Originally Posted by ATC399

It might he's in WA state...lol...Great color...Enjoy The Super Beast

Originally Posted by JMB

Well I picked up the car and unfortunately only had the opportunity to drive it 8 miles home from the Dealer in the dark and rain at night because I had to fly out of town the next day but I'll give you my initial impressions of the C7Z based on a very limited exposure. My 2011 Z06 was my daily driver for 3-1/2 years so I racked up 54K+ miles on it so needless to say I am VERY familiar with the C6Z for comparative purposes. Here's a pic of my new bride waiting for me:



Here's a picture the next day in daylight just as I was leaving for the airport:



Just to level set, the car is DSOM non-Z07, 3LZ, M7, Stage 2 Aero (CFZ), dual carbon roof/clear roof, carbon dash, carbon flash exterior mirrors and hood stripe

Exterior Styling:
Of course the style is brand new and this is the first 2015 Z06 that I have seen in person but just let me say "WOW"! The first thing that I noticed are what I call the very sharp lines of the C7 styling compared to the C6. Everywhere I look I see evidence of these sharp lines along the tops of the fenders/quarters, hood, etc. Personally I like sharper lines because to me todays "typical" auto's have very smoothed body lines primarily for Aero CoD considerations and a lot of cars just look to much the same. I relish the days of my youth in the 1960’s when you could distinguish ever car and every year because they all looked different, not like today’s offerings from all Manufacturers. I really like sharp lines because they remind me of my favorite jet Fighter the F117 Stealth Fighter which is about as cool of an ultra high performance plane as they come! The body lines appear very well proportioned and quite frankly I didn't even notice the Spat's on the front fenders that have caused some people grief.

The other thing that I will say as a first impression was how "exotic" and "racecar like" the car looks...it REALLY is a stand out. My analogy here is that any woman with decent figure looks awesome in a form fitting T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, however, when that hot girl that all of the women hate shows up with a black slinky form fitting short dress or skirt in high heels and the room goes silent with all eyes suddenly shifting to her (men and women alike!) that’s how I feel the new Z06 looks just sitting there.....IT'S HOT! There wasn't a soul at the dealershhio that just wouldn't stop commenting about the car. I had to stop and fill the car at a local gas station (my Sales Agent told me that no one would drive my car off of the lot including him until I arrived and he kept his promise!) and I received a similar reception at the local Union 76 Mini-Mart where a Suburu Sales Agent just couldn't stop admiring the car along with the Counter Person inside the Store. Just to be fair the agent was going to fill the car and I told him no, I would so he gave me a voucher to fill it for free. I'll have to give the nod to the new C7 over the C6 for me on styling.

Interior:
I have never sat in a C7 so this was my first time sitting in one! I bought my C6Z the same way, never sat in one before either! I am 6'-3" and 215 lbs so I am not a small person by any stretch. As I entered the interior the very first thing that I noticed was that the flat-bottomed steering wheel did just what it was intended to do...allow guys like me with a 34" long inseam get into the car and not wrestle my legs to clear the steering wheel and the wheel was not in an up position...it was left just like where it was when the last person drove it. This feature was awesome! I did, however, feel that the interior had more of a "cramped feel" to it than the C6. Now maybe I felt this way because of how the dash wrapped around me, the tighter feel of the seats or a lower roofline...I'm not sure but again, this was my initial impression. And when I say “cramped”, this wasn’t bad thing, it just felt smaller by a bit than the C6Z where in reality it may be the exact same size or even larger but this wasn’t my impression. After I got home my neighbor came over and sat on the passenger side and made the same unsolicited comment though. The seats did feel nice and firm with the sides offering plenty of support (I have the standard seats.) The dash center is clearly way different than the C6 and will take some getting used to since there seems to be so many things going on and so many settings to look through. The leather on the door panels was readily apparent and the quality of materials did seem to give the car a more luxurious feel (albeit at a severe weight penalty! The car had a whopping 4 miles on it and the gas level was below empty (it was on fumes!). This surprised me because everything that I have ever read says that these cars are filled with 5 gallons of 93 octane from the Factory! Well mine certainly wasn’t….I put just under 17 gallons of gas into it at the gas station!) Interior Styling I’d give the nod again to the C7.

The other item that struck me about the sizing of the C7 interior was that when I took my foot off of the clutch pedal and placed it to the left side that it BARELY cleared the pedal and quite frankly this was a little concerning because it just felt too tight compared to the C6 (I was wearing the same tennis shoes that I would drive the C6Z with. I also noticed the tighter quarters with my left foot driving below. Interior visibility looking out the car to the rear is less due to the rear hatch window.

Sound System
I immediately noticed how much better the stereo sounded even with the settings in the “no gain” positions for the bass, mid and treble! There was even a little bit of bass at low volumes something that the C6 never had. The radio appears to only show 4 station presets as opposed to 6 and personally I prefer more rather than less and maybe there is a way to change this, I’ll have to look closer. But due to the improved sound quality (at least initially) the C7 gets the nod here.

Driving
When I pushed the “start” button and fired up the LT4 it came to life but the exhaust note didn’t quiet seem to have the same “Authority” of the LS7…certainly like due to lower compression ratio and smaller cam. Of course my 2011 does have the x-pipe and I ran it with no fuse and maybe there is a way to “tweak” the C7Z exhaust settings but clearly the C6 definitely gets the nod here.

It was pouring down rain so I knew that driving wasn’t going to enable much of a comparison. Based on my limited reading I put the car in “Track mode” to ensure that the exhaust would hopefully stay louder rather than quieter! The C7 has an electric parking brake button located on the console so in order to move the car with the e-brake on you have to depress the brake pedal to either engage or disengage the e-brake…for some reason this seems a bit clumsy but I don’t have a frame of reference for how other manufacturer’s do this so maybe they’re all like this. Navigating through the parking lot the feel of the clutch pedal felt very similar to the C6 when comparing the amount of pressure required to press and release. Granted it was dark outside which never helps but interior visibility looking to the rear feels more limited so thank goodness for the backup camera because it was not very comfortable backing up the car in tight quarters. As soon as I pulled out onto the highway making a left turn the car broke the rear tires loose halfway through the turn. This rather surprised me because as I stated earlier, the C6Z was my daily driver and trust me….I have more than my fair share of start and stops in wet as well as dry pavement! As I mentioned since the clutch feel was very similar to the C6Z and the gas pedal didn’t seem much different I was surprised at the tire spin and attributed the massive amount of low end torque of the LT4 when compared to the LS7 (which is no slouch!) for doing this since my intent certainly wasn’t to spin the tires, I drove it onto the highway the same cautious way that I would have the LS7 respecting the power. I guess I’ll just have to adjust accordingly here as well! The other thing that immediately struck me was the unexpected feel of the flat-bottomed steering wheel….turning left caused my hands to find non-symmetrical places on the steering wheel to grip which took me for a surprise because it felt strange and I wasn’t expecting this…I really didn’t like the way this felt but believe it’s just something that I will get used to since I have never driven a non-symmetrical steering wheel before! As soon I straightened out the car and shifted out of first gear into 2nd gear I noticed that the shifter seemed a bit more “notchy” and this was readily more apparent when I shifted to 3rd gear. I’m not sure if this has something to do with being an M7 as opposed to an M6 but clearly my C6Z M6 never felt this way new or with 54K+ miles. My immediate concern was what is going to happen when it’s time to go WOT on dry pavement and speed shift…..this will obviously require a getting used to or the shifter may just need to be replaced…..the C6Z shifter CLEARLY has the edge here. Despite the difference in feel of the shifter the car went through the gears very easily without any other noticeable issues. The exhaust note rowing through the gears in “Track Mode” did not seem as loud as the C6Z (without the fuse) and clearly the M7 2.29 1st gear seemed to drag out a lot longer than the M6 2.66. Since I loved the sound of my C6Z I will begrudgingly give the initial nod to the C6Z’s exhaust. And speaking of exhaust sound…..on the way home from the Dealer I would notice on a couple of occasions where while cruising ~35 MPH and just barely tapping on the accelerator that the exhaust note made an unexpected noise like it was “clicked on” from being quiet and I suspect that this must be the DOD kicking the car out of 4 cylinder mode or something because I didn’t feel anything different in the flow of power but just a strange exhaust note sensation that I have never experienced before. My wife’s 2013 Escalade had DOD so I am familiar with this, however her vehicle is stone silent due to the stock exhaust and I never notice any exhaust note changes regardless of what DOD is doing.

I tried several of the suspension settings from “Tour” to “Sport” to “Track” and just to fair my 2011 Z06 did not have MSRC (I had Bilstein shocks on it) and had 19” wheels with NON run flat Michelin 345/295 tires versus the 20” C7Z set-up which also has run-flat tires. The roads I drove home on were a combination of smooth and semi rough pavement so I could get a pretty good idea of how the two cars compare. It seemed to me that the C6Z suspension ride was somewhere in between “Sport” and “Track” modes when compared to the C7 because in full “Track” the C7Z seemed to be just a tad firmer but this could also be simply due to the run-flat tires because I noticed a huge difference in ride quality in my C6Z when I ditched the OEM GEN II run flats and went with the non-run flat Michelins. The steering also felt just a tad tighter in the “Track” mode compared to the other modes and when compared to the C6Z. I also noted that the overall cabin noise while driving seemed to be slightly less than the C6Z but this will require more time to really compare under varying conditions. Braking and stopping seemed to be about the same between the two.

On one road I did take one opportunity to give the car just a hint more throttle than I would normally have given driving the LS7 on wet pavement and to my surprise in 2nd gear where with the exact same throttle position the LS7 would simply accelerate and not even break the tires loose the C7Z viciously broke the tires loose and quickly went 45 degrees sideways to the point that I had to completely let off of the throttle and I wound up halfway into the oncoming lane (fortunately no oncoming cars!)! This REALLY surprised me because I have been driving HiPo cars for many decades and know how to treat and respect them, especially in less than optimal driving conditions. Whenever I gave the C6Z a tad too much throttle the rear tires would simply just break loose but more importantly it would always just spin and go straight, never sideways! I’m not sure that if because of the low speed the boost of the LT4 somehow kicked in creating a boat load of uncontrolled torque and when combined with the new Electric Rear Posi Differential that the car just reacted in a manner that was unexpected to me…..once again lesson learned and special care required in wet weather and getting used to the e-diff!

I would say that the overall driving experience after 8 miles is hardly enough to fully and constructively compare the C6Z and C7Z but for me I believe I would have to give an overall edge to the C7Z for a “first impression”. Granted I did not have the opportunity to hammer the car on dry pavement and really compare what the two cars were designed to do but this will come soon! I had the opportunity to fully push the C6Z to the limit at Bondurant so I’m fully aware of the C6Z’s capabilities and look forward to pressing the C7Z the same way (on dry pavement of course!). I bought my C7Z because I wanted to upgrade to a new model……I like the looks and wanted more HP and I know it will be faster at the drag strip as well. I still have plenty of respect for the C6Z and it will always hold a special place in my heart and when I see one on the road.

Final Thoughts
Anyway, for those that want a honest evaluation from someone that can provide a fairly unbiased view of these two halo cars I hope this helps…..and I’m sorry if the Viper and BMW Fanboys will trash this review because it didn’t include a “seat of the pants” review of the two cars at WOT, racing side by side or a video of me racing someone and losing. I’m still in the honeymoon phase with the car (and love it to death) and unfortunately for me I am out of town for two weeks so I won’t have an opportunity to drive the car again and in daylight until after New Year’s Day….oh well, I’ll just have to wait!

P.S. Since my 2011Z color was TR I also fussed when I ordered the C7Z whether to get it in TR again or take the risk and go with DSOM…at the last minute I changed it from TR to DSOM even though I had never seen the color in the flesh before and for me it was the right choice because to me it’s more “exotic” looking not that the TR looks bad because TR is killer as well as you can see below:




Update:

In the garage...rear hatch & trunk
After driving the car and parking it in my garage I unloaded everything that the dealer had bagged up (the original delivery wrap, license plate frame, etc) and went to shut the rear hatch and noticed that it didn't want to close all of the way. I thought that this was strange so I proceeded to try and drop the hatch just like I did in my C6Z but it wouldn't close after 4 straight attempts....I used a bit more force than I was comfortable with but it still wouldn't close! I then opened the drivers door to break the air seal and it shut just fine. Seems strange that I recall GM specifically designing a vent in the truck for this (and I believe even patenting something for this) and it just doesn't seem to work as advertised. Of course it seems the early C6Z's had this same issue and by 2011 mine had the motorized closer.....I think GM sound add the 2 lbs and put the motorized closer back...hell the car is already 3500+ lbs...who would notice 2 more lbs!

The engine hood did not want to close properly either...it would want to close on one side (passenger) and not the drivers side by simply dropping the hood like my C6Z. I tried this and finally gave the hood a downward thrust in order to close it on both sides....I posted this issue here and got the same feedback from others https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...h-closure.html

Can't wait for some dry weather!!!

12-23-14 update!
I forgot to mention one of the coolest features of the C7Z that I stumbled upon by shear accident (pardon my ignorance but I haven’t kept pace with the C7’s new features) and that was the front brake Hill Start Assist for take-offs on a hill with the M7! For those of us that live in the Pacific Northwest, hills are typically an everyday part of your life and for guys like me that use these cars as a Daily Driver and need to navigate hills from a full stop this is awesome! This feature will enable a lot of would be M7 buyers that have timid significant others when it comes to driving an M7 because of fears of stopping on hills to rejoice and might just make the difference in deciding M7 vs A8! Of course my real excitement with this feature is that I have to believe that some sly Vendor out there will figure out how to tap into this feature with a button or FOB (just like LGMotorsports Man **** with a button on the shifter) for the NPP and create a completely functional “Line Lock” for all of us drag racers!!!