[This story originally appeared in the December 2006 issue of MotorTrend.] Booms echoing across a dry desert lake bed. Military bases and Space Shuttle assembly plants on a horizon of shimmering heat waves. Unmanned Predator drones and inquisitive helicopters peering down from above. Dreadful food in shrink-wrapped plastic.
Sounds like somebody is playing with rockets.
Somebody is. This time, though, it’s not NASA but Motor Trend that’s churning up the desert dust and choking down the freeze-dried sandwiches. You’ll love our rockets, though. To quench your insatiable thirst for high-velocity hardware, we’ve assembled the Big Three’s top liquid-fueled boosters. Each produces 500 horsepower—or more. Each flaunts fat tires, huge brakes, and bulging, slotted bodywork that seems to say “Step back if you ain’t qualified, son.” You brought your g suit, didn’t you?
We’ve driven the Z06, the Viper, and the GT500 before, but this is the first time we’ve had all three together, test-firing the trio over the same roads and through the same track apexes. Our comparo includes hundreds of miles through city traffic and rural highways, a full battery of performance tests, plus instrumented hot laps on the Streets of Willow Springs road course. The result is an arsenal of revealing, seat-of-the-pants assessments and unflinching digital data—as well as our exclusive online Virtual Road Test. What does this mound of info tell us? Read on: In the following pages, we’re going to rank these American road rockets. Three. Two. One.
All three of these supercars are front engine/rear drive, and each sports a six-speed Tremec manual transmission. But there the similarities largely end. The hardtop Viper, reintroduced in 2006 after a three-year absence, is so thunderous and audacious, it could’ve been cooked up by Wernher Von Braun himself. Up front lies a hulking, 8.3-liter aluminum V-10 making 510 horsepower and 535 pound-feet. The rear Michelins are 345/30ZR19s, rolling oil barrels on chrome rims. The shifter juts up from the center console like a baseball impaled on a tire iron. Exhausts the diameter of stovepipes spit out hot firing pulses ahead of each rear wheel. Previously exposed, the sidepipes on the new car are now mostly hidden beneath the doorsills. But don’t be fooled: Throw your leg carelessly out of the cockpit, and the Viper will still scorch your sorry skin with a tattoo you’ll keep for life. The wedgy Dodge is like a Saturn V that way: It demands your full attention, even when it’s sitting still.
The second-generation Corvette Z06, unveiled for 2006, serves up two fewer cylinders than the Viper but forsakes nothing in thrust or presence. The LS7 all-aluminum, 7.0-liter small-block V-8—hand-assembled using premium hardware like titanium connecting rods and a dry-sump oil system—is GM’s most powerful production car engine ever, delivering 505 fire-breathing horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque. The rest of this special Vette is equally top-drawer: lightweight, all-aluminum chassis; magnesium engine cradle; carbon-fiber front fenders; six-piston cross-drilled front brakes. Hey, did this thing come from Bowling Green—or Lockheed?
Unlike the Viper and Z06, the Shelby GT500 is upright, square-jawed, with the group’s only rear seat (a child or a compact adult will fit for short trips). Its profile suggests it can’t compete with the low-flying Viper and Vette, but its vital stats demand respect. Like the Z06, the GT500 beats with a V-8 heart—although this one’s supercharged, 5.4 liters pressurized by an Eaton blower to 8.5 max psi of boost. It’s good for an even 500 horsepower and 480 pound-feet. The “special stuff” treatment continues from there: flying saucer-size brake rotors front and rear (including four-piston Brembo calipers up front), reinforced body panels, three-inch-diameter exhaust tips, a suspension stiffened for added responsiveness. Compared with a conventional Mustang, it’s an extreme makeover. The GT500 wears a cobra on its nose, but it should be emblazoned with an African honey badger. It’ll devour a Cobra.
Wish you could’ve been there on launch day. The Z06 took top honors at the dragstrip, blitzing from a standstill to 60 mph in just 3.8 seconds and blurring the quarter mile in 11.7 at 125 mph (despite a sometimes balky 2-3 upshift). You must, at least once in your lifetime, experience having your head pinned back by acceleration like this. From the outside, at full throttle the Z06 sounds like an offshore powerboat running through a storm drain. Upshifts shatter the air like ice walls cracking off a glacier.
The Viper was a mere tick behind the Vette, hammering to 60 mph in just 3.9 seconds and running the quarter in 12.1 at 121 m