Top Gear Performance Car of the Year is...

[Lashout_UK]

Top Gear has awarded Performance Car of the Year to the recently launched ZR1, now on sale in the UK.

Top Gear urged its readers to try the ZR1 themselves if they wanted to see why it had been awarded Performance Car of the Year. They reckoned that the 638bhp, 205mph ZR1 was ‘awe-inspiring’, and was one of the most technologically advanced Corvettes ever made.

TG’s journalist also praised the ZR1’s ride quality and body control, with much credit going to GM’s Magnetic Selective Ride Control, which he called ‘…a real breakthrough in the suspension arts.’ The story summarised the ZR1 as: ‘…the latest, greatest…expression of GM’s North American engineering genius.’

Top Gear’s UK edition has a circulation of around 200,000 per month – the largest in its sector – it currently has a further 21 overseas titles and global circulation of over one million. TopGear.com generates 14 million page impressions per month making it one of the leading automotive websites.

My work here is done

 

[Lashout_UK]

Doesn't take much

Well, I don't know - In fact, pretty much every Corvette generation has done something unique, recordbreaking or extremely advanced compared to their competitors

In other news, the little-brother 505BHP Z06 also won an economy rally, of all things, recently:

the Z06 won the annual Fleetworld/ALD Automotive MPG Marathon in the U.K. by averaging 30.96 mpg over the trip's two-day, 411-mile route. That mark represents an improvement of 61.26-percent over the Z06's official European combined mileage figures and is a new record for the MPG Marathon.

Using Total Excellium high octane petrol at a cost of 109.9 pence per litre, the Corvette used £66.41 worth of fuel over the route, a saving of £40.54 compared to if it had achieved its official combined figure of 19.2mpg (12.25 l/100km).

 

[Lashout_UK]

Shame they dont look like that in real life! : /

They don't? How so?

 

[Lashout_UK]

Yea, it's a race to who can exceed the manufacturer's figures by the largest amount. The Z06 official ratings (UK) are something like combined 19.2 mpg, urban 12.4mpg and extra-urban of 28.2mpg.

Most people report an average of around 22-25 UK MPG in daily use. Much more when just cruising on the motorway at speed

Much higher than the equivalent Ferraris, Lamborghini, Porsche et al

 

[Lashout_UK]

Well the way Clarkson pushed the plastic rear panel in with his fingers, or broke the synchromesh on second during their short drive across the States suggested it wasn't the most rugged £60k motor vehicle ever made for starters!

JRS has already said it but I'll jump in too because I'm in a bad mood tonight

The 'finger' test (and I've seen it being done on member's cars, by the general public, much to their irritance) really grates with me because it shows how ineducated some people can be.

That panel is entirely non structural and flexes at that very middle point because it's extremely light and thin. Note it doesn't dent or warp.

You push firmly on even a steel skin in the middle of a large panel and there's a fair chance it'll deform - i.e. in the middle of a bonnet on a BMW - so why should a featherweight composite panel be different. Go up to anything similar and it'll do the same.

Just that kind of prejudice and innaccuracy really irritates me...but hey! Can't avoid it in life.

The 2nd gear syncro, again, as JRS says - except it only gets tired (it doesn't fail) during the high speed runs and is probably just overheating - Corvettes have displays showing trans temp (even for manuals) so it was most likely just hot and it wouldn't surpise me if there was a warning being shown for it, especially after countless hard launches and high speed runs. Note how the issue failed to rear its head again. Imagine how hard it's being worked putting down 605ft.lb time after time after time with nil consideration.

Peace, out

 

[Lashout_UK]

Love them. The only thing nobody ever seems to do with them though, is put decent wheels on! They're mostly tacky looking chrome.

Yea! It's weird but it's part of the 'bling' thing over there, appealing to the mass market etc. The standard polished or gunmetal options are much, much sleeker looking

I feel compelled to put this video up again too:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mC-PQca6FJU

If not just for the burnout at the end