Motor Trend Redeems the Corvette Z06: It’s Faster than the Nissan GT-R

Good news for the new Corvette Z06 keeps rolling in. Earlier we told you the supercar is making up 40 percent of all Corvette sales, and now, according to Motor Trend’s recent Z06 retest at Willow Springs International Raceway’s “Big Track”, the Z06 (when equipped with a manual transmission) is faster than the Nissan GT-R NISMO.

You’ll recall last month when Motor Trend first compared the manual-equipped Z06 against the GT-R, the Corvette lapped Big Willow in 1:27.10 — 1.4 seconds slower than the NISMO. This time the Z06 turned in a stronger 1:25.00, beating the Nissan’s 1:25.70.

In this retest, Motor Trend also tested a Z06 with an eight-speed automatic transmission. It was actually slower at Big Willow. The numbers don’t lie; the eight-speed Z06 delivered a 1:25.76; six-hundredths of a second slower than the NISMO. At six-hundredths, I’ll call it a draw for the auto “Supervette” vs. GT-R.

So why the drastic 2.1-second improvement? Motor Trend’s Scott Evans says, “Chevrolet gave us a car with the rear suspension out of alignment. It was supposed to be running 0 degrees of rear caster. Instead, it was running positive 2 degrees. This made the rear dampers less effective at controlling the rear suspension, and as a result made it more difficult for the Z06 to put power down.”

In addition, over the past few weeks Chevrolet has “developed a new Rough Track mode for the Z06 that softens the dampers in Track mode”, Motor Trend says, adding, “Chevrolet plans to make this software update to the Z06 available soon through the GM Performance Parts catalog.”

Motor Trend’s automatic and manual retest cars were packing the extra heat with that software update.

Click here to read Motor Trend’s full Corvette Z06 redemption story.

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