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Throughout the course of history, there have been rivalries that just won’t quit; Elvis and The Beatles, Coke and Pepsi, Ron Burgundy and Wes Mantooth. But there’s one that will probably never go away, and that’s Corvette vs. Viper.
Corvette guys will berate the Viper owners for being the newbie between the two, being first launched just twenty years ago, while Viper enthusiasts will poke fun at Vette owners for being posers and trolling around in a midlife crisis car. Whatever…
Evidently Edmunds had enough and decided to put the brand new, 2013 Viper against the 2012 Corvette ZR1 on the dyno. The Viper, the venomous snake that’s been on hiatus for a couple of years is back, with a more potent V10 engine that edges the ZR1′s official pony count out by 2 horses “at the brochure”.
One of the 2013 Viper’s main purposes was to dethrone the ZR1 as King of the Hill – much like how it was in 1992 when it was launched to battle the DOHC C4 ZR-1. History repeating itself? Not quite.
The ZR1, a car that’s near and dear to us for obvious reasons, is back in carryover form that has continued since it’s launch in 2009. Sure, there have been a few subtle tweaks here and there over time, but overall, it’s basically the same car that set the Nurburgring on fire with a time of 7:26.4 back in 2008.
We have good news and bad news. First the good news; the ZR1 edged the Viper out – putting an 85 lb-ft of peak torque lead over the Viper, along with a “few horsepower” gap that Edmunds apparently felt was too small to mention… The bad news is that both of these cars were run on the dyno in Southern California, a state that limits its consumers to 91 octane. Obviously, higher octane may have helped out the final results a little, particularly with the boosted Vette, but we’re not going to nitpick.
