvette? Oh my, let me enlighten the heathens: when you get the dough you get a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. That is it. Lamborghini. Ferrari. Have some self respect folks, do not fall for InstaCheap!
Before anyone asks, I am a Toyota HiLux (the old mostly mechanical ones) man. It never breaks. It never stops. And I live in the Frozen North.
Lamborghinis and Ferraris aren’t substitutes for a regular C8 Corvette or a Z06 Corvette (the 670 hp version with the flat plane crank engine). The Italian exotic cars make no attempt to function as cars. Consider a driver who was assigned “male” at birth and who has a sufficiently high income to afford a “weekend car”. This person will likely be 6′ tall. Let’s assume for simplicity that this person uses male pronouns In the Italian car, he will be almost sitting on the floor and possibly bumping his head up against the ceiling. (A 6’2″ friend has a Ferrari F12 and can only begin to fit into it because he has some special seats with less padding.) His knees will be pressing towards his chest. There will be no room or luggage beyond, perhaps, a couple of soft gym bags.
In a non-ZR1 Corvette, by contrast, the owner/driver will be sitting comfortably even if 6’4″ or taller. There will be room for two airline roll-ons and two backpacks or briefcases in the two trunks (i.e., everything that two people can carry onto a commercial flight will fit, along with the two people, in a Corvette that still has its front trunk).
There’s also the question of reliability. Do you want to take a long trip in a car that is likely to fail at any moment and for which there are no qualified dealers to fix the vehicle?
There are the same considerations in aviation. There are some piston-powered planes that squish the cabin to the point that they have better performance numbers than the Cirrus SR22. These planes are uncomfortable inside, made in tiny numbers, and don’t have what you could reasonably call a support network.
I do! But I don’t like the fact that it can be a hassle to maintain. The reason I like Subaru WRX compared to BMW 3 series is that it’s cheaper to maintain and doesn’t need much repairs on an average.
What’s a car that is around the same 100k but is not super expensive to maintain? Also don’t they build new roads in the States as the population increases?
PF: It depends on the state, but generally the U.S. no longer builds new roads.
See the following for an explanation:
https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-1993/why-california-stopped-building-freeways/
(California has added 33% to its population since that article was written and, essentially, no new roads.)
Excerpt:
The principal cause of declining freeway development was the dramatic rise in construction and maintenance costs during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Freeway development costs nationwide grew much faster than the general rate of inflation during those three decades. Freeway costs rose faster in California than in the nation as a whole, and faster in cities than in rural areas.
Google’s AI summary: Yes, traffic congestion in the U.S. generally worsens year after year, with some fluctuations and exceptions, according to multiple reports. While the pandemic temporarily reduced traffic, many areas are now experiencing higher congestion levels than before the pandemic.