Detroit Auto Show 2014: General Motors Unveils Corvettes Z06 and Racing C7.R

As journalists watched on the big screen, sky cameras followed one of Chevrolet’s yellow seventh-generation Corvettes, the 2015 Z06 “supercar,” as a Chevy Silverado hauled the Z06 into the Detroit Auto Show on Monday morning.

“Seeing it for the first time, you might think we accidentally rolled out the new race car,” Mark Reuss, president of General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) North America, told the media.

Chevrolet developed the Z06 Vette alongside the C7.R, a racing Corvette.

The Z06 will be GM’s most capable street-legal production Corvette. It’s powered by a 6.2-liter LT4 engine, which produces more than 625 horsepower and more than 635 pound-feet of torque. Drivers have a choice of two transmissions: seven-speed manual or eight-speed automatic.

All the technology in the 2014 Corvette Stingray, which won Car of the Year at the Detroit auto show (the aforementioned Silverado won 2014 Truck of the Year), is built into the Z06, and that includes magnetic ride control, the performance data recorder and the five-mode drive selector.

The Z06 also features an aluminum frame that’s 60 percent stiffer than that of current models, like the Stingray, and the Z06 is the first high-performance Corvette to offer an open-air option with a removable roof panel.

Production will begin later this year with delivery starting in early 2015.

The 2014 C7.R race car shares the structure and much of the aerodynamic performance of the Z06, and also has better throttle control with the potential to save enough fuel to allow race car drivers to bypass a pit stop.

“What we learn on the track helps us build a better Corvette for the street,” General Motors CFO Dan Amman said.