QUICK SHIFTS: 2019 Corvette ZR1 Mania, Data Dive with Hagerty, Best Fast and Furious Cars, Porsche Breaks ‘Ring Record, and More!

Welcome to a quick-shifting edition of Quick Shifts! Quick Shifts is a content feature here at CorvetteBlogger featuring links to Corvette and automotive-related stories of interest.

This week we start off with last generation’s swan song with several Corvette ZR1s for sale while Katech introduces a Stage III 1,000 hp upgrade for the LT5. Hagerty offers up some data-driven articles just in time for the Corvette’s birthday, and we also witness the Hoonigans doing their own celebration. As another Fast and Furious movie has dropped so take a look at the movie cars as ranked, as well the new mid-engine Charger built just for Fast9. Corvette’s competition sets a new production record at the ‘Ring and Ferrari offers a new hybrid V6 sports car. Finally, we wrap it up with some Camaro news for our bow-tie brothers.

First Gear:

Even though all of the headlines are about the C8 these days, the C7 ZR1 is the hottest ‘Vette on the market. It isn’t uncommon to see the most powerful Corvette in history sell for close to $200,000 lately. A few sellers are even testing the limits of this rapid appreciation. On eBay Motors alone right now, there is a stunning Elkhart Lake Blue ZTK with 145 miles asking $225,000, and another seller who smartly hoarded multiple examples of the C7’s swan song. They’ve got a Corvette Racing Yellow ZTK manual with just under 2k miles for $200 grand, an eight (8!) mile Shadow Gray ZTK for $224,800, and a 380-mile specimen in the most famous color, with the track package and a manual transmission (AKA my dream car) that they have listed for nearly $100k over sticker at a whopping $238,000! We will be watching these listings closely to see where the market for the front-engine king truly lies halfway through 2021!

Perhaps the biggest indicator that ZR1s are still extremely hot is the fact that tuners are still tinkering with them. Our ingenious friends at Katech posted a video of a C7 King of the Hill with their new Stage III LT5 this week. This beast makes more than 1,000 HP… at the wheels! Check it out for yourself here.

Second Gear:

It was the Corvette’s birthday this week, and, other than the site you are currently reading, no publication out there celebrated quite as well as Hagerty. They started off by crowning the best Corvette V8s from the pre-electronic fuel injection days. Next, they went through their insurance quote-driven Price Guide to name the most valuable ‘Vettes from the first six generations of production. There are a couple of surprises in there! Finally, was my favorite piece, where John Wiley poured over thousands of data points to answer the question, Does a Corvette’s Paint Color Affect its Value? If you only follow one link in this whole list, that one should be it!

Third Gear:

For better or worse, America’s Sports Car is finally catching on with drifting enthusiasts. The drifting community has long held a preference for Japanese iron, but Corvettes are just making too much sense for them to ignore anymore; incredible power and rerear-wheelrive out of the box, massive aftermarket, easy DIY mods, reliability, and insanely reasonable asking prices. A C5 is the perfect canvas for drifting! To prove this point, the Hoonigan and Roadkill guys recently got together to turn some rubber into smoke with a C5 that they got for only $5,000. See the entertaining results here:

Fourth Gear:

The ninth Fast and Furious movie hit theatres (remember those? They are back!) on Friday. Regardless of your feelings about the franchise, you have to admit that Universal has used it to showcase some pretty cool vehicles. Hagerty put together a list of the 19 best, and, in spite of the import-centric original and the obvious Dodge connection and sponsorship of the later films, five cars from the list hail from General Motors. We can probably guess which two you like best, but check out the list and let us know your favorite anyway!

Motor Trend continues the F9 theme with a look at Dom’s new ’68 Charger that SpeedKore fitted with a mid-mounted Hellcat V8! It is a very cool ride that makes us wonder how they got the idea to take their star car mid-engined?

Fifth Gear:

We have a box of chocolates for fifth gear in this edition of QS. The first bite reveals another new Nürburgring record. In the least surprising news of the month, Porsche didn’t take kindly to AMG beating their mark at the ‘Ring. Porsche notched a 6:43.3 in what doesn’t exactly strike us as a “production car.” The new record-holder is the previous generation 911 GT2 RS (that we scouted here) that has been upgraded by an outfit called Manthey Racing. According to EVO, the kit is made up of “chassis, breaking, and aerodynamic” upgrades that were set up “specifically for” the Green Hell. The Manthey kit is offered through Porsche’s accessory program (allowing them to claim this car as “factory-spec”) and knocked 4.747 sec. off of the previous record. We want to see what the “completely stock” Katech ZR1 above could achieve!

Next, just like McLaren did a few months back (sixth gear), Ferrari unveiled a car last week that shows their way forward… with hybrid V6 power. It is called the 296 GTB, and it features a 120-degree twin-turbo V6 that, with the assistance of some bulky hybrid-tech, produces an impressive 818 HP. This is simultaneously good news for Chevrolet and bad news for regular Corvette customers. The two biggest names in the mid-engine sports car game ditching soulful V8s for pumped-up, but pedestrian six-cylinders guarantee the exclusivity of the high-revving, naturally aspirated, flat-plane V8 and the C8 Z06 that it will call home. Even with a 200ish HP deficit, the unique Z is bound to be the most sought-after car on the market, regardless of price (by the way, the 6-banger Ferrari should start in the neighborhood of $300k). Now, in order to get their hands on a Z06, traditional Corvette customers will have to contend with the folks who used to buy Ferraris when they used a similar layout (the 458 Italia that GM is using to benchmark the Z is the marquee’s high-water mark, according to most enthusiasts). Given how difficult the base C8 has been to get at MSRP, conditions are coming together to make the Z an absolute nightmare to attain (and an even bigger nightmare for the traditional supercar manufacturers!)! The time is nigh; soon, car enthusiasts will have to choose between being badge snobs, OR engine snobs, not both.

Sixth Gear:

We are going to close out this week with a pair of Corvette-adjacent Camaro pieces from Motor Trend. First, Jonny Lieberman broke some extremely sad news this week. It turns out that the number one engine on your author’s most anticipated list; the previously mentioned flat-plane screamer from the forthcoming C8 Z06 also had a reservation for the engine bay of the sixth-generation Camaro Z/28. According to the Lieb’s source, a fellow by the name of Deep Burble, that reservation has been canceled. A car I’ve daydreamt about in this very column, a mythical Camaro with a 9k redline and a manual transmission, seems to be dead. I’m not giving up hope though, not until the final 6th-gen rolls off the line (a lot can happen before 2026, and the Camaro deserves a proper send-off after years of neglect from its parent company!)!

As bummed as the prospect of a Z/28-less future makes me, MT also managed to psych me up recently by throwing a “Bow-Tie Surprise” into the conclusion of their recent stats comparison of the new Mach 1 Mustang and the S550-generation Shelby’s (GT350 and 500). My SS 1LE (a car that hasn’t been touched, mechanically since 2017) still has the ‘Stang’s number after all of this time; a true testament to the outstanding work of Al Oppenheiser.

Well, that will do it for this episode of QS; thanks for stopping by and have an excellent Fourth of July weekend! Now get out there and celebrate the greatest country that the world has ever seen, from behind the wheel of its signature sports car! Roast some tires along with your hot dogs, and take a moment to reflect on just how blessed we all are! See you next week, Corvette Nation! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!!!!!

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