The Fast Lane typically uploads high-quality reviews or walkarounds of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, but on this occasion, the boys have given us a perfect example of Betteridge’s law of headlines. To the point, the answer to any headline that ends in a question mark is “no.”
“Could This Be a Chevy Corvette Hybrid With a Turbo V6?” is the title of the following spy video that depicts two C8 mules followed by a Stingray. The leading car, which features a center-tipped exhaust system, features the same camouflage as pretty much all the Z06 prototypes that GM is testing nowadays. As for the sound this mule produces, that certainly isn’t a small-block V8 like the LT2 that General Motors utilizes in the Stingray variant.
Roman Mica and Andre Smirnov believe that the sound is similar to that of the Acura NSX, which features a twin-turbo V6 that redlines at 7,500 rpm. The V6 in the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio tops at 7,250 rpm, but neither match the sonorous powerplant of the mysterious Corvette prototype.
For the sake of reference, compare this mule with the Z06 prototypes featured in the other videos attached at the end of this article. The six-cylinder argument clearly doesn’t hold water, and GM isn’t likely to pull a Ford EcoBoost on us by alienating the Corvette’s fan base with a V6.
The high-pitched idle, even firing pulses, and the way the powerplant builds up the revs under acceleration gives away the flat-plane crankshaft of the 5.5-liter LT6, which is derived from the 5.5-liter LT5 that GM has already proven in the C8.R endurance racer. Restricted to approximately 500 horsepower and 480 pound-feet (651 Nm) to comply with IMSA rules, the racing motor will be obviously eclipsed by the series-production engine.
The last time we’ve heard anything about the exotic-sounding engine of the Z06 was in April 2021 when Angus MacKenzie of Wheels Magazine guesstimated the output rating at 617 horsepower. For reference, the flat-plane crankshaft V8 of the Shelby GT350 belts out 526 aspirated ponies.
Going forward, General Motors is believed to improve the breed with the E-Ray (hybridized small-block V8), ZR1 (twin-turbo FPC V8), and Zora (hybrid twin-turbo FPC V8). The latter will reportedly make 1,000 horsepower, which is an adequate number if you remember that GM extracted 755 horsepower from the blown small-block V8 of the seventh-generation Corvette ZR1.
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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