jmc5

6 months and 8000 miles ago, I traded a 2007 Z06 on a 2010 GTR.

When I was making the decision on which way to go, there was quite a
number of debates about the GTR, could it really run the numbers people
claim for it, could it defy physics, and so on.

I thought I would provide my experience and thoughts as a follow up.

A quick summary, because this will be long, and I suspect many here will
not care about the details and won't read the whole thing. Yes, the GTR is
faster than it should be. On the track, it shines. On the street, I don't
like it. Enough so that I wish I had tried a ZR1 instead.

What is driving the GTR like? The interior is quite nice. It feels like
a step up from the Z06 interior. The electronics in the GTR are quite good,
its a very "computer" car. Everything is monitored and measured, and it
can all be displayed in various forms on the cars lcd panel. You actually
do need to read the owners manual. Initially, you'll be amazed by the
dual clutch transmission. When you think about what it is actually doing,
its an incredible piece of work. The car surges a bit when backing up or
rolling out under light throttle, this is the clutches engaging and
disengaging. Early on you find the car likes being on the gas, it smoothes
out everything if you're applying more throttle. This ends up being a
theme, you're rarely wrong to just use more throttle. The car is geared
really, really short. Under light throttle it will upshift into 5th or 6th
gear just driving around in a parking lot. When the transmission shifts
up, its very fast. The engine is fairly quiet, and doesn't suffer from
turbo lag, although its powerband is very top heavy. The dual clutch
transmission has two modes, manual and auto. In manual mode, you control
what gear the car is in via the steering wheel paddle shifters, the auto
mode is exactly what it sounds like. Auto mode drives like you've been
driving for the last few seconds. If you've been driving in traffic, it
upshifts quickly, and aims for good gas milage. If you've had the throttle
mashed, its actually quite good at holding gears and keeping the engine
in boost. Quite good for a computer, but not as good as you would be,
because you know what you're *about* to do, not what you just did.

Lining up with a GTR at a stoplight is bringing a knife to a gunfight.
If you didn't bring your drag radials, and warm them up before, and you're
not using a screen name of "Ranger", well, you're going to get smoked.
If I looked back and didn't see drag radials, I'd not even bother with
the launch control.

The GTR rolls out what feels like a fairly mildly slow 5 - 10 feet as
the engine comes up on boost, but its almost always in the lead already.
The engine hits ~3.5k rpm and starts making real power, the launch gets
serious at this point. The back tires break loose, the AWD indicator shows
power moving forward, and you can feel the front tires grab and pull.
Second gear happens just about the time you've crossed the intersection,
first is just enough to get the car moving. The upshifts are instantaneous
and the car never falls off boost. At any sane stoplight to stoplight
speed, the GTR is done and on the brakes long before you've gotten traction
and started to play catch up.

Lining up with a (stock) GTR on the freeway is taking candy from a baby.
Want to really **** off a GTR owner? Pull up next to him on a roll, get
his attention and instantly mash the throttle. A toyota camry could pull
out a lead for a second or two. A mustang would make it a few seconds. A
Z06 doing a 6 to 2 gear drop and leaving is never going to get caught.
The GTR's achilles heel is downshifting. I can easily ask for 6 gears
down via the steering wheel paddle shifter before it can manage two
downshifts. And when you're at full throttle, the car is never going to
downshift to an optimum gear, you're just going to have to live with
4th gear if you get caught off guard.

You'll see a lot of videos of GTR's doing okay on freeway roll races,
and the one key thing about all of them is the GTR driver knew they were
about to be in a race, and had time to get the car ready to go. Give
the GTR driver 5 seconds to get into the right gear and they can put up
a pretty good fight. Don't miss a gear.

The GTR forums when asked about this will usually say something along
the lines of "well, don't drive around in auto mode, dummy!" And, they're
right. If you drive around in manual, with the engine spooled up to the
top half of the powerband all the time, you'll be ready to go when that
once in a blue moon car pulls up and decides to challenge you.

You'll get really crappy gas milage though. I didn't think I'd notice
the gas milage difference between the Z06 and GTR, but I do. Neither car
is intended for this, but the Z06 gets noticeably better gas milage.

The GTR is quite easy to drive quickly at the racetrack as well. In fact,
my first half day at the track was spent muttering "DAMN this thing is
fast!" At the track, you're always in the top half of the powerband, and
the turbo motor just feels awesomely powerful. This is the only point at
which I felt like the GTR motor compared well to the LS7. For reasons
I'll go into later, I'm often complaining about the GTR motor, its in the
wrong gear, its got poor throttle response, it feels gutless, blah, blah,
blah. At the racetrack, its flawless. The combination of the computer
control of the car and transmission, and that motor are incredible.
You can downshift or upshift midcorner and not upset the car. There will
always be instantaneous power available, and more than you expect. The
power just never stops, the dual clutch transmission pops off upshifts
down the straights and you can actually see the little bobbles as the
other cars shift manually and you make that extra little bit of distance
on them.

As I mentioned earlier, the GTR likes to be on the gas, and especially
so at the track. If you're feeling a little unsettled through turn 2,
try adding in more throttle… Bingo, now you're going faster and the car
is giving feedback that says "happy!". GTR's like to push at the limit,
you can't easily dial the car from push to oversteer as you can in the
Z06. I have experimented with adding some throttle at what feels like
the "push limit" of the car, and it seemed to actually work, adding speed
and feeling less like the car was about to run wide into the grass. There
may be an entire level of additional speed available that I've not
yet ventured into. If so, my thoughts on the Z06 ultimately being faster
than the GTR at the track are probably wrong. The brakes were never a
problem, and the factory tires were also quite impressive. You don't
feel the weight of the car. I think the GTR is supposed to be 600lbs
heavier than a Z06, and you wouldn't ever guess it from behind the
steering wheel. The GTR always gives good feedback on what its doing,
I would rate it better than the Z06 at this. I eventually learned to
tell what the Z06 was doing, but there was a long learning curve, and
it always felt a little vague about just how hard the rear tires were
working in some of the turns. There was a lot of trust involved in adding
gas, with more than a little fear that 505 hp might just bite. That said,
I think the Z06 is a more rewarding car to drive at the track. You can
balance it with the throttle, and when you've nailed a turn, there is
no doubt that you did it, and the computer wasn't driving. As far as
I could tell, the GTR never intervened on my behalf at the track, but
I don't actually know what magic was being performed in the AWD diffs
and other computer controlled parts that might have made my driving
seem better than it really was. My one complaint about the GTR at the
track would be the exhaust note. Its quiet enough that you can't easily
tell what the motor is doing, and I'd like a little more audible
feedback of where I was at.

I'd say you'd need to be one notch up on a GTR driver to match their
speed in a Z06, and a real expert to outperform them. The average
person is going to lap faster in a GTR, hands down.

If you've read up to here (what, probably one person read this far?)
you'd think I'd have a keeper. Unfortunately, most of my time is not
driving at the racetrack. As a daily driver car, the GTR works just
fine. Put it auto mode, point it at the road, and go. It's a little
rough, even with the shocks dialed to the soft mode. It actually has
more interior rattles than the Z06. It has a more accommodating interior
than the Z06, I suspect that is where some of the extra 600lbs comes
from. There is more space, and more gizmos. The nav system is quite
good. I didn't use the nav in the Z06, I do in the GTR.

If you like attention, definitely the GTR is the hands down winner.
I never got comments on the Z06, the GTR gets questions all the time,
pictures snapped, etc.

However… As a high dollar sports car, I don't think the GTR cuts it.
The way I tried to explain it to a friend was "I'm driving a 485hp
car, and its gutless". If you don't drive around in manual mode, looking
for a race all the time, you're going to find that the car just can't
do anything quickly. That brief opening in traffic? Sorry, you can't
get there. The line of 8 cars you want to blast on the freeway onramp?
Sorry, by the time the car wakes up and starts actually putting the
power down, you don't have time to pass them safely any more.

The same combination of engine, computer, and dual clutch transmission
that is so incredible at the racetrack is a fail at street driving.
The engine is in the bottom half of its powerband, and not really
making much power or very responsive. The transmission is in the wrong
gear, and can't get to the right gear any time soon.

Even worse are the little "glitches" where the fact that the computer
is COMPLETELY in charge really show through. Early on I discovered that
the throttle is just a suggestion to the computer. Every morning as I
drive to work, there is a stop sign I need to turn left at. You approach
it at 20 - 25mph, stop, usually its clear, and pull out. Sometimes if
there is traffic, you need to go quickly, or not at all. The problem is
if the car was in 3rd or 4th as you come up to the stop, the car is
downshifting. Now you see a brief opening, and say "go now". You've got
the throttle 1/3 open, and NOTHING. So you give the car more gas. Still
NOTHING. Finally, I've got the thing completely floored, and we're at
idle going nowhere. Also, my window to safely pull out into traffic has
closed, so I am backing off the throttle, intending to wait this out.
Of course, now the car has finished downshifting, notes that I had it
floored and says "Oh crap, go NOW!", so I lurch out into traffic like a
total jerk, cutting people off.

Another annoyance that will crop up sooner or later. Back out of the
driveway in a small hurry, say you're late for work. Step on the brake
lightly, and pop the car in drive. Let off the brake and step on the
gas. If you didn't completely kill all the rearward motion of the car,
enjoy sitting there with the tach bouncing off the rev limiter. Apparently
the computer safeguards prevent the clutches from engaging while the
car is rolling backwards, but the gas pedal isn't also safeguarded.

A great deal of these flaws wouldn't be a problem if the dual clutch
could downshift quicker. If it could pop down gears as fast as I could
ask for them, this review would be a LOT different.

This is my longest post to Corvette Forum ever, I think . It probably
won't be read by many, but I hope it provides some food for thought for
anyone else that might be considering purchase of a GTR.

stroked250

Great writeup and interesting read. I see GTRs around here and they are odd, yet good looking at the same time. They are big cars but do their job really well. I think they will blend in with the future design of cars and the vette will become more of the head-turner.

Both are awesome cars, it just depends what your wants/needs are at the time!

Maybe someday I can afford both!

gripforce-c6

Great write up. In fact, I too went from modded Z06 to GTR a few
years back and never looked back. Both have pros and cons however
GTR came out on top for me and that's why she is still here with me.

VicCaerter

interesting read. Its nice to be able to afford such luxuries in life.

miwung

awesome write up bro. I like the GTR I echo Stroked. I wish I could afford both

mark1107

Dude great write up. I appreciate you putting yourself out there for us to review your ride. I always though about one, but still like the Z better. Your review made me happy about my purchase. My Z is a daily driver and Im happy driving it every day. I know most of the Japanes cars has this passive aggressive style to them. Most are understated, but can go through wide power bands. I'm a meat & potatoes Midwestern guy who loves his raw displacement. (I'd love to get a ZR1.)

Mark

longdaddy

well written. i am looking at buying a new track car this winter, both C6Z and R35 are pretty high on the list along with a few other options and this post was more helpful than all other "GT-R vs Chevy" threads I have seen here combined, nice work.

Hirohawa

Awesome write up. Really enjoyed the whole thing.

I always feel this type of feedback is missing whenever a car is reviewed as they only have it for a few days and you never get a real impression of what it is like to live with it as a daily driver.

jswatek

yes thanks for the write up. I know how you feel with the whole computer on the street ordeal. I felt the same way about my M3 SMG. Great on the track, terrible for every day driving.

USMCFRC

Wow! Excellent write up and an entertaining read. Thank you.

Kurac

thanks for sharing

TicketMeRedZ06

Seems to be a well thought out post. I enjoyed the read. Completely different animal, but got a Prius from a rental company at one point and they do the same thing from a stop. I love your line "the gas pedal is just a suggestion" to the computer. Prius, same thing. From a dead stop push the pedal for a quick turn and you are gonna need a minute for the car to think about what you asked it to do.

Thanks for the write up!

C5 Frank

1st off.... Yes I read the whole thing Thanks for posting it. I have always liked the GTR and have even thought about getting one in the past. I have however come to the conclusion that for me the Z06 is still the best all around car for my needs that I can afford. I hope to some day get a ZR1.... but with this economy, probably wont happen any time soon.
Thanks again for the post!!!

jschindler

Very interesting and informative write-up. I have no interest in one simply because it does not offer a true manual transmission - which for me is a must-have for my weekend "toy". Its interesting that the transmission is the one thing that seems to be the problem for you.

MTIRC6Z

Yep I read the WHOLE post and appreciate the time you took to make it.

Oddly, I was thinking of getting a GTR as a second/winter car, no intention of racing or modding, just every day street use. Now you have me thinking that might not be such a good idea...thanks

Cheers, Paul.

Red C6 Z06

Whoa! That is long! I don't have time for that. Sorry. It (the GTR) is still an ugly car.

arwun

I didn't read the whole post... Can you write another one with pictures?

PA Z06

Thanks Great write up, Read the whole thing. I would consider one since I live in a snow state. Get rid of 2 cars and just have one that I can daily drive

Rez90

GREAT write up. I want a GTR....badly. But i won't give up my Z06 for one. When i have the $....some day.....i'll have both.....hopefully.

Again. Great write up.

VetteVinnie

I read the whole thing.

Nice write-up. Yes, the GTR had some allure for awhile, and I do stare whenever I encounter one, but there's something about being able to turn off all the granny controls and drive the car that makes the Z06 much, much more interesting to me and more fun to drive. I don't ever see myself getting a GTR.