ZR1’s Ancestry

The newest, hottest ZR1 first debuted itself earlier this year. At the event, General Motors decided to also bring along the vehicle’s ancestry, the ZR-1 (notice the dash to decipher between old and new).

The ZR-1’s were originally built during a 5-year span, from 1990 to 1995. During that time, General Motors owned Lotus, a British sports car specialist company. So, as you may conclude, much of the designs of the older ZR-1 stemmed from British concepts. The LT5 V8 engine was designed specifically for the vehicle, and consisted of an all-aluminum, 32-valve V8 engine that put out 375 horsepower. Rather giant for that time era!

The ZR-1’s sold slowly and at very low numbers due to the high costs involved with its initial purchase. But all that set aside, it’s important that we still have the ZR-1 around today so GM can capture ideas and concepts from the old – promoting them to the new… the ultimate ZR1!

[ CarLust ]