2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Coupe with ZTK performance package.
DETROIT – General Motors' The latest Chevrolet Corvette will be the most powerful version of the American sports car ever produced – and that’s not all.
The Detroit-based automaker announced Thursday that the 2025 Chevy Corvette ZR1 will be powered by a twin-turbocharged 5.5-liter V8 engine that produces over 1,000 horsepower and 1,000 Nm of torque for the first time in a Corvette, putting it among the supercars that can cost several hundred thousand dollars.
“This thing pulls like a freight train,” said Tadge Juechter, Corvette's chief engineer since 2006, during a media event. “We expect this car to be essentially the fastest car we've ever built by far.”
The most powerful Corvette to date was GM's last ZR1 for the 2019 model year. It produced 755 hp and 850 Nm of torque with a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine.
2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Coupe with ZTK performance package.
GM
Juechter said the new ZR1's top speed will be “comfortably” higher than the Corvette's current top speed of 212 mph.
GM said pricing for the 2025 Corvette ZR1, including an additional “ZTK” performance package, would be announced closer to the vehicle's start of production next year. The 2019 Corvette ZR1 started at $121,000.
The ZR1 joins GM's so-called “Corvette family,” which also includes the “everyone's sports car” Corvette Stingray, which starts at around $70,000, the hybrid E-Ray, and the Z06 race car, which costs around $112,000.
“We're pleased with how things are going. This is the next step in that whole approach,” said Brad Franz, Chevy's head of marketing for cars and crossovers.
GM has previously confirmed that an all-electric Corvette is coming, but has not given a timeframe. A Corvette SUV has also been under consideration for several years. Franz declined to comment on either vehicle.
2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Coupe with ZTK Performance Package (left) and 2025 Chevrolet ZR1.
Wall Street analysts have said GM could better leverage the Corvette brand by expanding models and, to some extent, sales. In late 2019, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said a Corvette sub-brand could be worth between $7 billion and $12 billion.
About 34,500 Chevrolet Corvette vehicles have been sold in each of the last two years. In 2019, the automaker redefined the iconic sports car, replacing the front-engine design with a mid-engine design to improve performance and handling.
Models like the ZR1 are small-production vehicles designed to generate interest in the brand and entice drivers to purchase cheaper Corvettes.
“The ZR1 is the top model. It's the flagship. It's going to draw a lot of attention to the car and actually help sell the other models,” Juechter said. “It's part of the ongoing business strategy to keep the product relevant over a relatively long life cycle.”
2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
GM
Other high-performance models have helped push the Corvette's average transaction price up to around $106,000.
According to Franz, further price increases are expected with the introduction of the ZR1 and increasing sales of the track-focused Z06, whose average buyer has a household income of $311,000.
Additional sales of the hybrid Corvette, which starts at about $105,000, should also help boost Corvette sales. GM plans to increase production of the E-Ray to 10 percent of total production capacity from the current 2 to 3 percent, Franz said.
The performance trickle-down effect has also contributed to the fact that the only plant that produces Corvettes, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been operating in two shifts since 2019.
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