The Raging Bull of Sant’Agata Bolognese pioneered the modern supercar with the oh-so-beautiful Miura in the 1960s. General Motors also experimented with midships in the 1970s and 1980s, but only a looney would call the Pontiac Fiero a supercar.
Porsche is notorious for improving the breed without straying from the 911’s tried-and-true formula. GM, however, did it before Zuffenhausen’s favorite son with the Corvette. For example, a guy called Zora is credited with convincing the fat cats in Detroit to shoehorn a 265-ci small block in the engine bay of the C1 for the 1955 model year.
The Belgian-born American engineer (whose full name is Zora Arkus-Duntov) was a huge racing nut. He raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans no fewer than four times, and he took class wins in both 1954 and 1955. This gentleman was also big on mid-engine cars, and it was Zora who first proposed moving the Corvette’s engine behind the driver.
The 1976 Chevrolet Aerovette should have morphed into a midship C4 for 1980, but alas, Corvette chief engineer Dave McLellan (and Zora's successor) decided to stick to the classic front-engine setup. Zora passed away in 1996, but as fate would have it, his dream of a mid-engine Corvette did not.
General Motors started taking his proposal seriously when the time came to start working on the C8. With up to 755 horsepower and 715 pound-feet (969 Nm) on deck for the C7, the American manufacturer pushed the front-engine Corvette to its very limits. Anything more would require a radical change in design, hence the C8’s configuration.
Photo: Drag Racing and Car Stuff on YouTube
In combination with a trick launch control system, more weight over the rear axle results in less wheel spin from a dig. You can easily tell the Z06 in the video below launches much better than its challenger, namely a red supercar from Italy, and that shouldn't come as a surprise. Not only is the C8 newer in every respect than the Huracan, but its engine is derived from that of the C8.R racecar.
Punchier than Lamborghini’s 5.2-liter V10, the 5.5-liter V8 in the Z06 is hampered by quite a bit of extra weight compared to the Huracan. Although torquier than the more exotic-sounding supercar, the Corvette fails to dip into the 10.7-second range.
The Huracan driver’s best quarter-mile time was 10.746 seconds, whereas the Corvette driver clocked a best of 10.850 seconds. Pretty impressive, that’s for certain! The C8 will get even quicker, though, because the 2025 model year Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 is estimated with 800-plus horsepower from a twin-turbo version of the Z06’s high-revving engine.
Remember Zora Arkus-Dunton? The final version of the C8 series is believed to bear his name as a nod to the “Father of the Corvette.” You can think of the upcoming Zora as half ZR1 and half E-Ray, meaning 1,000-odd horsepower and all-wheel drive by means of a front-mounted electric drive unit.
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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