2025 C8 CORVETTE ZR1 ORDERING UPDATE! *THE LATEST*

This is it, the Corvette ZR1 has arrived out here at the LA Auto Show. It's great seeing this vehicle again. If you haven't seen our previous piece of coverage on it, going all the way back to car week, well, we got a really cool exclusive walk around with one of the Chevy team members. And it's great seeing this hit the LA Auto Show because that means more people get to see it. And there's a lot of people coming out here that are big Corvette fans. When it comes to this, this is the greatest Corvette ever, quite honestly. When I got my Z06 a few years ago and I tracked it ever, I couldn't imagine having more horsepower. That already felt like a big jump, 670 horsepower versus 495, was it, out of the Stingray. Now you got a thousand horsepower, 1064 horsepower, that is just crazy. But I really do have to say, after seeing the purple ZR1 in person at SEMA during Las Vegas, while I was in Las Vegas, and seeing this yellow spec right here, I think when it comes to ordering, the yellow might be my preference. I did enjoy ordering the Z06 with the torch red and all the yellow accents for the track, but the arrow on this vehicle, it should be a massive jump again. So 1,200 pounds of downforce with this spec. So this is not the spec that you're gonna be able to go 230 miles per hour with, that's crazy. How did they do that with a Corvette, right? And this one though, this is more my cup of tea. Yes, high speed, top speed runs are fantastic. Yeah, that is a great achievement and thing to strive for. But honestly, I love corners too, and with these carbon wheels and the sticky cup two R's with 1,200 pounds of downforce right there, yeah, you gotta do it. You 100% gotta do it. So in my opinion, if you got the allocation to get the Corvette ZR1, this would be the kind of spec I would go for. Plus, honestly, when you consider the different builds you can get, a lot of people love getting the convertibles for Corvettes and I do see why. It's a lot of fun having that versatility of lowering that top down and really just feeling the air and listening to that exhaust all the time. I just think with this vehicle though, you're kind of losing too much. I would argue with the Stingray versus a convertible Stingray, you're kind of losing that engine view. That was a lot to me. That's why I always stuck with the coupes for my three C8 Corvettes I got over the years. I'd say for this car too, 100%, you gotta stay with the coupe because you're getting that legendary split window throwback. That throwback is not found in any other Corvette for generations. So I think it's gonna really help differentiate this car behind me versus a Z06 and other cars because quite frankly, if I look to the right, in front of me, we have a Corvette E-Ray. It looks really aggressive, right? But altogether though, the hatch and the rear bumper is the same as a Z06 in the rear end, and I'll quickly run over there to give you an example. Here's a Z06 flat plane crank motor right here. I never had a problem with mine. Track day for track day, 7,000 miles, was a flawless motor. I can only recommend it. I remember people saying they were having issues with theirs. I don't, I didn't have an issue with mine. Reminds me of the old GT350 days of Ford. People were saying their engines were blowing up. I never had an issue. Maybe I just like taking care of them better. I don't know. I don't want to say, discredit anybody else. Anyways, moving in front of us, what can you tell? Same exact hatch as the Stingray, and then the rear bumper is that new, wide and aggressive look, right? With the wide body and those exit vents. To differentiate these cars even more, you gotta make the jump all the way over to the split window design of the Corvette ZR1. So when it comes to ordering this vehicle, gotta get the coupe. A few other aspects to point out, you see right there with that top intake vent on that hatch, that will only be available on the coupes again. So the convertibles will not have that. Finally, seeing this car underneath all these lights, I'm really noticing the carbon fiber even more. We did a walk around with the same exact ZR1 with Chad from the Corvette team. He even got inside and revved it for us in Monterey, right next to very expensive hypercars. Some even had less horsepower than this. But I think all the carbon fiber really does come together very well with that boomerang intake. And then now you have those little intakes on the end of the boomerang. So versus the Z06 I had, I feel like that really fills in that gap. Otherwise, on the Z06, it's kind of just artificial or just for aesthetic. The carbon wheels look even skinnier on the spokes, if I look closely. I believe these are the same exact carbon ceramics that you have on the E-Ray and the Z06. There's no real need to change that with development because it's very universal for these cars. And if you see that white coating, that's a heat shield coating for carbon fiber. So with carbon fiber wheels, you need to put that heat shield coating on because over time, the heat will actually diminish the surface rigidity of those wheels. We've seen some issues in the past when these were first coming out where heat would kind of mess up the entire barrel and people had to get new wheels for early gen carbon wheeled cars. Luckily though, with like the Ford GT, the ZR1 being mid-engine, there is such a unique weight distribution in the middle that they, from the get-go, put on the barrel coating, the NASA-like heat shield between. Finally, when we talk more about that 1,200 pounds of downforce figure, there's another point we gotta mention. You're not only getting that bigger rear wing, but also with the dive planes, that center S-duct is extended up with a lip and that helps produce even more of that downforce, which is gonna be right here. The only thing this vehicle does not have yet, and I can't wait for when they bring it out, hopefully in the future, would be DRS. But, but, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. This looks crazy. It's got all the downforce you can possibly imagine, and I can't wait to get you guys more up to date on bringing it to the speed, for example, of what it's like ordering this type of vehicle all the way to taking it onto the racetrack. So now that we have Speed Phenom film, our legendary PPF studio in the beaches of Carlsbad, California, I gotta point out where I think this car should be PPFed and where we're gonna PPF mine. For example, that wing on the track will definitely be an impact zone, so that huge piece of carbon fiber, that's gotta be shielded. I think the whole car we're gonna do, and it's gonna be fun putting on PPF on these unique angles all over the vehicle from the front to the back. You can't necessarily wrap the carbon wheels in PPF, but you can ceramic coat, and I think that'll be a good protection that we're gonna be putting on my car all the way to the front. Yeah, this is gonna be another impact point. Do you see where the S-duct is right there? If I can focus the camera, how it sticks straight up with the lip. It's like a wall, right? It kind of reminds me of the front-facing portions of a truck. Rocks are definitely gonna be hitting that. So in the shop, Speed Phenom film, we're gonna wrap that as well with the rest of the front bumper to shield this thing for the racetrack and also from any rocks on the street. I can't wait to capture that process, but should we wrap it a certain color? I don't know. Let's find out. Finally, walking up to the engine right here, the ZR1's 5.5 liter twin turbo setup with 1,064 horsepower and 820 pound feet of torque at 9.8 to one compression ratio. And actually, so the peak power is at 7,000 RPM. So the red line is not as crazy as the Z06 from what I believe, right? From best of my knowledge. But look at all these upgrades. It's fun looking back like three years ago because we were all talking about what could the ZR1 be? What could they do? I know when I got my Stingray, I drove it across the country from Kentucky and I stopped by a bunch of national parks and no one even knew what a C8 Stingray was, the first mid-engine Corvette. It was revolutionary. I feel like throughout each one of these upgrades, they've really found the opportunity to reinvent the wheel with Corvette. Then you have that rocket ship right there for the moonshot. With them going all in, creating a legendary engine like none other. Who would have thought there'd be a 1,000 horsepower stock factory Corvette? That's a ZR1, an obtainable nameplate, right? That's crazy. So if they do make another one after this, like a Zora, what could they do from there on out, right? Bowling Green, Kentucky, handcrafted by the team. I loved doing that walk around of the factory and I was taking delivery of my ZO6. It was a ton of fun, but I'm very happy for being an American and seeing all those American cars coming out like the Eray ZR1 and ZO6 over there. So here's the deal. We have a lot to talk about when it comes to the ordering process for this new Corvette ZR1. From what we understand, allocations should be coming out beginning of this year. So in a couple of months from now, probably around February, time is moving fast. Can you believe that? From there, I'd expect, I'd predict that production will begin right around the end of the year, probably around October-ish because that's when production really kicked off for the Corvette ZO6. And that's actually when they first did the press launch that I went to in Pittsburgh. We drove it on pit race. It was a lot of fun with the fellow journalists, testing out that vehicle and getting a good feel of what it was like because they gave us the opportunity to drive not only the ZO7, but the ZO66 on the track. We got to find out right there in that moment, how they stacked up, what all those performance upgrades really meant. I'd love for the opportunity to not only drive the aero car, but also the standard downforce car, because it'll show us how they really stack up side by side. Can you notice a difference with the acceleration towards the top end, for example, of having a low wing versus a high wing on the Corvette ZR1? Those are all questions I want to find out. I want to get answers for all of you. I know many of you feel the same way. And if you have any other questions too, that you'd want me to ask the team or find out when we go ahead and test the car, please let me know. I'm very curious and I'm very, I have a lot of anticipation for this. You know, I'm a big enthusiast when it comes to everything Corvette and we have such a great pastime with them. So stay tuned for more on that process of trying to get that vehicle. If you enjoyed this quick walk around, please hit the like button or just help me out and subscribe for much more great content coming out of your way. While you do that, hit the notification bell to stay up to date with all the new videos coming out. I'll see you in the next episode.