1250bhp Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X Revealed, And It’s As Quick As An F1 Car

It was pretty clear that GM’s engineers weren’t going to stop with the C8 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. For months now, an even more aggressive-looking camouflaged ’Vette has been spotted out in the wild, complete with badging signifying that there is not only petrol but electricity on board.

Previously codenamed Corvette Zora after Zora Arkus-Duntov, the engineer whose work in the Corvette’s early days was instrumental in the car’s development, the mysterious prototype has now been unveiled in full, with an official name: Corvette ZR1X.

What you’re looking at begins with the 5.5-litre, twin-turbo flat-plane crank V8 that sits in the middle of the new ZR1, complete with an already mind-boggling 1064bhp. It then adds in a beefed-up 186bhp version of the front axle-mounted electric motor from the hybrid Corvette E-Ray.

That means that the ZR1X is a 1250bhp, sending all that power to all four wheels – the fronts driven by the electric motor, the rears by the engine via an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Performance figures? Unconfirmed, but Chevrolet estimates that the ZR1X will run a quarter-mile in under nine seconds and at over 150mph, and do 0-60mph in under two seconds. That’s F1 car territory. Just think about that for a second. Or two.

The hybrid system brings other benefits besides raw power, too. It has regenerative braking and torque vectoring capabilities, and its deployment can be changed depending on what sort of driving you’re doing – you can set it to be consistent for extended track sessions, or to give it its all in short bursts.

Naturally, there’s lots of serious chassis hardware to go along with all this power. The ZR1’s optional J59 braking package comes as standard on the ZR1X, bringing 419mm carbon ceramic discs all round with mighty 10-piston callipers at the front, and six pots at the back.

GM’s magnetic ride control is standard, but the optional ZTK Performance Package brings a stiffer suspension setup, ultra-sticky Michelin Pilot Cup 2R rubber, and a carbon aero pack that brings 544kg of downforce at top speed. The aero pack is optional on non-ZTK equipped cars, too.

Available as a coupe or a convertible, we don't know how much the ZR1X will cost yet, but given it’s a Corvette, it’s likely to massively undercut the hoity-toity hypercars it can challenge in performance terms. It gets the ’Vette’s recently upgraded interior too, which brings more screenage and does away with the car’s rather fussy wall of buttons.

In the grand Corvette tradition, then, the ZR1X is designed to give the established European elite something to think about. Europe, though, probably isn’t somewhere it’s going to be sold officially – like the E-Ray and ZR1, it’s likely to be limited to the North American market. Surely you can sneak a few out among those regular Stingrays, Chevy?