Autoblog

Top Gear is widely regarded as the best television show ever produced about cars. The production values are outstanding, the hosts are amusing and their tamed racing driver, "the Stig", is amazing to watch as he improves his mind while hustling cars around the test track. A few months back we all got wind that Jeremy, Richard and James had returned to the U.S. for another road trip. This time around they headed to the West Coast to drive a new Corvette ZR1, Cadillac CTS-V and Dodge Challenger SRT-8 from San Francisco to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Along the way, Jezza decided to stop at some desolate spot somewhere in Nevada or Utah to lay down some black lines on the pavement. Now while we generally love to watch Mr. Clarkson playing with fast cars, he doesn't quite seem to have mastered the art of the burnout. If you start about 9 minutes into the first clip after the jump and continue to the second and third videos, you'll see our favorite limey trio attempting to shred their tires during last night's second episode of Series 12 (Download via bittorrent here). Compared to Clarkson in the ZR1, Hammond and May were utterly hopeless in their Challenger SRT-8 and Cadillac CTS-V, respectively. After that, watch the last video with GM's Chris Berube showing us all how it's done properly in both the ZR1 Vette and Caddy CTS-V.

[Source: YouTube]

For many, General Motors' Mr Stephens' Engine Shop online game is full of metallic looking stuff, none of it discernibly purposeful. What you're working with are extracted parts of the LS9 engine that powers the Corvette ZR1. Unless your ZR1 is in the shop for catastrophic engine failure, these components aren't usually seen out on their own. The General's little game has you correctly identify the major pieces and awards a prize after three rounds of correct answers (or lucky guesses). So many people, not just kids, are ignorant about the inner workings of the complex machine known as the car, so we applaud this effort to shed light on the mysteries that lie beneath the bodywork. Watch out for that fuel rail, we found it a little tricky to place. If anything, we're eager to get home and have the young ones begin learning auto anatomy. Thanks for the tip, Eden!

[Source: General Motors]

If we came up with a list of our top "Best Day EVER" scenarios, we're pretty sure a straight-line race between the Corvette ZR1, Ferrari 599 GTB, Nissan GT-R and the Porsche 911 GT2 would be close to the top of our list. The scribes at Motor Trend were able to live that dream, but they threw us a bone by recording the supercar showdown for the world to see. Follow the jump to see the 638-hp ZR1 take on some of the best street metal from Italy, Germany, and Japan. We watched the video four times, if only to note the stark difference between the launches and finishes of four distinctly different supercars. And just for fun, write down your projected 1-4 finish and let us know how you fared in the post-jump comment section. Thanks for the tip, everyone!

[Source: YouTube]

Mated to a Corvette ZR1, the LS9 can get you from 0-60 in 3.3 seconds, and it will travel a quarter mile in 11.3 seconds. GM Performance Parts announced earlier in the week that beginning next fall, you won't need to own a ZR1 to get your hands on an LS9. The supercharged, 638-hp beast will be available as a crate engine to put under the hood of any project car that can handle the power.

The GM Performance Parts team is so excited about the crate LS9 that it shot a video of the blown small block being hand-assembled. The clip shows some of the more significant parts of the LS9's production process, as well as some of the testing performed to ensure your crate engine is up to snuff. The guys building LS9s are lightning fast at their craft, too, and we're sure most gearheads would love to have some of the equipment they use during the build process. Hit the jump to see the moving pictures for yourself, and start dreaming about your own fire-breathing LS9 project car.


[Source: YouTube]

General Motors has announced that the blown beastie that lives under the hood of the Corvette ZR1 will be available as a crate motor next fall and our head is spinning with the swap possibilities.

With 639 hp and 604 lb.-ft. of twist available from the 6.2-liter supercharged V8, and dimensions shared by the LS3, any number of vehicles could make a happy home for the LS9. According to GM, the engine comes fully dressed, with an ignition system, exhaust manifolds and supercharger, and only needs an external oil tank and coolant tank (for the charge cooler), an ECU and wiring harness.

So, the question is: what would you fit the LS9 into? We've put together a poll after the jump, but feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.


[Source: GM via MotiveMag]

Back at the Nürburgring, the hot Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 has just ripped four seconds off its claimed 7:26 lap. The new time, with Jan Magnussen at the wheel, is a claimed 7:22.4 for the full 12.93-mile loop. While the number is pretty bloody fast, it is still .3 seconds off the time earned by the Dodge Viper ACR (ouch, those three tenths really have to hurt!). We take these lap times with a grain of salt, as we've yet to see everyone on the 73-turn course under the same conditions, and with officially certified timing equipment. Again, so you don't have to Google the competition's best-claimed Ring times yourself, here they are: Porsche GT2 - 7:32, Nissan GT-R - 7:29, Corvette ZR1 - 7:22.4 and the Dodge Viper ACR - 7:22.1. Thanks for the tip, Xeyad!

[Source: Motor Gears]

When we got behind the wheel of the 638-hp Corvette ZR1, we were pleasantly stunned at the raw, violent pull exhibited by the 3,364-lb supercar. Motor Trend was equally impressed during a recent trip to Chrysler's Arizona proving grounds where they brought their considerable testing equipment along to add their own cold hard stats to a growing list of platitudes.

Motor Trend tested the ZR1 at the Chrysler Proving Grounds because its 5-mile loop is one of the few places that has the space to test the ZR1's top speed. The mag was able to crest 200 wind-adjusted mph, and MT computers showed that the ZR1 was still pulling when that magical number was achieved. Hitting 200 mph puts anything on four wheels in the supercar club, and a 0-60 time of 3.3 seconds ranks the ZR1 near the top of any exclusive car club. MT testers also needed only 11.2 seconds to travel a quarter mile and crossed the magic line at 130.5 mph, which they point out is 6.1 mph faster than the Dodge Viper.

Car and Driver was the first to test the ZR1 and posted slightly slower 0-60 and quarter mile times of 3.4 and 11.5 seconds, respectively. Other impressive stats from MT, however, include a 60-0 brake distance of just 97 feet and max lateral acceleration of 1.1 g, which easily bests the Viper's .99. It would seem then that Motor Trend's results confirm what we already knew: 638-hp Corvettes are very fast.


[Source: Motor Trend]

The rumormill is a funny thing, and sometimes it can run amok. This appears to be one of those times. The DigitalCorvettes.com forum posted a note earlier this evening saying that Corvette ZR1 production has been halted (Bowling Green is shut down this week, so no Vettes are being built at the moment) and suggesting that the ZR1 may be cancelled. A post on dealer Rick "Corvette" Conti's blog, linked in the referenced DigitalCorvettes thread, added to the intrigue.

Autoblog has contacted GM's Terry Rhadigan, who handles global communications for the Chevrolet brand. We presented the DigitalCorvettes link and asked for an official response. His was very clear:

"Not true."

The Corvette ZR1 is the fastest, most ridiculously cool production Corvette ever produced. After taking the ZR1 for several hot laps of the Lutzring in Milford, we'd go as far as to say it's one of the fastest vehicles we've ever driven. Journalists aren't the only ones who have driven the ZR1 either, as a select few General Motors employees get to drive the 638-hp supercar as their daily driver. One GM worker by the name of Karen took the ZR1 to an autocross event in Ohio and put the supercharged LS9 Corvette through the cone gauntlet. Hit the jump to see and hear the ZR1 zip through the course. Unfortunately, the camera operator didn't zoom in on the Vette or follow it very well, but it's worth your :58 to watch if only to listen to the ZR1 come off the line. Thanks for the tip, Mark!


[Source: VetteTube]

The car that Top Gear liked to drive, if not exactly to look at, has a price they definitely won't want to pay. At an on-the-road price of £109,000, the ZR1 costs nearly £48,000 pounds more than a Z06 in the UK. As if that weren't problematic enough, that price puts the left-hand-drive-only ZR1 £8,000 past the 911 Turbo and a colossal £55,000 beyond the GT-R Premium Edition. True, that's still the base GT-R, but Nissan has a whole lot of room to play with when it prices the V-Spec.

True as well, the price of the ZR1 also includes a driver training course and a 3-year / 60,000-mile warranty, which should count for something. Perhaps not £55,000, though. Luckily for Chevrolet UK, it will only have to sell two of them this year, and single digits in the years to come. You can read the full press release after the jump, and then decide if you'd rather have one lump of incredible American metal or a GT-R and a Swiss bank account.

[Source: GM]