ZR1. ZR-1. Zed R One. However one speaks or writes that fabled alphanumeric, it conjures a multitude of visions and emotions. As time marches relentlessly forward, certain aspects of history tend to be forgotten and the true origins of the ZR1 RPO code is no different. All too often, a discussion about the ZR1 starts with the fourth-generation car and completely ignores the 1970-72 iteration, which was quietly marketed as a suspension-and-brake package meant for road racing. With a production run of just 53 examples over the three-year run, this omission is somewhat understandable.
It’s well-known that the 1970s were a dark period for performance cars around the world, and the Corvette was no exception, with base horsepower ratings dropping below 200. As the ’80s dawned, upper management at General Motors, especially within Corvette Chief Engineer Dave McLellan’s team, were studying ways to increase the output of Chevy’s performance flagship amidst ever-tightening emissions restrictions. The result, as we all know, was the 1990-95 “King of the Hill” ZR-1, which served notice that the Corvette could take on the world’s best performance cars.
Whereas the C4 ZR-1 was born out of an official edict from upper management, the C6 ZR1 came about when GM CEO Richard Wagoner, upon experiencing the stunning performance of the $60,000 2006 Z06, casually asked McLellan’s successor, Dave Hill, what kind of car his team could build for $100,000. Hill took the question seriously, and he and Assistant Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter began investigating a new sixth-gen Corvette model under the unofficial code name “Blue Devil,” a tip of the chapeau to Wagoner’s alma mater, Duke University. That was in 2004. Also in 2004, 20-year-veteran engineer Jim Mero joined the Corvette team, and in less than five years, he and the C6 ZR1 would become synonymous. The author recently spoke with Mero about the development of this world-beating Corvette.
Tuned for Speed
In early 2004 Mero, who was at that time the Ride and Handling Engineer on the Cadillac STS, heard through the grapevine that the same job on the Corvette team might become open. He spoke with his soon-to-be boss, Frank Dellapia, to let him know he wanted his name in the hat, but months passed without Mero hearing a word about the position. That fall, on a Thursday, Mero was in Germany finalizing the STS suspension on the Nürburgring and Autobahn. The original plan was to fly home on Saturday, but he decided to stay until the middle of the following week to complete the tuning on the Autobahn. A phone call from Dellapia changed Mero’s plans, as he explained.
“Frank called me and said, ‘I hear you plan on staying longer,’ and I said, ‘Yes, but only four more days.’ He said, ‘You better be on that plane Saturday. You need to be at Virginia International Raceway on Tuesday to meet Ron Fellows and work on the C6 Z06. You’re the new Corvette Ride and Handling engineer.’”
Mero (far right) and crew pose with a ZR1 at the Nürburgring in Germany.
Mero’s five years’ worth of experience developing Magnetic Ride Control (MRC, or simply MR) on the STS made him instrumental in getting a similar system installed on the C6 ZR1 and subsequent Corvettes.
“Besides the obvious development stuff, there’s two things I think I affected on that car of which I’m pretty proud,” he said. “Prior to 2008 MR was just an option on the base [C6]. I felt it was gimmicky. They would just ram up a bunch of damping and go, ‘Here, flip the switch around and it makes the car super tight.’ It’s not like you’re going to make a base car handle better.
“I knew the [effectiveness] of the system from running the STS at the Nürburgring and other racetracks, so I told Dave Hill, ‘I don’t think MR should be used as a gimmick on a base car. I think it should be used to take a hardcore track car and make it a good daily driver.’”
That statement would have a profound effect on not only the sixth-generation ZR1, but on every MRC-equipped Corvette for years to come.
But a 638-hp supercharged V-8 and a highly refined suspension will do nothing for a sports car unless it has a great set of tires, and that’s another area where Mero’s expertise had a salutary effect on the ZR1.
The yellow Z that ran a record-setting 7:19 on the German track is shown here on display at the National Corvette Museum (photo courtesy Jim Mero).
“That’s my other claim to fame,” he said. “The Goodyear tires on the Z06 were horrendous—they held that car back so much. Originally, Goodyear was supposed to be the supplier for the ZR1. At that time, the Corvette race team had just switched from Goodyear to Michelin tires with great success. I don’t know if it was to Dave Hill or Tom Wallace, but I said, ‘Why don’t we do a shootout between Michelin and Goodyear to see which tire can provide the best grip to handle the horsepower of the ZR1? If Goodyear wants to win, then they need to step up their game. If not, we get a better tire.’ Well, instead of doing a ground-up tire like Michelin, Goodyear just warmed the F1s. I looked at the [Goodyear] tire and thought, ‘This is not going to be good,’ and I was right.
“Over the next few weeks, we ran the shootout, which consisted of about 20 tests, and Michelin pretty much ran the table. Once we saw that, I told Wallace, ‘You’ve got to get everything on Michelins now.’ The rest is history, because since that car, it’s been Michelin.”
Soon, Mero and his fellow engineers were deep into testing and developing the new ZR1 on various roads and racetracks across the U.S. and Europe. In addition to the Nordschleife and VIR, these included Road Atlanta, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, Grattan, and GM’s own course at the Milford Proving Grounds. Still, Mero noted that tuning the car’s underpinnings was a careful balancing act.
“For every hour I spent on the racetrack, I probably spent 100 hours on the road trying to make the car a good daily driver. Because I know 95 percent of the Corvette owners are not going to track their cars, and they had to have something to get them around that [felt] pretty decent.”
When the ZR1 was revealed to the world in 2008, it was met with near universal praise for its projected performance statistics and technology. Throughout early 2008, the Jetstream Blue media car was seen on the cover of most of the major car magazines. Then came the video.
On June 27, 2008, an Atomic Orange test mule stormed out onto the fabled Nordschleife asphalt and laid down a record-setting lap of 7:26.4. When the in-car video was released, it went viral thanks to YouTube, which was relatively new at the time. It didn’t take long for people to speculate on who the driver was on the record lap, with most assuming it was one of the hot-shoes from Corvette Racing. When it was revealed, the driver was an anonymous engineer named Jim Mero, and he instantly became a folk hero in the Corvette community. However, Mero and ZR1 weren’t done just yet.
Over the next few years, the Corvette team continued to improve the breed, and in 2012 they returned to the ‘Ring in a 2012 ZR1 with the goal of making it the first production car to break 7:20. They succeeded. Mero laid down a lap of 7:19.6—nearly seven seconds faster than his 2008 lap. Where did so much time come from?
“It was the tires.” Mero explained. “Those Cup tires allowed us to get way more aggressive with the Magnetic Ride tuning, spring rates, and steering-calibration software.”
The tires Mero spoke of were the newly optional Michelin Pilot Sport Cups, which, when combined with Performance Traction Management (PTM) technology, set a new benchmark in Corvette performance. When this lap went up on YouTube, it only enhanced Mero’s legendary status.
While the videos at the Nordschleife look like a rousing good time (and they are, according to Mero), he says the driving is almost secondary because during a lap his mind is working overtime collecting data.
“When I’m running, I am consciously engineering the car, thinking about its dynamics, so by the time I come in I already know what changes I’m going to make. The driving—meaning braking points, hitting apexes, steering angle, etc.—that all happens subconsciously.”
Mero’s lap times have been eclipsed many times over in the past 13 years, but even his 2008 record time was faster than much more expensive machinery of that era, including the McLaren MP4-12C, the Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4, the Nissan GT-R, and even the million-dollar Porsche Carrera GT. For perhaps the first time, a Corvette had truly earned the title of “supercar.”
Number One With a Bullet
The C6 ZR1 was not all about performance, however. Unlike the C4 ZR-1, the 2009-13 iteration not only set itself apart from its brethren performance-wise, but also visually. When Chevrolet debuted the Z06 in 2006, it featured an air scoop in the nose, more aggressively-styled gills, and enlarged fenders, appearance alterations it would eventually share with the 2010-13 Grand Sport. The ZR1, however, would complete its production run with model-specific bodywork. A see-through hood, greatly enlarged gill panels, and a carbon-fiber aero kit ensured that the new King of the Hill Corvette had an aggressive and purposeful stance that made it distinct from the other C6 models.
The stunning Inferno Orange ZR1 seen on these pages has been under the pampered care of Bob and Debbie. (The couple asked that we not share their last name.) Debbie explained how, in April 2011, the car ended up in their growing Corvette collection.
“I took our Suburban to the dealership for service, and as I handed the keys to one of the service techs, he said, ‘Hey, you need to go to the showroom and have a look at this car that we got in.’ I said, ‘No buddy, I’m not starting that. We don’t…’ He cut me off and said, ‘No, you need to go look.’ So I walked over to the showroom, and there sits this orange Corvette.
I went over to the salesman and said, ‘OK, tell me about this car.’ He goes, ‘Oh, Bob will want this—it’s [VIN] number one and it was in Road & Track.’ I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll call him.’”
Bob was at work and at first insisted that the couple didn’t need another Corvette. But when Debbie explained that the car was the first-built ’11 ZR1, he relented.
“He said, ‘No way. Take pictures of the car, and the VIN number.’ When I sent him all the pictures, he said to go ahead and buy it. So, I drove there in a Suburban and drove home in a Corvette.”
As the salesmen told Debbie in the showroom, the car appeared in the November 2010 issue of Road & Track, in which editors compared the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT racecars from BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Porsche, and Jaguar to their road-going counterparts. Out on the racetrack, veteran Corvette Racing driver Jan Magnussen was at the wheel and was highly complementary of the ZR1.
“The engine…is fantastic,” Magnussen noted. “If we had it in the racecar, we would absolutely kill the GT class.”
So other than being a cover car and 2011 production number 001, what makes this ZR1 so special? Although it’s not clear why, Bob said the dealership told him the car was supposed to go to the National Corvette Museum (NCM). Consequently, the sales manager was eager to get the sale done and get the car off the lot.
“The dealership told us, ‘You need to get this car out the parking lot before they [GM] call.’ He told us later that as Debbie drove away at 5:00 p.m., ‘they’ were on the phone. They called me to buy it back, and I told them it wasn’t for sale.”
So, how did this Inferno Orange supercar end up in Bob and Debbie’s collection in Florida, instead of its home state of Kentucky? According to the NCM, after its magazine duties were completed, the car returned to the Milford Proving Grounds, where it was to remain. But through an apparent administrative error, it ended up on a GM auction site and was picked up by Hulett Chevrolet-Buick-GMC in Camden, Missouri, in January 2011 with 2,103 miles. A few months later, it showed up on the lot at Bob Steele Chevrolet in Cocoa, Florida, where it sat briefly until Debbie drove it home. Since that day it has been ensconced in a hangar among other high-performance automobiles and aircraft.
On the day of our photo shoot, Bob tossed the author the key fob and said, “Go ahead and pull ’er out.” When the LS9 barked to life, I noticed that this 13-year-old ZR1 had a mere 2,328 miles on the clock. When the sun set that fall evening, we’d added an additional eight. And if Bob’s closing comments are any indication, the car is not likely to break 2,400 under his ownership.
“We don’t drive it,” he said as he turned out the hangar lights. “We bought it because it’s a really a cool car that’s unique and different.”
The five-year production run of the first factory-supercharged Corvette totaled 4,695 examples, 2,244 less than Chevrolet produced in the six-year run of the C4 ZR-1. Bob and Debbie’s car was the first of 806 ZR1s built for 2011, making it the first of only 46 cars to leave the factory wearing Inferno Orange, the rarest color that model year. This, and its odd history, certainly makes it a scrumptious piece of forbidden fruit that truly deserves to be saved and savored.
