Remember NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick who paid $1.1 million for the very first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray from a Barrett-Jackson auction in January? Well, Hendrick was finally handed the keys to the first production-ready Corvette C7 Stingray to roll off the production line on Friday.
As a reminder, the regular 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray goes for $51,995 so Hendrick certainly paid quite the premium for the privilege to own chassis number 0001!
The new car is the most powerful base Chevrolet Corvette ever produced, with a cool 455hp being produced for its new generation LT1 GM V8 engine. As a result, the new car surpasses the previous generation base C6 substantially in every performance aspect and is able to launch to 100km/h in under four seconds, pull over 1G when cornering and being able to stop from 100km/h in a similar time to the Z06 Corvette.
As a matter of fact, the new engine also creates 50lb-ft more torque low-end torque than the previous generation powerplant with it being able to compete with the LS7 V8 engine from 1,000-4,000rpms.
Chevrolet believes that the seventh-generation Corvette, or C7, is so extraordinary and such a jump in technology over all previous Corvette’s, that it named it the Corvette Stingray after the legendary Stingray from the 1960’s.
What a stupid waste of money
Not if you had his money
The C7 is not the most powerful Vette produced. The ZR1 had 638 bhp, for example. The run of the mill Z06 had 505 bhp.