2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06: The Fantastic Details
The 2015 Corvette Z06 produces the most downforce of not only any car ever produced by General Motors, but by any car ever tested by General Motors. These are the little areas where the General has made amazing leaps and gains.
While numbers for the actual amount of downforce have not been released yet, there are small details all over the car that let you know just how aggressive it is. Let's take a closer look from the front to the back.
For engineers, the Z06 is all about reducing parasitic drag while increasing useful downforce to keep the trackiest Corvette glued to the road and/or track. At the front, a few things will strike you. First is just how wide this is. The Z06 is two inches wider in the front, three inches in the rear. In fact, the front fender flares have their own fender flares.
Cue the Xzibit jokes now.
In addition, the Z07 package includes these wicked canards off the front splitter to help channel air up and over those massive flares, thereby increasing downforce.
As the air runs along the side, it's channeled by the protruding carbon fiber sills, that continue to help direct the air just where it's needed.
Something interesting you'll notice is the little scoop on top of those rear air ducts. Originally, that was a snorkel meant to get as much air in to cool the trans as possible. But in the wind tunnel, engineers noticed that air was actually coming up the side of the car and washing over the snorkel. Instead of letting that go to waste, the scoop was redesigned in order to grab the air that was coming in from the side.
Out back, Z07 equipped Z06s have an adjustable wicker bill that can be moved up and down about an inch to increase downforce. The wicker is clear for a very good reason. In the higher settings, it actually starts to impede the view out of the rear window. Chevrolet also wants to see the aftermarket get involved with the rear wing. If you look, there are un-utilized mounting points on it for a larger or more aggressive wicker. Track day fiends could be running something much larger than the car is already equipped with.
On the bottom of the rear end, the black bumper piece is carried over from the Stingray. But with the car being three inches wider than the Stingray, there is a little notch near the lower vents. This is where the Stingray ends and the Z06 ends.
There aren't any numbers yet on the exact amount of downforce that the new Z06 will produce, but according to Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter in our live Q&A, it will be far more than the last gen Z06 or ZR1 made. That'll make this thing more of a monster