Driving The 2009 Corvette ZR1: Detroit's Mild-Mannered Supercar

Let’s forget for a moment exactly how much power the ZR1 has. OK, that’ll do. It’s 638 horses, enough to pull 80 Budweiser beer wagons. Stomp the gas and a few seconds later you’re wondering why some guy with a funny accent is asking to see your passport.

ZR1’s power delivery is smooth and linear, belying the Roots-type supercharger and integrated liquid-to-air charge cooler, which peeks through the ZR1’s polycarbonate hood window like a H.R. Giger-drawn waffle iron. Never before has an engine-and-compressor combo felt more united in its power proposition. Part of the credit goes to Eaton, whose latest four-lobe supercharger design is less parasitic than previous incarnations, meaning it saps less engine horsepower from the 6.2-liter V8 to run the compressor. All told, the powerplant offers 90 percent of peak torque from 2,600 rpm to 6,000 rpm (nearly half at 1,000 rpm) and half the horsepower at 3,000 rpm. In effect, it’s all one big sweet spot.

GM brass wanted the ZR1 positioned as a daily-driver supercar, so engineers took extreme measures to tamp down the noises associated with high performance. For instance, they scrubbed the supercharger’s characteristic whine out of the ZR1’s engine note by adding twice as many drive-gear teeth to increase the sound frequency (if you see packs of dogs following the ZR1 around town, you’ll know why). The downside is a general lack of the visceral attitude one might expect from a car with nearly as much horsepower as a Ferrari Enzo. That is, until an exhaust valve opens at 3,000 rpm, and there ensues an aural discharge that would send members of Mötorhead to the local druggist’s for earplugs, ibuprofen and a copy of Quilting magazine.

Carbon-ceramic brakes from Brembo provide the kind of stoppage you’d expect from an arriving 737. These are the same high-heat-handling discs used in the Ferrari Enzo. Actually, as one engineer said, they’re the size of those on the track-only Ferrari FXX in the front and the lesser Enzo in the rear (did I just say “lesser Enzo”?). These disks get the clampdown from six-piston front calipers and four-piston rears. Corvette and Brembo techs also reworked the system to head off the squeaking and grabbing typical of racing-grade carbon-ceramic discs when cold.