“Holy crap, that’s fast!” You know you’re doing something right as a performance car manufacturer when four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon says that about your latest machine. Those are the exact words that came out of Gordon’s mouth when he watched the 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 rocket past him during the lead-up to hitting 233 mph.
As automakers tend to do, Chevrolet under-promised when it released the preliminary figures of the C8 version of the ZR1 in July. Its DOHC 5.5-liter V8 (aka LT7) has a flat-plane crankshaft and twin turbos, which help it blast out out 1,064 horsepower and 828 lb-ft of torque. “Corvette ZR1 boasts a GM-estimated top speed of over 215 mph on the racetrack and will dispatch the quarter mile with a GM-estimated sub-10-second time.” And boy, did it over-deliver. Chevy recently took the ZR1 out to the High-Speed Oval Track at ATP Automotive Testing Papenburg in Germany and set a two-way average speed of 233 mph on the northbound and southbound straightaways.
That makes the C8 ZR1 faster than the 755-horsepower C7 ZR1 by a substantial margin; that front-engine, aggressively styled beast maxed out at an average of 212 mph on the same track back in 2018. It also earns the newest ZR1 the titles of “the fastest car GM has ever produced” and “the fastest car ever built by an American auto manufacturer,” according to Chevrolet.
So if Jeff Gordon was just a stunned observer of the ZR1, who was piloting the road missile? Perhaps another legendary racer? Nope. It was none other than Mark Reuss, the president of General Motors. He managed to reach 233 with an engineer analyzing data in the passenger seat. “Setting the top-speed record in the Corvette ZR1 is a true triumph for Corvette and for Chevrolet, and also an exhilarating, surreal experience for me personally. With the current generation’s switch to mid-engine, we knew the outstanding performance and balance made this a real possibility. To go over there and get it done is a testament to the power of ZR1, and to the incredibly talented team that developed and built it.”
To watch the preparations for the top speed run and the fateful drive itself, check out the short documentary below.
