With a current base price of $185,395 (if you include the destination charge and the gas guzzler tax), the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 isn’t what anyone would call “cheap.” I mean, you can buy an entire adorable house in one of the more walkable areas of Ferndale, Michigan, for less than a base ZR1 (even before you get to dealer markups and the cost of the Z06 you had to buy to get your allocation). That said, you do get more than 1,000 horsepower and on-track performance that proved to be too much for one owner to handle (allegedly). And for some reason, no other automaker wanted to go up against the ZR1 in Edmunds’ U-Drag series.
That’s okay, though. You don’t technically need two cars to run a U-Drag. It’s definitely more fun with two cars, since you get to see not just how they stack up against each other but also where one car has a real advantage over the other, but nothing about the U-Drag formula specifically requires two cars. So Edmunds took a ZR1 out by itself to see what kind of time it would set, essentially pitting it against every car they’ve ever tested. Conditions can change from day to day, so it isn’t a perfect comparison, but what do you know, at the end of the day the ZR1 came out on top, beating all the gas-powered cars Edmunds has tested before.
Take that, Ewww-rope. You may have real cities and a mostly functioning society, but the good ole U.S. of A has the fastest gas-powered U-Drag car.
USA! USA!
So how quick was the Corvette ZR1, exactly? Well, it hit 60 mph in 2.7 seconds, ran the quarter-mile in 10 seconds flat at 144.1 mph, pulled 1.38 g while cornering, and completed the entire U-Drag in 28.9 seconds while hitting a top speed of 159.6 mph. That makes it quicker than some seriously impressive cars, including:
- 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 – 32.1 seconds
- 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 – 31.3 seconds
- 2022 Porsche 911 Turbo S – 30.8 seconds
- 2024 McLaren 750S – 29.6 seconds
- 2022 McLaren 765 LT – 29.6 seconds
- 2023 Tesla Model S Plaid – 29.3 seconds
Admittedly, only a few of those are mid-engine supercars like the ZR1, and one of them is a Corvette, but still. That’s pretty impressive. It’s just too bad Ferrari, Lamborghini and a few other exotic manufacturers haven’t been brave enough to send their cars to Edmunds for U-Drag testing.
Now, a few of you may have noticed I keep including “gas-powered” whenever I mention the ZR1’s record, and you may have even started to suspect that’s because the ZR1 isn’t technically the fastest car to ever complete a U-Drag. You would also be correct. In fact, the ZR1 is only the third-fastest car that Edmunds has ever tested, with the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT proving to be ever-so-slightly quicker at 28.8 seconds. And what car holds the top spot? Well, that would be none other than the Lucid Air Sapphire, with a time of 27.9 seconds.
Give Edmunds the keys to the new ZR1X, though, and we’ll see how well that Lucid’s time actually holds up.
