2023 Chevy Corvette Z06 Will Finally Drop on October 26
Mark your calendars, start your engines, and prepare to argue about whether or not the C8 is a true supercar once more.
Quick recap of the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06: We know pretty much what it looks like and how it sounds, leaving just how fast it is the only mystery. But that'll be resolved soon enough, as General Motors has confirmed the C8 Z06 will be formally revealed on October 26, 2021.
The date was confirmed in a teaser trailer drawing parallels between the race-bred Corvette C8.R and a barely disguised Z06 prototype—the very same one we featured photos of last week. This link isn't a spurious one like that between a NASCAR Cup cars and a Toyota Camry, either; FIA LM GTE rules mandate the C8.R must run a crankshaft and cylinder heads of near identical spec to a production engine. In other words, say hello to dual overhead camshafts, a lightweight flat-plane crank, and an output rumored to be north of 600 horsepower.
In a sense, then, the Z06 will be close to a road-legal track car, in a similar vein to the Porsche 911 GT3. Only, it might be significantly faster than the GT3, maybe even close to the level of the big bad GT2 if an apparent benchmarking program is anything to go by. Whether it actually matches the performance of the ultimate last-gen 911, though, isn't crucial to proving the 2023 Corvette Z06 is as GM bills it: A true supercar.
After all, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and hoovers up breadcrumbs like a duck, is it a supercar? No, it's a duck, while the Z06 will sure look, sound, and go like a supercar—and hell, option it up and it'll probably be priced like one too. Get your bench racing shoes on and prepare for the semantic argument to end all semantic arguments on October 26.
Got any inside info on the 2023 Z06? Slip it to me here: james@thedrive.com
