You Can Buy This LS-Powered, Corvette-Based, Jeep-Faced Track Toy Right Now
What do you even call this? A Wranglorvette? A Jeevrolet?
Grafting the front ends of Jeep Wranglers onto Chevrolet Corvettes is apparently a thing now, for better or worse.
Unlike the tragic example of such a vehicle we ran across in October, not all executions of Jeepvettes are terrible, and some are even sort of neat. One such vehicle surfaced for sale in Texas on Monday, listed on auction site Bring A Trailer, where its owner tells the tale of its construction.
As the story goes, this car's owner picked up a 2001 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 with 95,000 miles and a salvage title, due to significant roof damage. They then stripped the body, dashboard, and interior from the car, and reinforced what was left of the 'Vette's underpinnings with a functional roll cage. From there, the owner wrapped the bodywork from a Jeep Wrangler CJ over the Corvette, but not before making significant modifications to the car's 5.7-liter LS6 V8.
The engine inhales air through a modified intake, digests it using an altered ECU, and expels it again through long-tube headers and a custom exhaust. Horsepower resulting from the process goes through an LS7 clutch and flywheel to the rear axle. At the crank, factory-fresh Z06s of this vintage made 385 horsepower. Some of those may have disappeared over the years, but some may have come back with the aid of the engine's mods, so 400 horsepower isn't an unreasonable estimate.
All that power combined with a curb weight of just 2,450 pounds and 275-millimeter Bridgestone Potenza RE71 tires on all four corners would make it a handful, were it not for custom-valved Bilstein shock absorbers and a ZR1 front sway bar installed to keep handling tight. Its brakes have too been upgraded to those from a C6 Z06, and the ABS system remains functional, though the traction control does not.
All these mods make this car quite the track toy, which is precisely what its builder has used it for. The CJ-Z06 (as its owner calls it) has accumulated around 500 miles since its completion, much of it on autocross courses. It is offered for sale with a set of spare tires, the Corvette's salvage title, a clean Jeep title, and plates registered to the Jeep.
Its high bid sits at $5,200 as of this article's publishing. There's no guarantee it'll rise much further before the auction's end next Monday, but to the right person, it may be worth five figures. Jeeps retain their value well, after all.
