Corvette Z06: TG's Muscle Car of the Year

Corvette Z06: TG's Muscle Car of the Year
The Corvette Z06 erases the line between road and race car. The American Muscle Car Dream has become glorious reality...
Top Gear
Words: Jason Barlow
08 Jan 2015

The first time it happens I squeak like a chipmunk ingesting helium. A minute and a bit later... and here we go again. Despite girding my loins for the inevitable, another unmanly noise escapes, a kind of "Pfffttttaaargheeuughh" that seems to find its way out of my ears, nose and mouth simultaneously. By lap three, I just feel ill.

It would be a big enough ask in the most innocuous rental. Instead, we're in the new Corvette Z06, subjectively and objectively one of the fastest cars in the world. The day that TopGear lands in Atlanta, the Vette's PR machine issues its 0-62mph time: 2.95 seconds. This puts it into an extraordinarily elite band of high-performance brothers, and a category of one when you factor in the Z06's 650bhp, 650 torques and sub-£100k price. It's one of the many reasons it's made it into our Cars of the Year celebration.

Well, the Z06 is another world. Seriously. Let's start with the hardware. In the slightly arcane world of GM power units, the new car uses the LT4 engine, a small-block 6.2-litre V8, related to the LT1 unit in the Stingray. But there have been some big changes. It's the first Z06 to use forced induction, in this instance an Eaton supercharger that fits in the engine's vee or "valley", as Corvette main man Tadge Juechter describes it. Even with the 'charger in place, the whole thing is sufficiently compact to comply with European ped pro regs. Which is one of the reasons we're getting it.

Unsurprisingly, the Z06 is brilliant. There are nasty camber changes, and one corner even comes on like the Yankee cousin of the Nordschleife's naughty Karussell. On steering feel and overall balance, the American has it covered.

In fact, it has it covered on most things. Go to the outer edge of your personal comfort zone, and the Z06 will meet you there. It'll trade blows with the best that AMG, BMW, Ferrari or Porsche has to offer, on the trickiest tracks in the world. It'll make you feel like a million dollars but costs a fraction of that. America has a new hero.

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