Motor Trend Says it Will be Corvette ZR1
This news broke Tuesday and has been rippling everywhere on the Net. It appears that it was Todd Lassa's post at the Motor Trend Community Blog that got it started. Word is, that the previously called Corvette Blue Devil will be called the Corvette ZR1.
You may know from a previous post that I have predicted Corvette SS. In fact, I still want to believe that it will be Corvette SS. Some of the other bloggers think that Lassa's statement is conjecture, and not based on an infallible source. However, most of the solid advance information we have received so far has indeed come from Motor Trend! Likelihood of accuracy here is, thus, pretty good. As a result, Corvette Blog now has a new category of previous stories (at the right): 2009 Corvette ZR1 (Blue Devil).
IMO, why would GM reinvent a name like the ZR1? The future Super Car definitely deserves a greater claim to fame than the limited production ZR1! After all, the ZR1 had multiple cams, was built outside of GM at Mercury Marine, and is way down on horsepower when compared to even the current 2008 base model Corvettes. This limited production new super car deserves a more notable name.
I couldn't agree more. Good analysis. I am still hoping for a more appropriate name, like SS.
I couldn't disagree more. ZR1 is a great name for the Blue Devil. Back in the day, the ZR1 was the king of the hill, but only with an exotic (for the time) engine. The new ZR1 is as much a leap over the base Corvette as the old ZR1 was back in 1990, and will have exotic technology to make it the new "King of the Hill". I think it's an appropriate name and am glad that they didn't try to bring the SS name into the Corvette line, as it would not be an homage to Zora's 1957 Corvette SS, but an attempt to create a halo for the Chevrolet SS brand. There has never been a "Super Sport" edition of the Corvette, and there should not be one now.
Dean makes some strong (and passionate) points. Do you think that ZR1 will be a name that will grab potentially new Corvette enthusiasts? And, will it have to, given so few will be built?
Well, while I don't like the ZR1 moniker, I also agree that SS is not a worthy name for the Super Car Corvette. From everything we've been reading over the last several months, the new Corvette Blue Devil/SS/ZR1/whatever, will not necessarily be high tech/new technology. I've read it will be the 6.3L engine supercharged. No multiple overhead cams, a small block, and supercharger is not new technology, even to GM (think Cobalt SS, HHR-SS). I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? Let's just hope it is real and makes it to production. Tom Wallace wouldn't talk about it directly at the Detroit GP Corvette hospitality tent, but that's been the modus operandi for the last year or so.
Yeah...like we really want to associate the Corvette with the other shameful SS cars. The only thing a HHR and a Vette should have in common is that they hail from Chevrolet of GM. Corvette SS is shameful, terribly tacky, and just all together inappropriate. SS is a trim...even the Z06 is beyond being just a "trim"! I mean, really! Either ditch the underpowered Ecotec SS cars, call them "Sport," and keep it honest with high performance, large displacment pavement pounders ... or abandon the SS being placed on anything but the little hopped up ecoboxes and run with ZR-1 on the big boys.