GM’s newest sports car tops 1,000 horsepower

Detroit- General Motors' The latest Chevrolet Corvette will be the most powerful version of the American sports car ever — and that's not even close.

The 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 will be powered by a twin-turbocharged 5.5-liter V8 making more than 1,000 horsepower (a first for the Corvette) and 828 foot-pounds of torque, putting it among the best in its class, the Detroit automaker said Thursday. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in supercars.

“This thing pulls like a freight train,” Tadge Juechter, Corvette's executive chief engineer since 2006, said at a media event. “Long term, we expect this car to be essentially the fastest car we've ever built.”

The previous most powerful Corvette was GM's final ZR1 for the 2019 model year. It has a 6.2-liter V8 supercharged engine that produces 755 horsepower and 715 foot-pounds of torque.

Juechter said the new ZR1's top speed will be “easily” higher than the Corvette's previous top speed of 212 mph.

GM said pricing for the 2025 Corvette ZR1, including the additional “ZTK” performance package, will be announced when production goes into production next year. The 2019 Corvette ZR1 starts at $121,000.

The ZR1 joins what GM calls the “Corvette Series,” which includes the “everybody's sports car” Corvette Stingray, which starts at about $70,000; the hybrid E-Ray; and the Z06 track car, which costs about $112,000.

“We're pleased with the progress so far. This is the next step in the overall approach,” said Brad Franz, Chevrolet's marketing director for cars and crossovers.

General Motors previously confirmed it would launch an all-electric Corvette but has not yet given a timetable. A Corvette SUV has also been considered for years. Franz declined to comment on the two vehicles.

Wall Street analysts say GM can better leverage the Corvette brand by expanding its models and, to some extent, sales. At the end of 2019, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said the Corvette sub-brand could be worth between $7 billion and $12 billion.

Chevrolet Corvette sales have totaled approximately 34,500 units in each of the past two years. For 2019, the automaker redefined the iconic sports car, switching from a front-engine to a mid-engine design to improve performance and handling.

Models like the ZR1 were low-volume models designed to attract brand recognition and entice drivers to buy the less expensive Corvettes.

“The ZR1 is the top model. It's the halo vehicle. It's going to bring a lot of attention to the car and actually help sell other models,” Juechter said. “This is part of an ongoing business strategy to keep the product relevant over its relatively long life cycle.”

Other performance models helped push the average Corvette transaction price to about $106,000.

Franz said price points are expected to continue to rise with the introduction of the ZR1 and growing sales of the track-focused Z06, which has an average buyer's household income of $311,000.

Additional sales of the hybrid Corvette, which starts at about $105,000, will also help boost Corvette revenue. Franz said that General Motors plans to increase the proportion of E-Ray production in total production capacity from the current 2% to 3% to 10%.

The performance trickle-down effect has also helped the only Corvette-making plant in Bowling Green, Ky., operate two shifts since 2019.