Chevy Corvette ZR1X Beats Dodge Demon 170 With 8.675-Second Quarter-Mile Time
The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X has claimed the title of quickest American car ever. At least down a drag strip.
Chevrolet has released the official acceleration numbers for its 1,250 hybrid super-Corvette and they blow away the competition — past and present.
A standard ZR1X hit 60 mph in 1.68 seconds on its way to an 8.675 quarter-mile time at US 131 Motorsports Park in Michigan on a surface prepped with traction compound. The 0-60 mph time comes up short of the 1,025 hp 2023 Dodge Demon 170’s 1.66-second record, but the Demon’s quarter-mile was 8.91 seconds, and it needed drag radials to do it.
The ZR1X was wearing its standard Michelin PS4S tires and on an unprepped surface was able to put down a 1.89 second 0-60 mph time and an 8.99-second quarter-mile. Dodge never released official times for the Demon from an unprepped surface, but independent tests suggest they would be slower than the ZR1X’s. Chevy’s numbers are from when the vehicle starts moving and do not subtract the one foot of rollout common in 0-60 mph tests. Dodge used rollout for the Demon’s drag strip times.
The electric 1,234 hp Lucid Air Sapphire’s published performance figures match the ZR1X’s 0-60 mph time at 1.89 seconds and beat it in the quarter-mile with a 8.95-second run. However, a Lucid spokesman confirmed to American Cars And Racing that the numbers were also achieved on a prepped surface without subtracting one foot of rollout, like the ZR1X’s fastest run.
While that all gets a little cloudy, what’s for certain is that the ZR1X is quicker than any other Corvette. GM’s internal 0-60 mph figures are 2.3 seconds for the 1,064 hp ZR1, 2.5 seconds for the E-Ray, 2.6 seconds for the Z06 and 2.9 seconds for the Stingray. All models were equipped with their respective top performance packages when achieving these times.
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While the ZR1 has been grabbing records at tracks around the world, the all-wheel-drive ZR1X nipped it at the one that matters most: the Nürburgring. The ZR1X’s 6:49.275 time beat the ZR1’s 6:50.763 time on the same day, but the two lined up as the fastest American cars to lap the 12.9-mile circuit.
Both bested the Ford Mustang GTD’s 6:52.072 time, but neither officially broke the Ford’s record for American production cars. That’s because the Chevy’s aren’t sold in Europe, so they were classified as Prototypes/Pre-Production Vehicles.
It’s a technicality, but that’s what records are all about, right? To be fair to the Corvettes, they were both driven by Chevy’s development engineers, while Ford sent its pro driver Dirk Müller, who has won the 24 Hours of Nürburgring race, for the Mustang GTD test.
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This story has been updated with additional information