Three cars, 2235 brake horsepower combined
and a mere $300,000 for the lot.
Welcome, my friends, to America.
The Corvette ZR1 is quite possibly the angriest car ever.
At its heart lies the LT5 6.2 litre V8,
producing a 755 horsepower,
thanks to a 2.7 litre Eaton supercharger.
The numbers really are extraordinary,
none more so than the $130,000 price tag,
because that means it offers similar performance
to the McLaren 720S for under half the price.
First things first, you can get an eight-speed auto with this car,
but you can also get a seven-speed manual
and I'm pleased to report that we have the seven-speed manual here.
How absurd is a manual gearbox these days in a 755 horsepower car.
Time now to state the obvious.
This car is biblically, almost painfully fast,
up to 4,000 RPM or so.
It's much like the Z06, but beyond that, well...
Why don't I just demonstrate?
It just...
It just likes the afterburners... and flies.
This is the point where most racing drivers claim
that turning everything off is the best way
to yield the most fun and the lowest lap times
But Chevy's engineer's claim, even with Lewis behind the wheel,
it's faster with the performance traction management system switched on.
And who am I to argue, so, right now we're in track mode
and quite frankly, I'm glad the safety blanket
because despite our sticky rubber, despite all this aero that's on our side,
you can feel this car wanting to break traction all the time.
There is more to this car than just endless power
and a massive, massive engine, though.
There's some finesse here, too, especially the brakes,
enormous Brembo carbon ceramic discs.
Now, Corvette claim this car will stop
from 212 miles an hour to a standstill in about eight seconds.
I'm not going to do 212 miles an hour, but I can demonstrate what they mean.
Yep, yep, those work.
The truth with this car is that the standard C7 Corvette
is a really, really well sorted car,
so, Chevrolet was going to have to go some to mess this one up.
And they haven't at all.
This car is mind-scramblingly good.
But it isn't your only option if you're in the market
for a Chevrolet that eats racetracks for breakfast.
This is the 650 horsepower Camaro ZL1,
powered by the same LT4 supercharged V8 you get in the Corvette Z06
and fitted here with the hardcore 1LE pack.
Only available with a six-speed manual, it adds a bigger front splitter and wing.
New appropriately-named Goodyear Eagle F1 supercar tyres
and some extremely trick lightweight Multimatic dampers
that can be adjusted for camber and ride height,
so, you can dial in your perfect track setup,
using your favourite spec.
How could anyone drive this car and think: "I know what I need,
another 100 horsepower, like you get in the Corvette"?
But full throttle in this car...
Well, it's still a bit like being punched in the face... in a good way, of course.
Now, it's not a small car, this. You've got seats in the back.
It weighs over 1,700 kilograms. It's big. It's brutal.
Throwing it around is a physical experience,
so you might think, on a racetrack, it would all start to unravel...
but you'd be wrong because that's where this 1LE package really comes alive.
It's so positive. Turning is so immediate.
If you needed proof of just how fast this car is around the track
well, it's done a lap of the Nürburgring in seven minutes and 16 seconds.
That's in the big boy leagues.
And boy, can you feel it.
It's the least powerful car here, but feels like the fastest.
Although the Corvette will probably haul it in on the straights.
For anyone that thinks American cars can't handle corners,
I invite you to try one of these.
The thing is you don't have to have this fully spec car.
You can have the 1LE track package, with the non-supercharged Camaro SS,
less power, potentially more fun to throw around.
It all comes down to honesty.
How are you honestly going to use your car?
Do you prefer the track or do you prefer the road?
Or do you prefer the dragstrip?
Meet the Dodge Demon, a car designed specifically to pull a wheelie
and smash the quarter mile in under ten seconds.
It takes a Challenger Hellcat and fits a bigger supercharger,
new pistons and crankshaft, a higher rev limit,
higher flow fuel injectors, wider track, 18-inch drag radial tires
and a beefed-up transmission and drivetrain.
This is the world's fastest production car... for $85,000
The big surprise here is that
despite this car being so focused on the drag strip
it's not actually that much of a pig to drive when you get on the track.
There's a couple of reasons for that. Number one is
these massive 315 section Nitto drag radial tires.
They actually give you loads and loads of grip.
And the other is the adaptive Bilstein dampers,
so you can have it all roly-poly in street mode,
like a proper old-school muscle car,
or you can tighten things right up in sport.
Now, this thing does weigh over two tons so, it is... it's quite sizable,
but it can be hustled around, as I said earlier,
at quite outrageous speeds and just listen to that engine.
It just squeals away...
snorts away... and generally misbehaves.
I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever get bored of that.
But none of this, of course is the Dodge Demon's party piece.
For that we need a prepped drag strip and our skinny front tyres.
which we don't have, but what we do have is a straight.
So, I'm going to stop here.
If I hit this button here, that gives us the full 840 horsepower.
It knows that we have 100 octane fuel in the car.
Next we hit the SRT button and go into drag mode.
There we go, drag mode activating systems check.
Trans brake feature access by pulling back both paddles.
Foot on the brake. Increase engine speed.
Release one pedal.
Release brake pedal.
Well, that was interesting.
This car produces so much torque that honestly, on this surface,
well, it just overwhelms the rear tyres.
But you can feel the fury of this thing, spilling out of every pore.
Nought to 60 in 2.3 seconds.
Do you know what? You can keep your Tesla P100D.
How on earth I'm supposed to choose between three cars that are so good
at what they're supposed to be good at, I'm not really sure,
but I've made a decision and this is the way it goes.
The first to fall is the Corvette. Don't get me wrong.
It offers obscene amounts of performance for relative buttons,
but there is a bit of a whiff of midlife crisis about it.
Next to fall, it pains me to say, is the Dodge Demon.
I absolutely love this car.
I love its single-minded focus on its mission statement
and then how thoroughly they've done the engineering to make it happen.
Let's face it, it's the coolest car here, by an absolute mile.
But the only car I can actually imagine using in Europe and working for me
is this one, the ZL1 1LE.
It is amazing on track. It's usable on road.
It's to be mentioned in the same breath of the 911 GT3 RS.
That's not an overstatement.
And let's not forget, this is half the price of the Porsche.
That's just astonishing