GM’s new sports car tops 1,000 horsepower

DETROIT — General Motors The all-new Chevrolet Corvette will be the most powerful version of the American sports car ever produced — and it’s not even close.

The Detroit automaker said Thursday that the 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 will be powered by a twin-turbocharged 5.5-liter V-8 capable of more than 1,000 horsepower — a first for a Corvette — and 828 foot-pounds of torque, putting it among the ranks of supercars that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“This car pulls like a freight train,” Tadge Juechter, Corvette’s executive chief engineer since 2006, said at a media event. “We expect this car to be by far the quickest car we’ve ever built.”

The most powerful Corvette so far was GM’s latest ZR1 for the 2019 model year. It produced 755 horsepower and 715 pound-feet of torque from a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8.

Juechter said the new ZR1 will have a “comfortably” higher top speed than the previous Corvette’s top speed of 212 mph.

GM said pricing for the 2025 Corvette ZR1, including an additional “ZTK” performance package, will be revealed closer to the vehicle’s production start next year. The 2019 Corvette ZR1 started at $121,000.

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

“We’re pleased with how things are going. This is the next step in that overall approach,” said Brad Franz, Chevrolet’s director of car and crossover marketing.

GM had previously confirmed the arrival of an all-electric Corvette, but did not give a specific date. A Corvette SUV has also been in the works for several years. Franz declined to comment on either vehicle.

GM could better leverage the Corvette brand by expanding its model range and, to some extent, sales, according to Wall Street analysts. In late 2019, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said a Corvette sub-brand could be worth $7 billion to $12 billion.

Chevrolet Corvette sales have totaled about 34,500 vehicles in each of the past two years. In 2019, the automaker redefined the iconic sports car, swapping its front-engine design for a mid-engine build to increase performance and handling.

Models like the ZR1 are low-volume vehicles designed to draw attention to the brand and entice drivers to move toward less expensive Corvettes.

“The ZR1 is the top model. It’s the flagship vehicle. It’s going to bring a lot of attention to the car and help sell the other models,” Juechter said. “It’s part of the current business strategy to keep the product relevant over a relatively long life cycle.”

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

Franz said the price should continue to rise with the introduction of the ZR1 and growing sales of the track-focused Z06, whose average buyer has a household income of $311,000.

Additional sales of the Corvette Hybrid, which starts at about $105,000, should also help boost Corvette revenue. GM plans to increase production of the E-Ray to 10 percent of its total production capacity, up from 2 to 3 percent currently, Franz said.

The trickle-down effect of performance has also helped keep the only Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, running two shifts since 2019.