[VIDEO] Ed Welburn Shows Off the New 2015 Corvette Z06 to Jay Leno in Monterey

Jay Leno takes us out of his garage and out into the world for a field trip to what he calls the “Super Bowl for car enthusiasts” in Pebble Beach, Calif., where he says you can see some of the best cars ever built.

He calls this 42-minute show “The Ultimate Car Week.”

Of most interest to Corvette enthusiasts is likely to be a segment devoted to the 2015 Corvette Z06. You might want to fast forward to about the 9:50 mark to see this.

Ed Welburn, vice president of design for General Motors, offers Jay one of the first looks at the new Z06, but first they take a stop and reminisce about one of the original Z06s from 1963.

Then it’s on to take a look at the first 2015 Z06 ever built, a Velocity Yellow coupe.

Welburn points out the first thing you notice about the Z06 is that it’s a wider car – in fact 3 inches wider in the rear and 2 inches wider up front. He also notes that for the first time since 1963, the Z06 will be available as a convertible, too, and we might add with a never-before-offered automatic transmission as well.

Jay hears Welburn say that the Z06 has 650 horsepower and an equal number of ft-lbs of torque, making it the most powerful Corvette ever (even more powerful than Jay’s 2009 ZR1 by 12 horsepower).

“It’s strong,” Welburn says.

The two enthusiasts notice the aerodynamic additions to the car, including the rockers on the side. Ed says that it is hard to get out of a car with rockers, so the designers shaved off some to make ingress and egress easier. Ironically, when they took the car back to the wind tunnel, it was even more aerodynamic than before!

Jay calls the Z06 an “amazing” car, noting that someone would have to buy a European exotic for $250,000 to $300,000 to get a lot of the tech features on the Chevy.

He also calls attention to the LT4 engine that doesn’t have overhead cams “and a lot of stuff like that. It’s not carrying its weight up high, so you can have the lowest front end of about any sports car around.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Jay Leno episode without Jay asking to drive the Z06.

“Jay, this is the first car, and it’s only a display model,” a reluctant Welburn says.

“Ed, don’t worry about it, you’re the boss,” Jay says as he nevertheless climbs into the Z06. “Nobody tells Ed Welburn what to do. It’s a Corvette – how can you not drive it? It even sounds like a Corvette.”

Then Jay motors out of the building with the sweet sounds of the Z06 providing background music.

Source:
Jay Leno’s Garage on YouTube

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