ENGINES OF CHANGE

With the 1990 Corvette ZR-1, Chevrolet Created a Giant-Slaying Tradition

- ERIC TINGWALL

In the 1980s, Chevrolet Corvette engineers received an assignment as ambitious as it was simple: Build the world’s best-performing production car. They delivered the 1990 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, a monstrously powerful and furiously quick car that kept pace with exotic supercars costing tens of thousands of dollars more. Sound familiar? The ZR-1 transformed America’s sports car into a world-beating triumph of engineering for the first time—but definitely not the last. The same story has repeated with every subsequent Corvette generation. The ZR-1’s tradition lives on today in the 2023 Corvette Z06.

General Motors bet big on electronics and advanced technology in the 1980s as it looked to put the energy crisis, performance-choking emissions regulations, and Japanese brands in its rearview mirror. Under chairman Roger B. Smith, the company bought Hughes Aircraft for more than $5 billion in 1985, banking on head-up displays, in-car navigation, and radar-based collision avoidance systems to revolutionize future models. The original Corvette ZR-1 represented a different tactic of the same strategy. Building the world’s quickest, fastest, and best-handling sports car would reassert GM’s engineering prowess and the Corvette’s credibility.