'90 C4 ZR1 in auction (241 miles)
- Thread starter Chevrolet
- Start date
Nassau65
CCCUK Member
The problem with these ultra Low mileage cars ( say under 1000 miles) is that their inflated price is for the tiny mileage. As soon as that mileage hits 4 figures +1000 it devalues by £££. Then it’s a down hill ride.
You have to keep it ultra low for its value.
I have done that a couple of times, never again.
You have to keep it ultra low for its value.
I have done that a couple of times, never again.
Roscobbc
Moderator
Guessing this is the car that a UK North West dealer has been advertising on and off for a few years now? - seems a genuine car - but really begs to be driven more doesn't it?. No disrespect intended to any UK based C4 ZR1 owner, and we all know how advanced the tech was for its day........but UK buyers will be afraid to buy something like this.......despite its good history relating to reliability etc. The problem with high performance Chevrolet cars is that GM themselves 'shoot themselves' in the foot by similtaneously developing higher powered versions of their 'cooking' engines and marketing them in parallel with the 'special' cars. This happened when GM marketed the BK2 Callaway as an official option and then later versions of the C4 and introductory versions of the C5 were available with higher powered engines almost equalling the multi-valve quad cam ZR1. Low mileage C4 ZR1's seem to appear regularly on the US's Bring a Trailer auction site. Jon of team ZR1 will have an opinion for sure!
teamzr1
Supporting vendor
Yep I do 
Think of a 35-year-old car that did not even get the break in miles
anything of rubber, O-rings, gaskets, bushings, small vacuum hoses, etc been dried
Under the intake alone is several hoses used for the secondaries and 16 fuel injectors
which get hotter under there and dry out to rot
How about the age of those wider tires but only 17" wheels, who makes them today ?
Has odd things not common for a Corvette like 2 MAP sensors, electric pump for the secondaries
16 fuel injectors not common to other C4s, 4 coils (1 for each 2 spark plugs), etc
Unless only buying it to rot for another 30 years, a driver owner needs to understand that 32 valves and overhead CAMs
Even the Valet power on/off modes might be unknown to a new owner
Think of a 35-year-old car that did not even get the break in miles
anything of rubber, O-rings, gaskets, bushings, small vacuum hoses, etc been dried
Under the intake alone is several hoses used for the secondaries and 16 fuel injectors
which get hotter under there and dry out to rot
How about the age of those wider tires but only 17" wheels, who makes them today ?
Has odd things not common for a Corvette like 2 MAP sensors, electric pump for the secondaries
16 fuel injectors not common to other C4s, 4 coils (1 for each 2 spark plugs), etc
Unless only buying it to rot for another 30 years, a driver owner needs to understand that 32 valves and overhead CAMs
Even the Valet power on/off modes might be unknown to a new owner
Nassau65
CCCUK Member
The original hype was such that many investors got their hands on them and expected to double their money in a very short period of time. The lucky few did, but many who came late to the party didn’t and got stuck with them. Passed around for little or no profit, they got left falling in price with owners tucking them away hoping for better times.
Yes, that ultra low mileage looks fantastic on an advert, but in real life??
Only really any good for a collectors bragging rites or a museum me thinks.
Yes, that ultra low mileage looks fantastic on an advert, but in real life??
Only really any good for a collectors bragging rites or a museum me thinks.
teamzr1
Supporting vendor
The untold story of the C4 ZR-1 I saw first hand as at the time I was working for GM engineering
at the tech center in Warren Mi
The death and treatment of this great Corvette design was internal politics
As you know, GM had bought Lotus and was instructed to design a never built before engine and had a few mandates
GM had, the engine had to fit into the frame of a C4 and the cylinder spacing
This on the GM side of engineering was pissed that Lotus got this project, so there was a real hate by them for anything to do with the ZR-1
Lotus completed the LT5 engine and long term testing was done, towards the end performance and track testing was done by GM and Tommy Morrison
That track testing broke world speed records for non-stop and top speed were awarded for the C4 ZR-1
Those records were held for many years before others broke those records
In early March 1990, the ZR1 would set new records for the highest average speed over 24 hours at over 175 mph (282 km/h) and highest average speed over 5,000 miles at over 173 mph (278 km/h
As evidence of this, a stock ZR1 set seven international and world records at a test track in Fort Stockton, Texas, on March 1, 1990, verified by the FIA for the group II, class 11 category:
For 1996 EPA required all new vehicles meet the new OBD-2 standards
The GM haters of the ZR-1 stated the ZR-1 had to die off as it would not meet those standards
I owned a 1994 ZR-1
And worked with Lotus guys Like Tim Holland in the UK
Here is my 1994 ZR-1 parked inside the GM Corp building where it was shown off as all the racing I was doing with it
Those in Team Corvette as seen signed that photo
At the bottom you see Tim's address, so some of you should know where that location was
In secret, Tim asked me in sending a new ECM calibration that plugs into the Memcal you see on the right
and Tim's name on it
The purpose was for me to test the calibration to prove a 1996 ZR-1 in fact could pass OBD-2 smog testing
I tested for some months, that was in mid 1994 and all test results showed it would in fact pass OBD-2
But bad to the GM haters, they wanted a GM designed engine LS1 to be dictated as the chosen engine for the
1997 C5
They did this by coming up with testcases they slanted so that the LS1 would win over the LT5
and that killed off the LT5 and the hate was so bad it was mandated the all LT5 tools in GM be destroyed and
treated the LT5 as a loser
As be mentioned the ZR-1 sticker was around $65,000 which I tell you for myself was a lot of money for me
and due to a ton of free press the ZR-1 got, the flippers were buying them up, not driving them so little
press of ZR-1 grassroots racing further degraded the ZR-1s worth
Being the ZR-1 only lasted from 1990-95 and less than about 5,000 made, there were no vendors making performance
mods for the LT5, other than a guy who had worked for Lotus and came out with a CAM grind but
no one really knew how to correctly swap in 4 overhead CAMs so in the end there was no way to really gain performance
other than what I did was strip off as much weight as possible to gain HP and Tq
Tommy Morrison wanted my 1994 ZR-1 and talked me into doing a swap he, take my '94, and I got from him the GM #94 Snake skinner ZR-1
BTW, I was sad to hear Tommy sold my 94 ZR-1 to some guy who took the car to race in Mexico on their crap roads and
car got away from him, he flipped it several times and I heard it was just left rioting on the side of the road :-(
In the end the C4 ZR-1 wrote some real racing history and if you think about it,
we struggled with the C3 smoggers with no HP or TQ and then the ZR-1 showed up, was grand times for sure.
at the tech center in Warren Mi
The death and treatment of this great Corvette design was internal politics
As you know, GM had bought Lotus and was instructed to design a never built before engine and had a few mandates
GM had, the engine had to fit into the frame of a C4 and the cylinder spacing
This on the GM side of engineering was pissed that Lotus got this project, so there was a real hate by them for anything to do with the ZR-1
Lotus completed the LT5 engine and long term testing was done, towards the end performance and track testing was done by GM and Tommy Morrison
That track testing broke world speed records for non-stop and top speed were awarded for the C4 ZR-1
Those records were held for many years before others broke those records
In early March 1990, the ZR1 would set new records for the highest average speed over 24 hours at over 175 mph (282 km/h) and highest average speed over 5,000 miles at over 173 mph (278 km/h
As evidence of this, a stock ZR1 set seven international and world records at a test track in Fort Stockton, Texas, on March 1, 1990, verified by the FIA for the group II, class 11 category:
- 100 miles (160 km) at 175.600 mph (282.601 km/h)
- 500 miles (800 km) at 175.503 mph (282.445 km/h)
- 1,000 miles (1,600 km) at 174.428 mph (280.715 km/h)
- 5,000 km (3,100 mi) at 175.710 mph (282.778 km/h) (World Record)
- 5,000 miles (8,000 km) at 173.791 mph (279.690 km/h) (World Record)
- 12 Hours Endurance at 175.523 mph (282.477 km/h)
- 24 Hours Endurance at 175.885 mph (283.059 km/h) for 4,221.256 miles (6,793.453 km) (World Record)
For 1996 EPA required all new vehicles meet the new OBD-2 standards
The GM haters of the ZR-1 stated the ZR-1 had to die off as it would not meet those standards
I owned a 1994 ZR-1
And worked with Lotus guys Like Tim Holland in the UK
Here is my 1994 ZR-1 parked inside the GM Corp building where it was shown off as all the racing I was doing with it
Those in Team Corvette as seen signed that photo
At the bottom you see Tim's address, so some of you should know where that location was
In secret, Tim asked me in sending a new ECM calibration that plugs into the Memcal you see on the right
and Tim's name on it
The purpose was for me to test the calibration to prove a 1996 ZR-1 in fact could pass OBD-2 smog testing
I tested for some months, that was in mid 1994 and all test results showed it would in fact pass OBD-2
But bad to the GM haters, they wanted a GM designed engine LS1 to be dictated as the chosen engine for the
1997 C5
They did this by coming up with testcases they slanted so that the LS1 would win over the LT5
and that killed off the LT5 and the hate was so bad it was mandated the all LT5 tools in GM be destroyed and
treated the LT5 as a loser
As be mentioned the ZR-1 sticker was around $65,000 which I tell you for myself was a lot of money for me
and due to a ton of free press the ZR-1 got, the flippers were buying them up, not driving them so little
press of ZR-1 grassroots racing further degraded the ZR-1s worth
Being the ZR-1 only lasted from 1990-95 and less than about 5,000 made, there were no vendors making performance
mods for the LT5, other than a guy who had worked for Lotus and came out with a CAM grind but
no one really knew how to correctly swap in 4 overhead CAMs so in the end there was no way to really gain performance
other than what I did was strip off as much weight as possible to gain HP and Tq
Tommy Morrison wanted my 1994 ZR-1 and talked me into doing a swap he, take my '94, and I got from him the GM #94 Snake skinner ZR-1
BTW, I was sad to hear Tommy sold my 94 ZR-1 to some guy who took the car to race in Mexico on their crap roads and
car got away from him, he flipped it several times and I heard it was just left rioting on the side of the road :-(
In the end the C4 ZR-1 wrote some real racing history and if you think about it,
we struggled with the C3 smoggers with no HP or TQ and then the ZR-1 showed up, was grand times for sure.
Roscobbc
Moderator
Back, perhaps 20+years ago the CCCUK had several members who owned C4ZR1's. There was even a UK registry. As I recall there was a fair bit of mixed feed-back relating to the cars complexity and there was one guy in the UK a few members would take their cars to for tuning and upgrades. I recall one member, Brett sent his ZR1 engine over to Haibeck's (as I recall) in the 'States for HP modification with increased capacity, cams (I think) and other mod's for engine longevity. Can't recall the cost (he still has the car) but it was certainly expensive. And of course in the last 25 years we have also seen LS small blocks, traditional small and big blocks with (in many cases) similar or greater performance.