Exclusive First Drive: 2023 Corvette Z06 | Jay Leno's Garage

and this might be the one of the last truly analog cars without hybrid assist yep let's see what it sounds like [Music] yeah i mean that's okay yeah all right welcome we'll go to jail now yeah this is a very impressive machine thank you what another episode a very special episode of jaylen's garage the car featuring today 2023 corvette z06 this is the one you've been hearing about since the c8 came out this is the one everybody's been waiting for as you can see a little more brutal than the c8 a little bigger we'll find out all the specifications just a second here this is a very exciting car to me because i think this is really the best american can do you know it doesn't get any better than this you have a car here that competes with the very best of european cars at a third of the price maybe 25 percent of the price we don't have the exact price on this car yet but it's less than a hundred thousand dollars you have 670 horsepower in a normally aspirated engine 5.5 liter flat plane crank uh four valves per cylinder the whole deal i mean anything you would expect any of the european exotics is in here and again it's done at a price that is uh well i don't know i don't know how you build it for that price i restore cars and i can't restore them for under 400 grand so i i don't know how they do it but it's american efficiency it's american engineering uh you know this is what i love about gm now it's all engineers you know in the old days jay this is bob he came over from maytag hey bob how you doing that's right i was in the washer dryer division oh well now i'm gonna be into all that now those days are all gone everybody from from the top mary everybody everybody is an engineer and boy they've just done an incredible job look at the size of the air intakes on this here this is the coupe model but the roof does come off let me bring in the gentleman who is the lead development engineer in the z06 there's not a pr guy this is the ngc everybody's an engineer now aaron link aaron come on in good to see you my friend great to be here jay well yeah this is this is you've got to be proud of this super proud unbelievable definitely proudest moment in my 21 years at gm and it's got everything it should have it's got the dual clutch transmission i mean it's got everything you could want in an exotic car and it truly is an exotic car because if something came from italy or germany or anywhere else with these specifications it would truly be exotic at three to four times the price exactly right yep okay so let's take take us through it here it's it appears to be a bit wider and than the uh standard c8 it is 3.6 inches wider right one of the features i point out to folks is on the c8 the headlight blends right into this surface right so this extra width you can see right there and kind of that flat big shoulder width and then in the rear the door is the same as the c8 right but then this surface is all pulled out and then this piece of the spear is brought out too so you get a lot more airflow into the rear coolers and then to howls the 345 section tires biggest rear tires we've ever put on a corvette yeah those are huge yeah and for the first time i believe in corvette history a bespoke engine right exactly built only for corvette i mean up to this point they should well from the 265 to 283 327 350 it was the same engine in camaro and everybody else this is an engine built only for this car it is yeah when this car was dreamt up many years ago the idea was this architecture befits having this exotic lt6 engine which we've never done before right a flight plane crankshaft and it's kind of the nirvana of a mid-engine car to us of a high revving v8 with a mid-engine setup where you can take advantage of the traction have a really light front end you know immediate steering response well a high revving v8 used to be 6400 rpm right now it's what 86 8 600 right nine one fun fact is our average rpm on a road course or aggressive driving let's say usually ends up about 6 700 rpm wow so we're even higher than the peak of most small blocks yeah and this is an engine meant to run at high rate you know most american engines just because of the nature of american driving and whatnot were low all the power is down low but this loves to scream doesn't it it does it wants to it has to the gearing is shorter to allow that right and yeah we find it's a different experience right but i think this lineup of corvette allows this car to exist and we have them both right we have the stingray with the traditional right stump pulling v8 and then this is the exotic screaming v8 and both are rewarding i think the power number we released uh two days ago 670 horsepower kind of shocked people well i love the corporate commitment to it because it used to be in the old days no we can't do that for carver you can't get that you know they've been talking since duntos talked about mid engines since the 50s no no no and the fact that they're not happy with just beefing up the old v8 right it's a brand new one-off engine made only for this car exactly right yeah this was not taking a small block and fitting up the equipment to make it rev this was completely ground up you know blank sheet of paper engine but it's 5.5 liter which i think would say 335 cubic inches basically so it's kind of like a 327 a little bit of stroke in it maybe right yeah from back in the day with the c2 version of this car right because the corvette guys you all got to talk in cubicles leaders they go what are you talking about right yeah uh boy it's just just amazing it just looks much more aggressive doesn't it it does and the top comes off just like the standard right we retain the same frunk and the same trunk right as the sink stingray so you lose no uh practicality or drivability in that respect same top system integrated all with this engine i like this but in the convertible because i like to be able to see the engine um although you can when it tops up can't you uh but i i just like this and it's lighter too it's 100 pounds lighter it is yep and what does this car weigh now do you know we have a weight on this model of about thirty four hundred and oh that's great dry weight is what we've been saying well another example i think of american efficiency and engineering of these wheels these are carbon revolution wheels and i remember about a decade ago they came by with these wheels and they were twenty thousand dollars a piece and you could get them for a lamborghini or ferrari and we put a set on a porsche and they were lighter and you could really feel the difference how much lighter they were but they were twenty thousand dollars a piece now these four wheels used to cost what this whole car cost which is just shows the efficiency of manufacturing and it it it's pretty amazing i think if you're an american car enthusiast this is something really to be proud of it's it really is a tour de force or whatever word you want to use to to make a car that could outperform almost all the european cars and it's the only and the most powerful normally aspirated engine that you can get in a performance everybody else has twin turbos and things like that right a lot of people don't like it doesn't bother me much but and this is the most powerful one you can get yeah yeah we have the most powerful natural naturally aspirated v8 engine now in the world the previous record holder was a mercedes from about 10 years ago yeah and we've surpassed that by over 50 horsepower with this engine and i like the corvette keeps out doing itself it used to be you had to wait a whole generation c1 c2 and then a long time to c3 and then c4 and you know now i mean it just comes boom boom boom just when people are getting uh are still impressed by the ca now this comes along yeah it's it's quite impressive tell us about the brakes these carbon fiber obviously yes so this is our z07 package which has the carbon ceramic brakes largest ones we've ever fit on any corvette even more than the zr1 from c7 we can take advantage of the mass distribution by having larger rear brakes and they all pull their weight a little better so to speak so it's not just the front's doing all the work they are uh it's metric we talking metric mostly right auto world but 600 and i'm sorry 398 millimeters in the front and 391 in the rear how many piston calibers it's six in the front and four in the rear so it's a z06 with a z07 package okay this is kind of the ultimate expression of this car where the tire the brakes the aerodynamics all point more closely to the track experience so does every z06 come with a z07 package it does not oh i see i see it's optional you get the bass 06 okay and we worked really hard jay on making sure they both fulfilled their mission this car was a little easier it's kind of the ultimate expression and everything's centered around lap time and driving feel the z06 you know has to be a little more livable daily uh it has a more friendly tire iron brakes standard you can get the carbons as an option but that car we really wanted to make sure it held the torch just as well as this one the only difference to suspension tuning wise is this has 15 percent stiffer springs and steel brakes are way more than adequate for the street if you're getting these hot on the street you're going to jail you're right it's very difficult it's pretty crazy is there a difference in the worst spoiler 2 between the 7 and there is this is the 07 spec the z06 is fascia mounted more of a traditional looking lip it's very tasteful body colored and it's it's the eight speed right eight speed right tremec transmission dual clutch we've got a shorter final drive but very similar to what is the front it's 5.56 to one 411 was crazy right right yeah yeah to take advantage of this engine we uh made it shorter by a significant amount to help get through the gears let's see what else can we see uh i guess let's can we take a look at the inside certainly anything different there from the this car has the level two carbon fiber trim package okay so it's the door panels the center console panel all right and then the hockey sticks we call them up on top of the dash right and then the steering wheel is what i like the most it's carbon trimmed and then the tap paddles are carbon fiber gotcha and there's just not a ton of buttons on there which i which i like right yeah we retain most of the same functions similar seat options as the stingray and the loading is in the side i love the panel there because in my when i was a kid and i have my my 63 split window because when i was 13 there was nothing cooler than that and the radio was mounted this way oh i don't know why i thought that's a vertical radio right and that's what that reminds me of that panel coming down there yeah because the button's going this way down the side yeah it's just yeah i just like the fact that there's no people you single player well the interior of the craft i don't there was there was some excuse why they didn't like it and all that's gone i mean this is more than equal to i would put this against any european exotic and i imagine it would more than hold its owners and plus like you say you get that quick response and we're going to drive in just a minute so it'll be fun but yeah it's it's very impressive we can't we'd like to say that this car allows people to that have pined for this type of package to have it now yeah and not have to sell your house to to buy it it's the naturally aspirated v8 that doesn't really exist anymore in a mid-engine this is on an island of one in some ways and i think we're very anxious for people to experience it i think the looks send the message of the car and then the driving back yeah and to me the real thing that makes an exotic car exotic is a bespoke engine you know the other v8 was fine but you could also get it in a camaro or a station way or whatever you want you know now it's only in the corvette absolutely you know a corvette engine is truly a corvette only engine which is pretty exciting i just wondered how they got that past the quote the bean counters and everybody what's wrong with the v8 it's fine i mean that's what it used to be all the time right you know i've got the uh the car i love is that one right there my c5 to me that's the first really great modern corvette and that thing is i just love that thing it's wonderful to drive you know so but i can't imagine having a bespoke engine in there because that had to cut corners you had to do with what you had right yeah that ls6 was a derivative of the small block that started c5 right and then the ls7 that was to me almost the first exotic engine we did right this massive seven liter engine right right that's really high and but then you could get in the camaro as well this one kind of continues that leap frogs from c6 co6 to this bespoke engine that sometimes i wonder like wow we're really doing this because it really is game changer it's gone to a smaller size that's more efficient than just making it bigger and bigger and bigger you know right seven eight liters you know it gets a little crazy right but yeah very impressive let's do anything else we need to see here before we we go for a spin uh you can talk about tires tires michelin's on there right yeah yeah best stuff in the world in my opinion and we worked at least i'd say four years on this tire with michelin he's unique to this car they are a lot of people don't realize that we develop and spec the tire for this car yeah and it has a tpc spec here we call it yeah tire product criteria another gm acronym literally four years of development i was lucky enough to be part of that with them so driving at their test track in south carolina driving on all the different tracks we take this car to in the world and they would bring multiple constructions and variations for us to ride and evaluate the thing i like about michelin it sounds silly it is the most perfectly round tire it requires the least amount of weight when you balance them you know i put mission lines on almost everything here and you put them on if it needs any weight at all it's always a half an inch quarter ounce right you have a big two ounce right yeah the longest i mean it's amazing how how the tires are perfectly round and they they you're not you're not fighting it all the time right yeah no they they really do a wonderful job these are the the cup 2r version and it's a zp 0 pressure so it's a run flat which started a corvette with your c5 right right so we've continued that and have a unique offering there in the market in some ways and what pressure you run 32 35 on these cup tires so that's a new thing for us uh usually most corvettes are 30 30 front to rear but 35 here and what spare same 35 same um we found it gives a little better wet capability to shrink the tire patch a touch but then for track sessions you know you can lower it down and monitor your tire temperatures and pressures in the car and this has all the cool features of the c8 i imagine the the um the lift that's right my driveway whatever as soon as it comes it'll raise up without having done you exactly that's the worst thing about some of the european you have to stop press the button wait for it to pop up hey baby come on move your car i'm trying to get my front end up so don't rip the splitter you know yeah with this splitter we have on this car the front lift is a good buy yeah i think it's less expensive than replacing that piece well that was always my favorite thing because on the p1 mclaren if i if i ruined the front this front splitter i could eat if i cracked that i either got a new splitter or a z06 they were the same price now how can you make a whole car the same price you know that always made me laugh but that's what i like i mean i it's just so proud that it's an american made vehicle that's just the envy of the world now is this a world car can this be sold it is yeah yeah so first time we'll have right-hand drive the stingray starts that and we'll continue with this car so all the those markets australia japan the uk those folks are very excited about that and then uh emissions compliant car in europe well you know so funny because all the european magazines get a bit snobby with the corvette you know so i was over there i guess almost 20 years ago now with the c5 corvette and we took it down with on the autobahn everywhere i stopped people got it it was like the rarest ferrari because they don't see them there right east coast yeah they're looking i mean it just it just made me laugh how enamored they were because it was a car that they could afford even with the taxes right it was still cheaper than the home market thing plus there was no limiter i could run at 171 172 and all the german cars were 150 right yeah i was just flying by gentlemen's agreement there's no gentleman here thank you goodbye yeah sounds pretty cool yeah we've continued that here we had the this car in germany in august to test on the nurburgring right and then also a large part of what we do over there is the nerve the autobahn right right that's almost as valuable where you can't find that here legally um so we find the same thing people really draw their attention to it and then certainly with the small block it's unique in how it sounds over there yeah yeah it just doesn't have they don't have that type of car well i guess am i the first person to drive it is that right you will be the first time person to drive well let's uh let's take her spin and see what she does okay cool how cool is that okay we're about to start it up if you're wondering why we're wearing masses because well that's all the corporate america now is that we're in a closed vehicle the windows are up and they want masks on so hey i think do i have a corvette please here we go here we go let's see what she does oh this is very impressive beautiful raising wow we spent a lot of time working on that sound you know one of my complaints about the camaro was my elbow would always be up here where this you've got a full window you can see you don't feel like a child looking out you know [Music] that sounds good i mean yeah different for a corvette obviously you know embrace this engine right let's make it sound different exactly funny how you you can't sell something before it's time i remember when the first generation and the zr1 came out with that was it mercury marine yep you know and i thought oh this is going to be the ultimate but it didn't look different enough right and people thought well why don't i want to spend 30 car looks just like the other one you know i thought it was a great engine and 375 horsepower very european but we americans we like our horsepower you know it takes a while to get people uh i love the fact that you have just a bespoke motor then that's that's the most impressive thing that i agree it's only available in a corvette thank you goodbye right yeah and it will time will tell but it feels like this might be you know the record holder for natural petrol the aspirated v8 power right right i don't see anyone else doing this you know no no the world's changed since we kind of put this on the drawing board a lot more focus on the electric things and smaller turbo engines [Music] and this might be the one of the last truly analog cars without hybrid assist yep [Music] well i mean it just pulls so hard it doesn't and you know in the old days you'd be sidestepping and going you just put your foot in and you go right i mean it's exactly yeah we've announced zero to sixty two point six seconds on this package oh yeah that's pretty impressive with two-wheel drive and yeah no i love that it's two-wheel drive um that nsx i have is very nice but it's four wheel drive and i go why do i need why do i need the extra complexity why don't we need the extra weight i mean i like the fact that i want to step out a little bit that i can you know yeah we're kind of venturing into like physics limiting territory where it's two-wheel drive no boost on us 2.6 is pretty stout with our proving ground in yuma now we come this way for some good roads more like san diego proving guards in yuma now yeah yuma much smaller now but we'll go like the anza borrego area of san diego some great roads there i mean the quality is what's most evident this is one of our pre-production builds from bowling green and you know we have stages of manufacturing where right they're not going to going to be sold to the public but this car looks like it could be tomorrow right right but that whole so the engine i should have mentioned is built by hand in the performance build center which is adjacent to the bowling green assembly and there's i think 10 or 12 builders okay does each builder build one engine or do they all work together each builder builds one do they sign it like they do and oh that's right yeah there's a plaque on the top of the intake manifold well that's pretty cool so you could you can contact the guy that built your car yeah yep and then we're bringing back the program where you can build your own as well wow for a small feat well that's pretty neat yeah yeah you could have your own well that's what something like you know to me it's like it's like a watch you know you don't need all the comp but why do you buy a mechanical watch because you like the mechanicalness of it you like the way it works it does the same thing with the car i mean really all you need to get is point a to point b a bolt would do it just fine right but you want to have some individuality you want to have let's see if we catch up with that guy in the corvette all right no it's light change show him who's boss yeah well he's showing there's a new corvette yeah [Music] you know maybe it's psychological but i as composed of my c7 i feel it turning from the center as opposed to the front you know what i mean it's more and yeah there is two yep that's what we all say it feels like the anchor point is right well behind you and you're pivoting that's one of the best things of the mid-engine car i think i wonder where a guy went yeah i don't know he pulled off well gml has been the leader in heating and air conditioning i mean it's something american cars have always had over any european car you know when i bought my f1 mclaren they said uh it comes with air conditioning but if you want good air conditioning it's an extra twenty five thousand oh my gosh and i said well what's it there while i put more vents and then you know i go really i mean it just made me laugh just the fact that you would settle for crappier now if you're with the good air that'll cost you yeah you want the regular steak or the delicious thing well i'm going to have the delicious day and there is a rock steady even at high rpm you don't see anything there we like at higher rpm when you lift out of the throttle it does a little verbal and it's real it's not a noise it's pumped in through the speakers you know all that kind of nonsense yeah this is a very impressive machine it's very structurally very sound these roads show and we're in sport mode so the dampers are a little stiffer than they might be otherwise i just like the fact that they let you engineers do what it is you do yeah because you know everything prior to this i mean i'm talking 20 years ago was always a compromise well what can you do with what we have what parts do we have that you can utilize one thing is the engine itself we talked about being rebuilt there's uh essentially it's a net built engine where individual shims are chosen for the camshaft spacing right it's a mechanical valve train so a true you know hard mounted system so i don't know how many shims there are 40 or something shims to get the right tolerance so right all the clearances are right and it's you know adjust for life you don't have to get in there and tinker with it between a flat plane crank and a regular crank so flat plane crankshaft is uh if you laid it on a table it's just one plane 180 degrees right of counter weights opposing each other and across plane crankshaft has every 90 degrees i know like a clover looking four-leaf clover on an end view versus a flat view and so that uh reduces the amount of inertia in the engine and allows it to spin this 8600 rpm redline it's kind of that's something we really highlighted in this car okay we've got this really low inertia engine i always think of growing up near mid-ohio when the indy cars were there and they would rev their engines warming up and it would be just well let's hear about that let's see what it sounds [Music] yeah i mean like okay all right we're all good we'll go to jail now and a prototype car i mean it really is fantastic it is yeah it shines on these kind of roads a little twisty mountainous type stuff i mean i would say you'd have to pay over 300 000 to get equal performance in the european car i love the fact that it's constantly evolving i mean i've seen the growth in the change just since the c8 which seems like it came out yesterday but it's been a year and a half and two years right you know and yet you're already we're not resting on our laurels here right now we can make that for a few more years the demand is there it's always improving always improving how's making it better that's the guys get to see eight always gonna want this his next one's gonna be this [Music] [Music] it used to be an old movie called redline 7000 with jamestown it was like from the late 60s early 70s and you see the attack that that then that's 68 69 you know it's like it's the end of the world you know hilarious right i mean this feels like a free breathing totally unrestricted right but obviously it meets all smog and all requirements absolutely yeah mission compliant [Music] here in europe where it's even more stringent yeah that's right it beats all european specifications it will but yeah very responsive right there's no lag in the power and it reminds me of the ls7 where it has this crescendo as you build rpm well you know i'm a union guy and i love the fact you build a vehicle like this in the union shop pay a union wage make a profit and still make an exemplary vehicle you know that just blows away the competition it's pretty impressive obviously this is not a full-on road test it's just a test drive you know they were kind enough to let me be the first person outside the empty driver which is a huge honor and uh you know it is a prototype vehicle so it's almost production ready correct it is yeah yeah this is one of the last stages there you go it certainly feels like it yeah on behalf of our team jay we're very glad that you're the first one well thank you outside of jim to drive this well thank you it really is a huge honor and it just it just makes you proud you know i when i was cringed when they put some of the american cars against the european stuff and those days are gone forever because this thing you know and at the price they sell it for i was one of those people thought the c7 would continue to be 80 grand the ca would be 140 or 180 right you know and and they just blew everybody away with with that amazing uh amazing 60 something thousand dollars so yeah congratulations you guys thanks so much for watching my pleasure how cool is that [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 2,194,532

Keywords: Corvette, Z06, General Motors, first drive, sports car, car porn, gearhead, car guy, car enthusiast, American car, Detroit, C8, V8, flat-plane crank

Id: mRU3UDvhF0s

Length: 31min 26sec (1886 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

My dealer is supposed to call/email me today to tell me where I am in line.

I can't freaking wait to make the worst financial decision of my life.

[u/Art_VanDeLaigh]

I dont think I've seen the Z06 price mentioned anywhere but Jay made a comment early in the video that its impressive they can do this for less than 100k. I'll be curious to see where this actually lands with all the options we see in the video.

[u/1amathrowaway]

Must be nice to be Jay Leno lol.

[u/andrewjaekim]

What a gorgeous engine. Can this chip shortage hurry up and end? We need to be flooding the market with Z06s.

[u/AuRevoirBaron]

That’s a funny lookin Ferrari

[u/RRB100000]

I need one

[u/WhiskeyTF1]

My wife is not going to be happy.

[u/dumahim]

I swear, youtube must know when I want to watch one of these episodes and it doesn't show up in my subscription feed. If it's one I don't want to watch, it's there.

[u/left_turn_signal]

This is gonna be the performance car of next year..I can't imagine what the flip values of these will be.