While covering the Barrett-Jackson auction this weekend, specifically the $1 million purchase of the first "retailable" 2009 Corvette ZR1, we did a quick Google search for the 2009 Corvette ZR1 in order to pull up our old story on the new super-Vette from the General. When the results came up, we noticed something rather odd. No, not Motor Trend being the first result — we mean, come on, they're Motor fuckin' Trend — the fact that Jalopnik is merely a step behind them says little about us and more about Motor Trend's inability to leverage their brand name on the internet — and about how low they've let their brand name go. But we digress. What was weird was that they've got their "exclusive" "scoop" on the ZR1 set up in the "roadtest" section of their site. What? Do they know something we don't? Was there some super-secret drive of the new ZR1 they partook in with Chevy? Our sources at Chevy say no. So what's the reason?
Perhaps the magazine all about the Trend in all-things Motor was merely trying to game the Google system. Basically, if someone does a search for something like "2009 corvette zr1 road test," in order to figure out if they want to buy a super car like the new 2009 Corvette ZR1, and to read about what an actual road test in Zee Really fast 1 would be like, they'd end up with Motor Trend right on top of the search results. This despite not actually having a road test for the prospective reader to read on the new 'vette. Not to smack them for it — just stating what we're seeing — or are we missing something here? [Google Search]