Green Gets Mean: Jay Leno’s E85 Corvette Z06 to Debut at SEMA

By
Keith Cornett
-
2
990

A year ago, Jay Leno, the well-known car collector and host of NBC’s Tonight Show was talking up his 650 hp EcoJet concept, a car built on the Corvette Z06’s frame, fueled by biodiesel and powered by a turbine engine. The car was well received, but because of its “concept” status and batmobile-like design, Jay’s attempt at an alternative-fueled supercar was never really taken seriously. All that will change next week at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. In collaboration with GM’s display of alternative fuel vehicles, Jay brings another “project car” to the table, and this one has much more serious and immediate applications. GM calls their SEMA display “Green Gets Mean” and the centerpiece will be Leno’s custom built Corvette Z06 that runs completely on E85 fuel. The Corvette boasts a custom 500 cubic inch engine that generates 600 horsepower! No other specifics on the Corvette are yet available so stay tuned for SEMA event coverage next week. In addition to the ethanol-powered Corvette, GM Performance Parts will introduce its LS3 crate engine and a limited-edition Anniversary 427 crate engine that’s an all aluminum big-block based on the legendary ZL-1. A cast-iron big block 427 is also available which features most of the high-performance attributes of the Anniversary 427.

Trivia Question:
How many Corvette ZL-1’s were produced and what was the year of production?
Now, I don’t mean to go off on a rant, but it would be interesting to learn the spec’s of Leno’s E85 Corvette and to see a performance comparison against a similarly outfitted Z06 that runs on pump gas. While the perception from tree huggers is that the Corvette is a gas guzzling V8 that only deserved to be produced in that bygone era of 50 cents a gallon gasoline, truth is the current model gets 28 MPG highway and some owners have report higher averages based on their route and driving conditions. I believe owners would embrace a flex-fuel powered Corvette as long a performance wasn’t sacrificed. While I don’t necessarily believe that E85 is a long term solution to our “oil addiction”, I, like many Americans would rather send my dollars to farmers in the Midwest instead of dictators in the Mideast. Besides, Leonardo DiCaprio would look way more cool pulling up to the Oscars in an E85 Corvette instead of his current Toyota Prius. Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong…
Source:
GM.com Related:
SEMA’s Outrageous C6 Corvette Technorati Tags:
| | | | | |


-

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

2 COMMENTS

  1. Keith, I think your point is well taken. The CorvetteBlog absolutely agrees that an E85 production Corvette would help the general population understand better what we have in a fuel efficient supercar. It is amazing! Bill

  2. Bill:

    Thanks for the comment as always. GM has several inititives for improving fuel economy and if they can be integrated into the Corvette platform in a way that showcases the technology without decreasing the performance standards, its a win win for both manufacturer and consumer. Besides, I love the "Green is Mean" phrase!.

    Thanks again for visiting!

    Keith

Comments are closed.