Now, whenever I'm presented with a group of Corvettes like this,
I always think I'm looking at a boy band.
They're very good-looking. They're cheap
and they make a nice noise in a middle-of-the-road type way.
But behind the scenes, all of them are almost completely talentless
and a bit flimsy.
Now, though, there's a new Corvette which has left the band
and wants to be taken seriously.
Here it is. It's called the ZO6
and there's no getting away from the fact that it is very fast.
And... properly loud.
Like all Corvettes it has a V-8 engine,
but it's not the 5.7 that we've become used to.
Oh, no. This has seven litres.
It is the most powerful engine ever made by General Motors.
It turns out 500-brake horsepower
and so much torque that I reckon
it could probably outrun the fuel that powers it.
Let's find out with a quarter-mile drag race between the car
and a trail of petrol.
And if you think that's amazing, watch this.
What I'm going to do is put it into fifth gear, okay?
Fifth. Stationary. And here we go.
Bit of a judder.
And we're off, 30 miles an hour.
40.
50.
Now, I once did this with a V12 Aston Martin.
That started in fourth and went to 135 miles an hour. Let's see what this can do.
That's 100 already. Haven't changed gear.
120. In the torque band now.
Really shifting.
Coming up to 150.
That's 160 and I'm out of runway.
In actual fact, this would go from a standstill
to 175 miles an hour in one gear!
So, a fairly phenomenal engine.
But then it doesn't have much weight to lug around.
That's because its bumpers are made from carbon fibre.
The cradle the engine sits in is made from magnesium.
And the whole space frame is made from... "aluminum", whatever that is.
What's more, they've even sacrificed some of the boy-band looks
in the relentless quest to be taken seriously.
There are flaps in front of the front wheels
to improve down force and reduce drag.
There's a bigger mouth to improve cooling.
And in the exhaust, there are butterfly valves to give a better vocal range.
Then there's the engine, which is not only bigger than usual,
but mounted lower down and further back.
The results of all this are dramatic.
Not the most sophisticated handling car in the world,
but there's so much brute force, it just doesn't matter.
You just use the right foot... to get you out of trouble.
Jab of throttle. There we go.
I am a child!
Already I've converted most of the rear tyres into smoke.
Whoop. There's a bit more gone.
It's so controllable, you even have time halfway through a bend
to check out your G meter on the head-on display.
That was 1.2 G through there.
This car really is like Robbie Williams.
Who could have guessed that behind the Take That nonsense,
there was a proper musician trying to get out?
They say it can lap the Nurburgring in seven minutes and 43 seconds.
Now, that is an astonishing time. It really is.
It doesn't feel at all like an American car
until you turn the sat nat on.
It has a voice thing on it. Okay, I'm going to push it. Ready?
System is showing the fast food icons.
First thing it goes to, the default setting, fast food!
How American is that?
It can't find London, can't find France, but it'll find you a burger!
Chinese.
System is showing the Chinese restaurant icons.
Oh, I've got a good one for it.
Iraqi restaurants.
Well, that shut her up!
The best thing about this car, however, is its price.
You see, the ZO6 is £60,000
and the Ferrari 575 here is £160,000.
And if a Martian came to Earth,
he would have the devil's own job explaining why.
They both look pretty much the same. They're both front-engined.
They're both about the same size. Both develop 500-brake horsepower.
Both can top 190 miles an hour
and both can get from nought to 60 in under four seconds.
So, why is there a £100,000 price gap?
Well, you know what?
After a whole day at the track, I couldn't work it out at all.
-Heck of a thing. -Yeah.
So the question has to be, have you worked it out yet?
Yes, I have! The Ferrari costs that much
because it works on the track and it works on the road.
This only works on a track.
-What you can't use it on the road? -No, you can use it on the road.
Legally, you just wouldn't want to.
-Why? -Driving at home after filming that,
I made a list of all the things
-that are wrong with it, okay? -You have. Crikey!
No, I really have. The drive line shunt.
You know when you put your foot down, it feels like you're in an accordion.
Oh, that's come off. The radio's rubbish.
At low revs, the engine sounds like it's been fuelled with spanners.
The tyre roar is deafening. You can't hear anything.
It's too wide. The steering wheel's on the wrong side.
The trim's woeful. The ride, you break your back any time you run over anything.
The gearbox feels like it came from a tractor.
-Can I just say, we've got the message. -I'm not joking.
As something to live with every day, I would rather have bird flu. I would.
All right. Well, we must now need send it back to its natural territory,
of course, the track, to see how it does.
Absolutely and that means handing it over to our tame racing driver.
Some say he has a digital face
and that if he felt like it, he could fire Alan Sugar.
All we know is he's called the Stig.
And he's off! Lots of wheel spin off the line there.
That's not a particularly fast start as a result.
Okay, coming down to the first corner, piling it in!
Quite a bit of tyre squeal, bone-dry track.
But actually, look, very little drama.
A piece of that cheese.
Stig, of course, still learning Italian. Here he comes out of Chicago.
A little wiggle of the hips on the way out.
No real fuss, no drama again. Into Hammerhead.
Perhaps things will get lively here. Will it wash wide? No.
Tail's coming out a fraction, but the Stig holds it to the millimetre.
We want to visit Pompeii.
Of course, the Stig can already talk the language of animals.
Only this morning he was chatting to Top Gear dog
and funnily enough they also share a water bowl.
Oh, look at that! Seven litres of American friendly fire!
Here he comes into the second to last corner.
Turns in hard. A little bit of correction. Into Gambon.
This is tricky one. Flicking it a bit sideways and across the line!
Well, hey...
I very much doubt... Hang on.
I doubt very much any of you will believe this.
He did it in 1,22.4.
Now, that is... Look. Here's the Ferrari 575 fright down there 1,26.8.
It's up.... It's quicker than a Zonda.
It's quicker than a Ferrari 430. That is an astonishing car.
However, I do maintain if you are planning on using it on a road,
you are better off with a normal one.