When General Motors trademarked the “Zora” name for use of “motor land vehicles, namely automobiles,” it was easy to draw a comparison to what Ferrari did with the Enzo, the first name of the company’s founder and what the company named the predecessor to the new LaFerrari. Zora Arkus-Duntov, after all, is largely seen as being the father of the Corvette over 60 years.
According to Car & Driver, the 2017 model year will bring about the introduction of the new Chevrolet Corvette Zora ZR1, which will be the first ever mid-engine Corvette. This comes from insider information that indicates that the next generation Corvette will be “revolutionary”, and it is hard to come up with an aspect of the C8 Corvette that would be more revolutionary than a mid-engine design. This remarkable piece of American automotive machinery is expected to wear the “Zora” name in addition to the ZR1 badging to pay tribute to Zora Arkus-Duntov – the man credited as being the father of both the Corvette as we know it today and the inventor of the Chevy small block V8.
Duntov’s goal in the 1960s was to turn the Chevrolet Corvette into a car that would compete with any sports car in the world and while the Corvette from the past 50+ years has often been a leading force in the world of automotive performance – the mid-engine 2017 Corvette Zora ZR1 will take that to the next level. Considering that the C6 ZR1 was nearly unbeatable when pitted against other production cars from around the world, a ZR1 that GM thinks is good enough to wear the Zora name will surely be a total showstopper.
Image courtesy of CARandDRIVER
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.