Justin went out first in the ZR1 and laid down six hot laps for our data junkies, three with the PTM in mode 5 (see sidebar), the most aggressive setting, and three more with every handling aid turned off. The results startled us. Mr. Bell cracked off a 1:29.69 around Big Willow's 2.5 miles with the PTM in Race Mode, and 1:30.11 with everything in the off position. This confirms Chevrolet's assertion that PTM will make a good driver go faster. Said Justin, "If I had 10 laps and was told it didn't matter if the car came back in one piece, I bet I could have gone faster without." Still, the results are the results. The Porsche Turbo, meanwhile, was a good deal slower, with Justin's best time being 1:33.31. That's over 3.6 seconds behind the ZR1. After we told Justin his times and the discrepancy between the two, he commented, "That's not even the same class of car." But before your flag-waving heart explodes with pride, Bell said he'd rather own the Porsche.
The Porsche Turbo is a world-class car. There's nothing it does poorly, and, as far as we can tell, it has no weak points, busted scrolls notwithstanding. Some of my colleagues prefer the Porsche to the ZR1, saying the Turbo is the better all-around car, less brassy and ostentatious, and thereby better suited for adults. The rest of us are apparently more intimately in touch with our inner child, because we feel the Turbo is a tad...dull. Can a car that hits 60 mph in 3 seconds be dull? No, but in comparison to the screaming banshee thrills doled out by the ZR1 every time you bury the go-pedal, the Porsche felt stodgy. In fact, when we ran the Turbo against the Audi R8 V-10 and the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, the only real gripe concerning the Porsche was that it's a little...dull.
The ZR1, on the other hand, is a hot mess of excitement sitting on four big chrome wheels. The noise is lascivious; the looks are sinister bordering on subversive; and the way it rockets down the road with the profligate torque almost overwhelming the rubber with every shift is habit-forming. On the other hand, the ZR1's build quality is suspicious; the fuel consumption is sinful; and the seats are, as always, terrible for corner-filled driving. Still, just sitting in the best-ever Corvette is an event, never mind the gallons of blood that start pumping through your system when you press the starter button, or the foot-wide smile that appears when you shift into second gear at full throttle.
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Back to reality for a moment: You can't go wrong with either supercar. They both give you something that 99 percent of the other cars on earth simply can't, and I for one would be thrilled to own either. The Porsche did break, so maybe this comparison gets an asterisk. And maybe next time Stuttgart shows up with a car more up to the gauntlet dropped by the ZR1, like the RWD 620 horsepower GT2 RS. Until then...the Porsche Turbo is an incredibly potent and precise scientific achievement, but the Corvette ZR1 is a fever dream.
1ST PLACE: CHEVROLET CORVETTE ZR1
We're still red-eyed, white-knuckled, and blue in the face over GM's most powerful super-duper car.
2ND PLACE: PORSCHE 911 TURBO
The thinking man's supercar and dragstrip missile fails to tug at our heartstrings. It's flawless to a fault.
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests...1_turbo_comparison/results.html#ixzz107dVCZB9
boy would I love to own one hell I'd love to just go for a ride in it.
