Christian Gebhardt of Sport Auto has finally set a Nurburgring Nordschleife lap time in the C8-generation Chevrolet Corvette Z06. There is good news and there is bad news, though.
Looking at the glass half full, the high-revving sports car from Kentucky managed a blistering lap time, clocking 7 minutes and 10 seconds on road-legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires. Marginally faster than Merc's AMG GT R but not as capable as the McLaren 600LT or 720S around the Green Hell, the midship Chevy wears a manufacturer plate at the rear because it's a US model with no gas particulate filters.
The GPFs of the Euro-spec Z06 rob the flat-plane V8 of some horses, with the Z06 making 645 metric horsepower in this application. That's 636 mechanical horsepower versus 670 for the US-market Z06. Equipped with the Z07 Performance Package and carbon-fiber wheels, the Rapid Blue-painted car driven by Christian bettered the previous-gen Z06 by a little over 3 seconds. That's the bad news.
It was Christian who lapped the German circuit in the C7 Corvette Z06 back in 2017, with said vehicle rocking Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 ZP tires and the seven-speed manual rather than the quicker-shifting automatic with eight forward ratios. The C8, meanwhile, comes with a dual-clutch transaxle exclusively.
It's also pricier than the C7, can hit a higher top speed, and the mid-engine setup makes that little better in the corners. Part of the reason why the C8-generation Corvette Z06 didn't manage a better lap time is long gearing, which enabled a maximum of 151 miles per hour (243 kilometers per hour) in the Kesselchen and other fast sections of the circuit as opposed to 158 mph (255 kph) for the older model.
Photo: Sport Auto on YouTube
Christian demonstrated this difference in top speed on his Instagram by uploading a side-by-side comparison video between the C8 and C7. He points out fourth and fifth as being the biggest offenders in the C8, but on the other hand, a good lap time is not representative of a car's ability to excite and reward the driver.
A bit heavier than its predecessor, the C8 Corvette Z06 remains the series-production vehicle with the largest flat-plane V8 of the bunch at 5.5 liters of displacement. Good for a lofty 8,600 revolutions per minute, said engine brought GM's halo machine closer to the world of European supercars, of which the 9,000-revolution Ferrari 458 comes first to mind.
At $112,100 before destination, gas-guzzler, and other taxes, the Z06 is a steal as well. With numbers like 2.6 seconds to 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour) and 10.6 seconds for the quarter mile at 131 miles per hour (211 kilometers per hour), that kind of money is peanuts compared to what Ferrari asks for a 296 and Lamborghini for a Temerario.
Speaking of which, the Z06-derived ZR1 has them both shamed in terms of maximum output. Without using any sort of electrified trickery, that is. Due next year, the ZR1 is rated at 1,064 horsepower and 828 pound-feet (1,123 Newton-meters) of rubber-shredding twist.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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