A Grand Design

DIGITAL RETOUCHING: STEVE HEWETT

NOW HERE'S a Corvette after Martha Stewart’s heart. The domestic diva is forever transforming things found around the house into lovelier new things that sit around the house. In these rather tough times, the Corvette team has taken a page from Martha's book, ripped it out, and headed to the garage. By scrounging up some of their best performance hardware, they’ve managed to cobble up a new car that just might be cool enough to warrant resurrection of the storied Grand Sport moniker.

Underneath all the shiny/pretty, it’s a base steel-frame LS3-powered Vette, to which are fitted a mix of Z51 performance package parts (spring rates, closer-ratio manual transmission gearing and shorter axle ratio on the automatic), and Z06 bits (front and rear fascias, hood, anti-roll bars, brake rotors and calipers, wider tires, and the bodywork to cover them). The dry-sump oiling system from the Z06 and ZR1 is also fitted to manual Grand Sports, which means these special motors will now be hand-assembled alongside their big-brother stablemates, the LS7 and LS9 engines in Wixom, Michigan, each by a single technician who'll sign his work. The only major parts they had to tool up were the front fenders—which feature double-gill cove styling and are made of RIM plastic like the base car’s—the rear quarter panels, unique new wheels, and the actual springs and dampers tailored to the GS’s unique weight and characteristics (they ride almost exactly like the old Z51’s.

AN $1195 HERITAGE PACKAGE buys fender hashmark stripes in one of four colors, plus two-tone seats with Grand Sport embroidery on the headrests. Lore has it the original race cars were occasionally identified with such duct-taped hashmarks on the fender in lieu of proper numbers.

The Grand Sport replaces the Z51 in the lineup as the highest-performing “base” car, but it allows folks to enjoy the wide-body stance and presence of a Z06 in a less extreme package that permits open-air motoring in the removable-roof hatchback or convertible body styles. All those Z06 bits boost the price by $4510 over the old Z51, but at $55,720 to start, it’s about 20 grand cheaper than the aluminum-frame 7.0-liter Z06. Customers evidently have been clamoring so loudly for such a package the team expects up to half of all Corvette sales to be Grand Sports. Other new features shared with the rest of the 2010 Corvette lineup include a launchcontrol on manual-trans cars, which assesses the available traction 100 times per second and manages wheelspin to allow any driver to obtain the quickest launch possible under any conditions. Paddle-shifted automatics can now be returned to automatic mode by pressing and holding either “+” paddle. Torch Red is back and, like the rest of the eight Corvette colors, can now be had on any model.

So is the new Grand Sport worthy of the name? Well, the five originals are among the

most highly sought Corvettes extant, and this new one will neither be limited in number nor get its own VIN number sequencing (as the 1996 Grand Sports did, and today’s ZR1s do), so it’s unlikely to set any collector auction records. And some complain that without the 10-percent power bump (official output ratings are unchanged), 1000-car limited-production run, and standard fender hashmark stripes, this new model is less

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“special” than the last GS (though the Grand Sport Registry will welcome 2010 owners). Be that as it may, strap into this rig and whip it like Martha on soufflé day and you’ll find yourself struggling to recall why folks made

COPYRIGHT 2009 GM CORP. USED WITH PERMISSION, GM MEDIA ARCHIVE THE HIGHLY REVERED Grand Sport name is rooted in Chevrolet’s furtive forbidden racing history. General Motors, in lockstep with its Automobile Manufacturers Association cohorts, outlawed factory racing in 1957, but the competitive spirit of folks like Zora ArkusDuntov and his Corvette team is not so easily snuffed out. They’d been quietly designing special race-ready equipment packages like the Z06 (360-horse 327, heavyduty suspension, Al-fi n brakes, posi, and 36-gallon fuel tank) and laundering race-support money through their ad agency Campbell-Ewald. Then the FIA dropped its displacement limit on production-based GTs, and Zora could taste a Le Mans victory. Based on the drubbing his Z06 Sting Rays had already taken from the new Ford-powered Shelby Cobras, he knew winning meant his car needed to shed 1000 pounds, which meant heading back to the drawing boards. The Grand Sport was their answer. A regular, street-legal production Corvette that just happened to be racetrack optimized could surely be sold (at a princely $9200 each in a run of 100-125 for homologation purposes) without running afoul of the racing ban, right? The GS looked a lot like a Sting Ray, but shared very few of its parts: special lightweight frame, ultrathin oriented fi berglass bodywork, disc brakes, and (eventually) a 377-cubic-inch all-aluminum engine with quad sidedraft Webers, all of which helped achieve the target 2000-pound curb weight (roughly 4.1 per horsepower with the 377). Sad to say, the Big Boss—GM board chairman Frederic Donner—caught wind of a clandestine test session in Sebring and pulled the plug. There would be no “production” run, but enough parts existed to make fi ve Grand Sports, all of which went on to race for several years to come—always in the tougher SCCA modifi ed class—with back-door help from Zora and his racing elves. And along the way they managed to earn at least a few delicious victories over Carroll Shelby’s snakes.

such a big deal about the Z06. Okay, sure, the GS is down 69 horsepower (with the $1195 sport exhaust option that practically everybody orders; 75 without it), but on the chicaned Lutzring road course at GM’s proving ground, the immense capability of the huge vented and drilled brakes—sixpiston front, four-piston rear, with a separate pad for each piston—and the impressive bite of the fat Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tires utterly distracts one’s attention from any perceivable horsepower deficit.

Our testing on imperfect, cracked pavement showed consistent stops from 60 mph in 104 feet and from 100 mph in 294, exactly matching those of our first Z06 test car. We didn’t have the opportunity to run a figure eight, but steady-state cornering grip registered at 0.99 g (Chevy is claiming 1.0 g, and possibly in a car that hadn’t been tracked all day an extra 0.01g might be achievable).

StabiliTrac’s competitive driving mode permits nice controlled drifts on the carousel portions and steps in just enough to avert disaster on the hill-cresting curves. The burble and snarl of the X-pipe dual-mode exhaust system (base cars get an H-pipe) seems worth every penny, especially if you stray into the rev limiter, unleashing its angriest brap-brap-brap. Our biggest complaint on the handling circuit was with the shifter, which occasionally hung up in the neverland between third and fifth when going for a quick 2-3 upshift.

Oh, and as for that power ratings? We’re skeptical. The SAE certified horsepower of the machine-built LS3s destined for marriage with an automatic and the handbalanced, manually assembled LS3s that go with the manuals are rated the same, but the engineers winked and admitted that it’s possible more of the Wixom motors just happen to skew toward the top of the tolerance range for output. How better to explain the 0.2-second lead it enjoyed over the Z51 at the 60-mph mark (3.9 versus 4.1 seconds), which widened to 0.3 second and 2 mph at the quarter mile? If you’re thinking it’s the launch control and the improved traction of the wider (335/30ZR19 versus the Z51’s 285/35ZR19s) Eagle F1 Supercars, you should know that the 0-to-30 times were identical, at 1.7 seconds. (Our best Z06 ran 3.5 and 11.5 seconds at 127.1 mpg in the quarter). We were also able to outperform the launch control on the Grand Sport (ZR1s were also on hand for demonstration, and the computer beat every journalist who sampled those beasts), but that doesn’t mean we weren’t mightily impressed with the system. For one thing, it’s incredibly easy to use. Just pop the traction control into competitive driving mode, engage first, floor the gas, and pop the clutch. Revs climb to a level way higher than a pro would launch at, but the computer dithers down to precisely the right amount of slippage faster than most novices could. It’s a boon for bracket racers or anyone who occasionally faces a situation when it just won’t do to flub the launch.

You know, like if Martha encountered one of her Big House buds at a traffic light, tryin’ to start somethin’. ■

POWERTRAIN/CHASSIS DRIVETRAIN LAYOUT Front engine, RWD ENGINE TYPE 90-deg V-8, alum block/heads

VALVETRAIN

OHV, 2 valves/cyl DISPLACEMENT 376.1 cu in/6162 cc COMPRESSION RATIO 10.7:1 POWER (SAE NET) 436 hp @ 5900 rpm* TORQUE (SAE NET) 428 lb-ft @ 4600 rpm* REDLINE 6500 rpm WEIGHT TO POWER 7.6 lb/hp TRANSMISSION 6-speed manual AXLE/FINAL-DRIVE RATIOS 3.42:1/1.92:1 SUSPENSION Control arms, transverse leaf spring, anti-roll bar STEERING RATIO 15.0:1-17.1:1 TURNS LOCK-TO-LOCK 2.5 BRAKES, F;R 14.0-in vented, drilled disc; 13.4-in vented, drilled disc, ABS

WHEELS, F;R 9.0 x 20 in; 10.0 x 20 in cast aluminum

TIRES, F;R

DIMENSIONS WHEELBASE 275/35R18 87Y; 335/30R19 94Y Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar

105.7 in TRACK, F/R 63.5/62.5 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 175.6 x 75.9 x 48.7 in TURNING CIRCLE 37.0 ft CURB WEIGHT 3324 lb WEIGHT DIST., F/R 51/49% SEATING CAPACITY 2 HEADROOM 37.9 in LEGROOM 43.0 in SHOULDER ROOM 55.0 in CARGO VOLUME 22.0 cu ft TEST DATA ACCELERATION TO MPH 0-30 1.7 sec 0-40 2.3 0-50 3.0 0-60 3.9 0-70 4.9 0-80 6.1 0-90 7.7 0-100 8.8 PASSING, 45-65 MPH 1.7 QUARTER MILE 12.2 sec @ 117.0 mph BRAKING, 100-0 MPH 294 ft BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 104 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.99 g (avg) TOP-GEAR REVS @ 60 MPH 1500 rpm CONSUMER INFO BASE PRICE $55,720 PRICE AS TESTED $57,310** STABILITY/TRACTION CONTROL Yes/yes AIRBAGS Dual front, front side BASIC WARRANTY 3 yrs/36,000 miles POWERTRAIN WARRANTY 5 yrs/100,000 miles ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE 5 yrs/100,000 miles FUEL CAPACITY 18.0 gal EPA CITY/HWY ECON 16/26 mpg CO2 EMISSIONS 1.00 lb/mile

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*SAE Certified **1LT tester less equipped than photo car Unleaded premium

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