Chevy's Intends To Dominate Ford (and the Nürburgring) With the Corvette
The team at Chevrolet wants to have the fastest American car, and it has a specific place in mind: the Nürburgring.
The Chief Engineer for the Corvette, Tony Roma, told Top Gear , 'we've done some testing, and all I can say is … stay tuned. We want to be the fastest American car – that's an accolade we'd love to have again.' Roma was referring to setting a lap time, notably a record, at the Nürburgring.
Roma was being coy. A record might have already been set.
The Corvette team was in Europe for three weeks in June and rented the Nürburgring. Multiple variants of the Corvette, including the ZR1 and ZR1X, were spotted lapping the 'Ring.
On June 28, the Corvette Instagram account posted a brief clip of a yellow C8 Corvette blasting down a section of the Nürburgring. It's unclear if the model in the clip is a ZR1 or ZR1X, but it was moving. The caption? 'Fast as green hell. #Corvette #Nurburgring.'
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It would be weird for a global automaker to spend any amount of money or time to tease its top-shelf supercar lapping the 'Ring if it wasn't already sitting on an impressive lap time number. A number that might set a record.
And that record would be a lap of less than seven minutes. Roma even acknowledged the mark to hit noting, 'None of our customers will go and run a sub-seven-minute lap time, but they want to know if they could.' At least the man in charge is aware none of this actually matters aside from bragging rights at Cars & Coffee.
Currently, Ford holds the record for fastest American production car around the Nürburgring. The Blue Oval announced the Ford Mustang GTD stole the record from the Dodge Viper ACR (which died eight years ago, RIP) with a lap time of 6:57.685. That's quicker than the Porsche 911 GT3. Unsatisfied, Ford went back to the 'Ring and beat itself by 5.5 seconds with a new lap time of 6:52.072 announced in May.
The C7 ZR1 never set an official lap time, and the C8 Chevy Corvette Stingray ran the 'Ring in 7:28.30 with a Z51 Performance Package in 2019.
If nothing else, it's clear the measuring contest for who goes the hardest and quickest in the shortest period of time is alive an well. Sounds like we might have a new American world-beating champ here real soon.
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