The 2019 Chevy Corvette ZR1 Is the Ultimate Corvette

this is a 2019 chevy corvette zr1 and it is quite simply the craziest corvette in history up here is a supercharged 6.2 liter v8 that makes seven hundred and fifty-five horsepower and 715 pound-feet of torque this car does 0-60 in 3.1 seconds it'll do 211 miles an hour this one cost just a shade over a hundred and forty thousand dollars but then if you're into cars even slightly you probably know all that today I'm going to show you the rest I've borrowed this zr1 from a viewer near Annapolis Maryland and he has his own YouTube channel called DHR Street speed you can check it out the link in the description below and frankly you should check it out because in addition to this zr1 he also has a zl1 a dodge demon and a jeep track hawk old Mustang gt500 and a Viper it's quite a collection but today we're focusing on the zr1 first a little history now the zr1 originally came out on the third generation Corvette in the 1960s and Chevy has made it on and off ever since and over time it has come to signify the ultimate Corvette in the lineup but this is the ultimate Corvette in history it has more power than any lamborghini aventador it has the same top speed as a Ferrari 812 super fast and it has more torque than a Lexus LFA in fact it has double the torque of a Lexus LFA plus some more so today I'm going to take you on a tour of the zr1 and I'm going to show you all of the interesting quirks and features of the ultimate Corvette then I'm going to get behind the wheel and get it out on the road which I'm already a little scared about and then I'm gonna give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the zr1 click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also compiled a list of the cheapest Corvettes currently listed for sale on autoscout now we start back here with the wing because this wing is one of the largest I've ever seen mounted on any street-legal automobile in fact if you look closely you'll see there's the regular Corvette bodywork then on top of that there's a little rear spoiler and then this rear spoiler is mounted on the other rear spoiler so this car basically has two the large one is absolutely huge it comes as part of the performance package interestingly you can choose two different wing options you can have this one if you're serious about race track use or you can get the low wing if you just want a stealthy or zr1 which also gives it a higher top speed since it reduces drag but how could you not get this now one of the most interesting things about this wing is what it does to the cargo area I'm gonna start with the hatch itself take a look at the hatch opening with the wing back there you can see the wing was clearly designed with the hatch in mind it only clears it by a quarter of an inch basically enough for you to clear the hatch and get a little finger in there and that's about it now a couple of other interesting things about the hatch because of this wing one is simply loading stuff in the back of this car the wing comes up like nine inches off the already high load floor and so you just can't load stuff from the direct brear of this car like you can in every other car basically everything you load into the back of the zr1 has to be from the sides which is odd if you want to take this car to go golfing for example you'll have to load in your golf clubs from over the wheel but such as the price you pay to have the monster Wayne another thing that's interesting about the rear wing and the cargo area because it's difficult to actually get your hand in there to close the tailgate because of how close the tailgate is to the rear wing Chevy has made the tailgate in this car soft closed in other words if you just kind of close it most of the way the zr1 will automatically close it the rest of the way so you don't have to fumble around trying to get your hand under the wing to slam it down in place that is a good well thought design next I'm moving around to the front now like I mentioned that wing is part of the performance package which is a $2,995 option the performance package also includes sport suspension and special sports summer tires but my favorite performance package item is right here it's these little end caps on the front splitter now the front splitter itself is crazy but the end caps make it even look crazier and more aggressive and my favorite part is that they cover up part of the reflector that's mandated by federal regulation you get a normal Corvette you get the full-size reflector you get a zr one with the performance pack you don't need that full size reflector crap you're better than that and it hides half the reflector the next up we get to a couple of other unique zr1 exterior items that need to be mentioned starting with the side skirts which are carbon fiber they have a very cool look to them but also the other interesting thing about them is they sort of curve in about halfway through that's so that when you're getting out of the car you don't accidentally step on them and that little curve in prevents you from damaging them now such a concern for damage was not given to the front splitter which is also unique to the zr1 it is carbon fiber it is huge and it is very low I hope Chevrolet builds a large stock pile of these front splitters because I strongly suspect a lot of zr1 owners are gonna take them off and scrape them up on low curbs and driveways another interesting exterior item on the zr1 would be the hood in my opinion the hood is the craziest part of the outside of this car aside from the rear wing of course just take a look at it from that angle you can see where the normal Corvette hood would be and then you can see where the zr1 hood is it sticks up like an additional four inches beyond that just because this engine and its supercharger is so massive but that's not the best part the best part is when you open the hood that's because when you open up the hood in this car well there's a hole in it this car has a hole in its hood allow me to explain now the prior generation zr1 came out in 2009 and that was just when that trend was getting started of having glass covers over the hood so you could see the engine from the outside of the car now Chevy decided to get in on that trend with the last generation zr1 so they placed a little glass cover on the hood so you could see into the engine unfortunately the part that you saw in the engine looked like a plastic piece and it was a very small glass cover and everybody kind of made fun of the old zr1 for it now I talked to some engineers and designer that the new zr1 when it was revealed and you could tell there was still little sensitivity at being teased about that glass window and so this car for go is the glass treatment and instead this piece in the middle the one that stays put when the rest of the hood opens up that's actually the engine instead of having a cover so you can look at the engine this car has the actual engine right here always on display that's the top of the supercharger and so yeah and a Ferrari you can look in and see the engine but in this car you can touch it and that's kind of cool but as cool as that is there are some interesting issues that go along with having the engine the supercharger stick up so high one of them is the fact that in Europe all cars must have a little inch or two buffer between the hood and the hard parts on the engine so that if the car hits a pedestrian when they hit the top of the car in the hood there's some cushion before they hit the hard stuff in the engine unfortunately the top of this hood is the engine so by designing the car this way Chevy basically had to concede that they would never sell any of these in Europe the other issue with the supercharger on the engine coming up so high is visibility from the front seat take a look at what it looks like when you're sitting in there you can see this actually blocks a visibility even the little zr1 badge on either side of the engine on the hood actually blocks your vision ever so slightly I've never seen a situation before where an emblem blocked your vision the next we move on to the cargo area and you'll notice at first glance it's surprisingly large back here has done a lot of 700-plus horsepower cars with this much cargo room one interesting item in the cargo area is the cargo covers which are rather unusual instead of a retractable cargo cover like you might get in a hatchback your typical Volkswagen Golf this has sort of two covers that have to be installed one for the front part of the cargo area and one for the rear part of the cargo area they're a little bit cumbersome they're not that easy but I guess you should be happy that your cargo is covered at all in at 700 plus horsepower sports car also interesting back here is an item at the zr1 s are delivered with and that would be these little foam protectors for the brake rotor when you remove the wheels and tires for this car to change to put on your track tires for you're supposed to put those little protectors on now in 50 years at the Pebble Beach auctions I suspect the zero ones that bring in the most money will be the cars that have like zero miles on them they were never driven that tires and wheels were never removed and those foam protectors will never take it out of their giant ziplock bag but that won't be this car I say that because the owner of this car is one my favorite car owners I've met while filming these videos largely because he drives his cars and uses them considerably he has a racing license he goes to the drag strip even though he owns a lot of cars that a lot of people are putting away in storage units tightly sealed up to save with no miles so that one day they'll make me worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at barrett-jackson but that isn't his attitude and that's proven by the fact that right above the gear lever he has a little plaque that says built in Bowling Green Kentucky USA and it has his name on it and I said Dave you know when you go to sell this thing people are gonna say you know you devalued the car you get your name there the next guy's not gonna want it as much and he looked at me and said I don't care about the next guy and that's exactly the attitude that I appreciate most with cars like this you don't want to store them away and never let anyone drive them like for example a Ferrari Enzo now I should mention it's not like the owner of this car made that little plaque himself that's an option that Chevrolet offers to the zr1 customers and it is surprisingly cheap I'm looking here in the window sticker and the personalized plaque with name and VIN so it's every different car is unique they got to make one for each vehicle it costs only $200 it seems like a deal if this thing were a Porsche that would be like a $1,900 option one item that was expensive how about $5,000 for the custom selectable VIN I asked a did he choose this VIN specifically he just asked for the lowest possible VIN that is a pretty penny and since we're talking window sticker take a look at this one this car starts at 118 9 which is a reasonable bargain this one has $24,000 and options interestingly they've included the gas guzzler tax in there as an option that was getting a zr1 I would I would not get that option but anyway the total cost of the car comes out to 143 995 which probably makes this the most expensive Corvette ever about anyway moving on from the window sticker I'm going to show you some of the other quirks and features inside the zr1 now it's worth noting I didn't review the Corvette zo6 and I covered a lot of this stuff so I'm gonna skip over a lot of what I covered in the zo6 review I'll cover the some of the same highlights of course I've also found some interesting new quirks and features and spending a little bit more time with this car but I'm gonna start with the doors now to get out of a Corvette most people don't know this but there's not a door handle you push a little button and it's an electronic release and it lets you out but what happens if you're driving along and your battery dies well they have a manual release on the floor and the driver foot well or the passenger foot well I really like the manual releases in these Corvette it's like hieroglyphs the first one kind of shows what you're supposed to do with your finger and then the next one shows a person getting out of the car and then the last one shows that you can read more about this in the owners manual next we must discuss the heads-up display now a lot of General Motors vehicles and a lot of vehicles in general now have a heads-up display that sort of projects vital information onto the windshield and for the driver so you don't have to look down at the gauge cluster when you're driving the weird thing in this car is it projects it like directly into that hood bump so the heads-up display is like competing for visibility with that hood bump and it kind of makes it difficult to read the heads-up display but I mean do you want the giant supercharger or not these are the kind of things you have to deal with next up you can see the zr1 has an infotainment system which is no surprise all cars do this one is a touchscreen the unusual thing about it is that well you can lower it press the little screen button and then the screen sort of drops down and reveals a hidden storage compartment behind the infotainment screen police officers pulling over Corvettes something to think about and how can we discuss the interior of this car without discussing the single weirdest heated seat and cooled seat buttons setup in the entire car industry the driver seat has a button for its heated seat and a button for it's cool seat no surprise the passenger side that button is over on the far right over by the furthest air vent near the door there's a heated seat button in a cooled seat button but strangely enough there's also a heated seat button and a cooled seat button in the middle in the center console on the passenger side so the passenger has two different places they can go to turn on their heated seat or their you sit in passenger seat in a Corvette and you are bathed in luxury with heated and cooled seat buttons basically everywhere you touch next up another interesting thing in this car this vehicle has an 8-speed automatic and you know that because it says 8-speed on the top of the gear lever my question of course is why do you think people would be sitting here driving people around there's zero one go yeah I got an 8-speed yeah yeah I got an 8-speed you just got a 7-speed but I got a pretty cool next I'm moving on to some of the screens stuff probably my favorite thing is the fact that it shows engine hours and revs that not a lot of cars show that most cars just show your odometer but in this one you can tell how long the engine has been running and apparently how much it has revved I also like the various different display themes in the gauge cluster and check-out track tell me that just doesn't look cool I mean that looks like you're really a track-focused hardcore driver in your zr1 which frankly a lot of people who buy these probably will be next I'm moving on to the center infotainment screen this car has a performance data recorder like a lot of performance cars basically you can tell it to start your lap and you stop your lap and it'll tell you how fast you want and give you other various readouts the interesting thing about this one is it has a camera the camera is built-in up here and it points out and you can actually rewatch your old laps in addition to also getting the performance readouts and that kind of thing and that's sort of cool but the coolest thing about the camera is you can use it in valet mode in fact there's a little setting that lets you automatically have it go on when you put the car in valet mode and that way you can always monitor what valets are doing when you're giving them your zr1 for a night on the town I also like that this car has various different apps like any GM vehicle frankly with this MyLink infotainment system but it's a little bit odd you go into weather for instance and it gives you like a three day forecast or you can see a five day forecast and you can put in a place and it will tell you what the weather is gonna be in that place and give you an hourly forecast and a five-day forecast in other words you're driving a 750 horsepower car that will give you a five-day weather forecast that's the world we're living in now anybody who says cars are getting boring well I think so but they are getting more informative next up a couple of interesting settings in the infotainment system one is in the navigation settings you can tell the car to avoid ferries or tolls or whatever that's pretty standard you can also tell it to avoid slow traffic who would turn that off if you use a navigation system yeah I want to avoid slow traffic other people out there like you know I want to go right into the heart of the slow traffic I want to know what that's like another interesting item the infotainment system is there is a teen driver mode I suspect you can limit the speed or something like that or at least maybe limit the horsepower output when you give the car to your teen driver it seems odd to have a 750 horsepower car with a teen driver mode but at least it gives you that option if as a parent you feel your 17 year old is ready for a zr1 the next up another interesting item the infotainment system that would be the number of radio favorites you can set it to display most cars display six eight maybe ten radio presets this car you can get pretty high my question is who really wants it to go that high or there are people out there going you know 44 just isn't enough I need to see 46 of my favorite radio channels at all times one other interesting item this car has a remote starter you can start it from for example if you're walking up to it in your driveway and you want it to start heating or cooling before you get inside one cool thing about the remote starter there's a setting in here that lets you configure whether the car will remote start the heated seats or the cooled seats based on the exterior temperature so if you're walking up to the car on a very warm day and you have that pressed the car won't start cooling your seat before you even get inside which is a very luxurious future next up moving back to the outside of the zr1 one interesting item about this car is that they also sell a convertible version now this is the fourth-generation zr1 there was one in the 60s there's one in the 80s the one in the 2000s and then this one and they've never offered a convertible before but they are now on this one now the interesting thing about that is this is a convertible this panel right here lifts out and there's a place in back where you couldn't stow it for a nice sunny day to enjoy your zr1 experience now I demonstrated that in my zo6 video which is linked below so I'm not going to show you again but trust me it lifts out and it only weighs 16 pounds but for those of you who don't believe that a lift out roof panel is the full convertible aryans you can get a true soft-top zr1 next up another little detail i find kind of interesting about the zr1 you open the door of the 750 horsepower 210 mile an hour supercar and you see it as a little decal on there from the local 2164 United Auto Workers at the Bowling Green Kentucky plant I promise you a Ferrari 488 does not have a decal like that and speaking of the local 2164 let's see how those people made this thing sound so the core person features of the zr1 and now it's time to get it out on the road and see how the ultimate Corvette drives oh this is exciting look at that hood bulge I mean that's that's the quite a hood bolt the one benefit with that wing even though you get actually you can see it in the camera like it's blocking me but actually it's not I can I look back there and it's totally out of my field of vision man that ride is harsh he just a couple bombs it's like poof all the sound is amazing it sounds like a supercar but there's some American muscle in there too but the sound is really good [Music] [Music] man that sound is really really cool the gear changes are not as instantaneous as their and dual clutch cars it's just sort of reality when you pay 140 and not 340 but you're still doing zero to 60 and 3.1 so probably shouldn't be complaining ride quality is harsh even going over just sort of like minor things that pay me you can tell you're feeling stuff however I'm also sitting here I got me just turn my cool see I got the climate control on me I got the latest version of my link with a five-day weather forecast whoa Wow well that was really quick that was not full-throttle it really makes a racket when you floor it it really is like yeah we're gonna do this and you're gonna hear every little bit of it but the thing is there's about four Corvettes you have to avoid before getting to this one so if you've made the decision to get a zr one you're not like oh it's too loud you this you know nobody buys this car on accident okay [Music] oh my god well yeah something I didn't realize is that a shift light comes on when you get pretty close however you're going so damn fast you can't react I mean if I had pulled the paddle when I first saw the shift light it wasn't a matter I saw the 50 fast oh my god it's just amazing I mean this feels as fast as any super car I've ever driven it doesn't quite feel as fast as as 9:18 but I mean even to make that comparison says shows kind of what we're talking about here got even just a little bit of throttle that sound it's like the world is ending it's like there's a the thunderstorm has just appeared in your ear the steering is quite precise the very initial turnin is not quite as precise as as some European the Italian exotics but after that it feels just as precise and it just stays completely flat and listening to the I mean I'm shifting listening to the engine going up down that's one of the great treats it doesn't feel like Miata tight when I drove the gt350r I was surprised how tight it felt you couldn't use it on like tiny like an autocross this doesn't quite feel like that [Music] that's that I mean that's that's as fast as any car most people will ever drive ever that's that's not too far up the pace of the hyper car p1 and it's the corvette and you know I've ridden the old zr1 and it wasn't close to like this this is that just the next level of it saying the old zero one was fast and it felt fast I felt like I'm a freight train the amount of power but this thing is the whole pack if you get the you got the exhaust we already know it what it can do on the track because the old zero one was client this thing has the look of just a much more insane car this is this is V Corvette and so that's the 2019 chevy corvette zr1 now I admit I've never been a huge Corvette fan but it's impossible not to love this thing and while everyone would agree that a hundred and forty thousand dollars is no longer cheap like prior fast Corvette models has been it's still a bargain when you consider that it beats most supercars in most categories and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the zr1 looks cool but the Corvette design is a little familiar and I've always felt the c7 was a little too much of a simple evolution of the c6 and it gets a six out of ten acceleration it does zero to 60 in three seconds so it gets a nine out of 10 handling is very sharp and it easily earns an 8 out of 10 cool factor as high as this is the hottest new Corvette and everyone's very excited about it right now and it gets an 8 out of 10 finally there's importance the zero-one is important in the sense that it's the ultimate Corvette but if we know anything about the Corvette world we know that it won't hold that title for too long and it gets a 7 out of 10 that brings the weekend scored a 38 out of 50 ahead of the dodge demon the Chevy Camaro zl1 and the Corvette zo6 no surprise as for the daily categories starting with features the zr1 has a lot of goodies but it stops short as much of the latest modern tech and it gets a 6 out of 10 comfort it isn't really and it gets a 3 out of 10 quality is fine though there's still more plastic than you'd like especially as prices start to approach a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and it gets a 6 out of 10 practicality is decent and has a surprising amount of cargo room but only two seats and it gets a 3 out of 10 finally there's value and it's hard to deny this is a great one yeah it's expensive but it's a bargain compared to other cars similar numbers and it gets a 9 out of 10 bringing the total daily score to 27 out of 50 lagging behind the dodge demon in the Camaro zl1 also no surprise is those are larger more comfortable more practical cars with back seats added all together and the Doug score is 65 out of 100 which is good here's a comparison the demon barely beats it out the demons a little more practical and more comfortable and a little faster but otherwise the zr1 beats out all the latest american performance models still it lags a bit behind the European supercars as they have higher quality interiors and more breathtaking styling then again those cars had better beat out the zr1 considering they tend to cost about twice as much or one badge on either side of the hood actually blocks you're the coolest part is that they sort of curve in in the middle of the car presumably so the other interesting thing about the cargo area and the rear wing is the fact that the rear wing is something or other

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 3,849,774

Rating: 4.8472824 out of 5

Keywords: 2019 corvette zr1, new corvette zr1, corvette zr1 review, chevy corvette zr1, corvette zr1, new corvette zr1 review, chevrolet corvette zr1 review, chevrolet corvette zr1, zr1, 2019 zr1, 2019 zr1 review, new zr1 review, doug demuro, demuro, z06, corvette z06

Id: FHu8iWUaXDE

Length: 25min 19sec (1519 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Obi-Wan_Kannabis]

Holy shit that dig at not being able to drive the Enzo. Doug has no chill.

[u/Muffinblight]

This might be Doug's funniest video yet with the Enzo burn and the gas guzzler option

[u/MRR1987]

$5,000 for a custom VIN number???

[u/EatSleepJeep]

There's a spoiler mounted to the spoiler

Cue the Xzibit meme....

[u/[deleted]]

This thing is obviously an exercise in function over form...

EDIT: Holy shit, it's basically on slicks

[u/blue_bomber697]

/u/Doug-DeMuro does the press embargo not apply to you since this is presumably a customer car? If so, you are ahead of everyone! Nice job! Wad there a reason you didn’t borrow StreetSpeed717’s car since it’s in the same area?

[u/RoosterDenturesV2]

That Enzo Dealer burn was oh-so-sweet

[u/brundlehails]

TFW you can’t even afford the “just a shade over” part

[u/[deleted]]

I just went and scrolled through the owner's dhrstreetspeed videos. I've never felt so poor