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The Joy of Driving - My 10-day Affair with the Corvette ZHZ

The Joy of Driving - 10 days with the Corvette ZHZ

Jon Z (Z3)

   When it comes to cars, I love looking at them,but never really got into them as a hobby. Because I live in Manhattan, there is never really the need to drive a car; and when I go to my mom's house in suburban New Jersey, I would usually help her with errands driving around in her four-door family-style sedan, which is hardly exciting.

    Two weeks ago I went to California to visit a friend, and rented the new Chevrolet Corvette ZHZ convertible from Hertz in Los Angeles International Airport.

    For the first time, I finally experienced the "joy of driving"!

    A little bit of background info. The Corvette ZHZ was a partnership between the rental car company Hertz and GM.  Introduced in 2008 to Hertz's fun collection, it is a limited edition of 500 units, available in several major US cities.

    Mechanically, the Corvette ZHZ sports a LS36.2L V8 aluminum-block engine with dual-mode performance exhaust and 436 horsepower, an automatic transmission with a 6-speed paddle shift, Magnetic Selective Ride Control, which allows the driver to switch between "tour" or"sport" mode with a turn of a notch, and 7-spoke large racing wheels with Goodyear Eagle F1 EMT Supercar tires.

    Here are some impressions of the car, after driving it for 10 days and 1500 miles (round trip from LA to San Francisco, and then locally in southern California):

    Cosmetically it sports a distinctive bright yellow body with black racing stripe - very stunning and suitable for sunny southern California. The shape is very aerodynamic, well-proportioned, and has soft and natural curves. I like the headlights quite much, and prefer them over the "flip" hidden headlights of the previous version. It's a very beautiful car in my opinion.

    The 4 exhaust tailpipes - a sign of performance.

   The car activates via a remote sensor mechanism. In order to unlock the doors and turn on the engine,one only needs to have the key in close vicinity (e.g. the driver's pocket) -very convenient.

    Pressing the engine power-on button gives off a very loud and virile "vrrroooom" engine sound, accompanied by the low frequency humming and vibration, adding excited anticipation to the fun drive to come.

    The driving experience is quite comfortable. Although Corvette is categorized as "exotic", it does not sit as low as many of the other exotics, hence offers a nice and far view in to the horizon. The engine is in the front, so it is not as loud as the mid-engine sports cars. The leather seats are comfortable and ergonomic. The interior has adequate amenities for entertainment and comfort such as CD player, XM/Sirius Radio, a decent sound system, and climate control.

    In the "sport" mode, the handling is very stiff and responsive, and the acceleration is powerful. Even at close to 100 miles per hour, the car feels very solid on the roads and responds swiftly. It feels great yet still very comfortable. The"tour" mode, however, makes the handling quite wobbly, does not add much comfort, and I think defeats the purpose of this car. I would not recommend driving it in the "tour" mode.

    The official fuel efficiency is 24 MPG highway and 15 MPG city, but I feel that in the "sport" driving mode,it gets quite a bit less. Because the gas tank holds only 18 gallons, I had to look for a gas station every 2 days.

   A beautifully designed and great driving machine as it is, it is without faults. First, the craftmanship of some of the interior parts is still... quite GM, without excessive attention to detail. For example,some of the plastic pieces on the dashboard have slightly rough and uneven edges, and the plastic latch release mechanism for opening the soft top feels cheap and awkward to operate. My biggest complaint is the trunk door - with normal force, it does not shut all the way, leaving a very thin gap. This thin gap it prevents the operation of the convertible top. So I often had to get out of the car, reopen the trunk door, and SLAM it down as if I hate the thing with passion, and only then would it shut properly. I hope future models will not have this types of low-level, easily mendable mistakes.

    Overall, I think it is a great fun car andat roughly $65 to $80K, a great value for an exotic sports car. This experience has definitely sparked my interest in automobiles. I hope there is a hard-top convertible version in the pipeline. That's a car I am interested in!

    Hope you've enjoyed the photo and the brief report.

Cheers!

Jon (Z3)