Hot Lap Video: Can the Corvette ZR1X Hang With a Multi-Million Dollar Hypercar? We Found Out.
A wild Chevy-versus-hypercar track fight shows just how serious the new ZR1X really is.
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Chevrolet showed up to our State of American Performance track test with its biggest hammer: the Corvette ZR1X with all the go-fast trimmings. That means the full name is something like ZR1X 3LZ ZTK Carbon Fiber Aero package. What all that gobbledygook gets you is the most powerful car General Motors has ever sold to the public, complete with a track-tuned suspension setup and a Halloween costume’s worth of stuck-on carbon aero bits, all topped off with a gigantic wing.
But the powertrain is the real story. In addition to the ZR1’s 5.5-liter twin-turbo V-8 that’s good for 1,064 hp on just the rear wheels, the front wheels are powered by a single front motor bringing total system output to 1,250 hp. Exactly the same as the Californian hypercar its competing against, the alien tech Czinger 21C.
You have to feel for the Corvette people: We’d be upset if we’re calling our latest and greatest an American hypercar, and then an upstart California engineering firm showed up with extraterrestrial chassis technology baked into an honest-to-goodness hypercar. There is of course the fact the Czinger costs 10 times as much as the ZR1X, and you most certainly do not get 10 times the performance.
As you’ve seen, the Corvette did pretty dang well for itself, despite weighing nearly 400 pounds more than the Czinger 21C. If you peek at the data, the 21C is usually a bit ahead of the Corvette—though into the first corner the ZR1X squeaks a bit ahead of the Czinger.
