Z06 is to Corvette as CSL has been to BMW, a three-digit slug loaded with performance promise. The first Z06 package was developed in the early 1960s at the behest of Corvette Godfather Zora Arkus-Duntov, to give his race drivers – men like Roger Penske – an edge in sports car racing. Effectively an $1818 factory race kit buried in the options list, wedged between the wood-grained plastic steering wheel ($16.15) and the power steering ($75.35), the Z06 code then passed into obscurity for nearly 40 years, with ZR-1 becoming the label of choice for high-performance variants of Bowling Green’s all-American sports car. Z06 returned on the C5 Corvette, and now the latest-generation C7 has been given the Z06 treatment, creating a kind of Corvette GT3 .
Not an options package but a standalone model, the Z06 nevertheless comes in several guises. Choose between coupe and convertible body styles (the coupe’s carbonfibre roof is quick-release, so even the coupe offers open-air fun), manual or auto transmissions and your preferred level of track-readiness, from modest splitters, wings and spats through to the £13,240 Z07 package with its extreme aero, ceramic brakes, semi-slick Michelin rubber and suitably re-calibrated suspension.
What's under the hood?
Thankfully, the Z06’s mighty LT4 V8 is the same whichever options you tick. It blends eight cylinders, 16 pushrod-driven valves (half of them titanium), 6.2 litres of capacity, direct-injection fuelling, a supercharger lodged in the valley between the cylinder heads and a fairly lofty (for a supercharged engine) compression ratio of 10:1 to deliver 650bhp and 650lb ft of torque. Naturally it sits as close to the middle of the car as the Corvette’s front-engine architecture will allow, as you’d expect of a package born out of the last-gen C6 racer and that underpins Corvette’s current C7R. The engine and transmission (seven-speed manual or eight-speed auto) sit low too, slotted into an aluminium chassis that goes into the slicks-and-wings racer unchanged. Suspension is by magnetic dampers and unequal-length double wishbones all round, while the vast wheels (19 by 10in up front, 20 by 12in at the rear) sit further apart (track is half an inch wider at the front, an inch wider at the rear) and mount sap-sticky Michelin Super Sport rubber on non-Z07 cars. The body itself is 80mm wider at the back and 56mm broader at the front. Indeed so stretched is it over the meatier rubber and broader track that the lights had to be shifted further apart to keep the rear of the car from going cross-eyed.
Down to business. Opt for the Z07 package and the quick-shifting auto ’box and Chevrolet reckon you’re good for 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds, (3.2 with the manual), the quarter mile in under 11 seconds and the grip to generate 1.2g in lateral acceleration. Top speed is a modest tailwind short of 200mph. Stir the gears yourself in a non-Z07 car and you can still expect 0-62mph in 3.8.
Too much for the road? Nope. Indeed the striking thing about the Z06 isn’t so much its potential for heavyweight, anti-social acceleration (endless) or its reserves of grip, poise and braking power (ocean-deep) as the rate at which the car puts you at ease with its performance.
So what it's like to drive?
Slide aboard and the cockpit’s snugly comfortable, with fine, low-slung seats (the trackday-keen can spec full buckets) and an interior largely unchanged from the standard Stingray, which is to say nice enough in design and execution. Adjust the wheel, switch the drive mode to laidback Eco (funny) or Tour and off you go, marveling at how a car with such potential can boast such effortless controls. The gearbox shifts cleanly and pretty accurately (only seventh puts up a bit of a fight), the clutch take-up is smooth and consistent and the throttle response beautifully clean and accurate where it could so easily have been blunt and terrifying.
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