Known as the “King of the Hill” and carrying the banner as America’s premier supercar at the time, the Chevy Corvette ZR-1 from the ’90s was a performance monster that beat everything of that era except the Porsche 959 and two Ferraris – the F40 and the Testarossa – for speed.
Now, we have a shot at putting a near-mint example of this piece of high-octane Americana in our garage. Showdown Motors out of Fraser, Michigan has listed an original 1990 Chevy Corvette ZR-1 with only 63 miles on its odometer that’s been in climate-controlled storage for the past 33 years.
Hailing from the first year of production for Chevy’s game-changing reimagining of the C4 Vette, this 1990 Corvette ZR-1 is the 835th vehicle to roll off the assembly line out of 3,049 units built for the 1990 model year. In all, GM produced 6,938 and sold 6,922 Corvette ZR-1 units by the time production wrapped up with the 1995 model year.
Red remains the most popular color for Corvettes, with Torch Red ranking as the top paint color for the 2022 Chevy Corvette and the 2023 Chevy Corvette Stingray as well. The 1990 Corvette ZR-1 on offer here is also red, with an original red leather interior. The vehicle comes with both the glass and painted tops.
Described by its seller Showdown Motors as a “time capsule,” this 1990 Corvette ZR-1 has been dealer-owned since 1990. Even the original window sticker is still affixed to the glass where it was placed at the factory three decades ago.
This 1990 original cradles what was Chevy’s secret weapon at the time and its ticket to going from a stodgy laggard to a leading competitor in the worldwide 1990s supercar scene, the 5.7L 32-valve V8 LT5 gasoline engine. Developed in-house, the LT5 was subcontracted to Mercury Marine for commercial production.
Not to be confused with the supercharged 6.2L V8 LT5 engine fitted to the 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, the ’90s version of the LT5 was still one of the highest-powered options for its day, developing 375 horsepower and 370 pound-feet of torque. The hand construction of this engine also gave it exceptional durability and strength, with some examples remaining fully operational beyond 200,000 miles.
Punching the accelerator on this fully hand-built engine takes the Corvette ZR-1 from a standstill to 60 mph in somewhere in the four- to five-second range. A ZR-1 was clocked at an actual top speed of 178 miles per hour back in the ’90s, and did the quarter mile in 13.4 seconds. The engine transmits its power to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual transmission.
The price of this particular 1990 Chevy Corvette ZR-1 when new off the production line was $58,995. Today, it’s being advertised for $69,900. What do you think, dear reader? Is this Vette worth the extra approximate $11,000 on its price tag? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Comments
ahhhhhh now something beautiful because the majority cars GMA post are uglier much uglier
BUT WOULD PREFER IN GREEN CLOUR WITH INTERIOR LEATHER WHITE !
Buy a c5 Z06 . Cheaper faster better and easier to find parts for it.
This car will never be an L88 kind of money car and it is not that good of a car anyways. Flexible, high rockers power is not good vs later models.
Very exceptional car bulletproof exotic and arguably one of the most beautiful engines ever built . Four cam corvette ?? Are you kidding. 3 wider the regular c4 and much faster. I raced these cars when they were new mid 12 second quarter miles runs easily bone stock. One if not fastest production cars made the the time faster then Ferrari or lambo only the turbo 911 would give it a good run depending on who was driving corvette. From a roll Zr1 would walk away from turbo too. Way undervalued only made 448 cars each years for 93-94 and final year 95.
Bone stock Z06 is a 12 second car in the C5 and faster in the C6. They are much more bullet proof and reliable.
It’s worth at least that and much more IMO! A true, iconic, game-changer for the Vettes and GM!
Back in 1990 when this car came out,like today,the dealers were adding a surcharge of $25,000 and even this dealer is adding 11,000.I at the time couldn’t afford the extra money so I bought and still own my 1990 convertible and it has been a great car.unfortunately the c4’s are not bringing in the money and the zr1’s are in the 20-30 range on average.This has never been used so maybe a die hard vette will buy it.A new c8 would be a better wat to spend $69,000
Would have thought BaT would have been a better venue for this….
Even Mike Yeager one of the largest Corvette collectors is not one that recommends these.
The C4 had its issues and this ZR1 Just compounds this.
Parts are difficult to find and very expensive to buy if you find them.
Many of these cars are just now coming out because people bought them thinking it would be collectable and they are just now getting to a price the loss on selling is less than it was.
This is not an investment car nor one you would want to drive a ton locating the needed parts or even someone to repair the car is difficult.
There has been a ton of spec on these since the increase of car values since Covid and most all are dumping their investments or these people are dying of old age.
If you are a collector these make sense but to buy and drive there is no point.
There are better Corvettes at lower prices and better Corvettes that are better investments.
Not my opinion but what the real collectors say,
Worst of all the generations imo. My stock C8 is soooo much better than this antiquated piece of crap. Big motor at the time/big deal. Hard pass here.
Generally, major auctions like Barrett Jackson and Mecum have a decent hold on what these particular C4 Corvette’s are worth, and you will see the extreme’s come out of these auctions depending on year, mileage and condition. Back when these ZR-1’s came out I was working for the Chevy Zone Office in SoCal and would visit the dealers who requested our help in figuring out problems that would occur with these LT5 engines, they were not bullet proof, but ran decent and were fairly quick in their day, sounded good and handled fairly well too. But…that was then, this is now and of course they are not making any LT5 engines and parts are damn expensive should your engine need some sort of internal servicing or parts replacement. So are these a good value to purchase and to enjoy? It all depends, has the ZR-1 you’re considering been well maintained with documentation and decently low mileage or…had it been used (hopefully not abused) through out it’s life times does it come without documentation that it was properly serviced by a reputable Chevy Dealer since it was first purchased, if it doesn’t have a decent amount of up to date documentation, you might want to pass on it.
If you absolutely have to have one of these beastly C-4’s for whatever reason, please be advised you can easily add twice or more to the usual things you’ll be replacing or having to deal with compared to a standard C4 of the same age and mileage.
Mostly it’ll be the electronics and under hood mechanicals for these LT5’s that’ll drive some mechanics crazy, remember you’ve got 16 fuel injectors, and the “Valet Key” (I hope you ask for that key, it’s an important part of the package) plus a whole slew of special parts from the intake on down…everything LT5 under the hood is special and it can cost a small king’s ransom to replace if it were needing replacement, from the timing chain and everything in those DOHC cylinder heads!
Also, horsepower figures were “good in their day” (375 and 405) depending on the year but as stated, a C5 LT6 Z06 had similar horsepower figures and performed equal to if not even better than these ZR-1’s with a lot less complexity.
Anyway, as in every purchase “buyer beware”, if it’s what you’re looking for and have your heart set on buying one, always look for a dealers service sheet and complete docs as a must have or…pass on purchasing one of these, they can be fairly trouble free if it has low mileage and has been driven with care, but if it’s “run hard and put away wet”, don’t even consider purchasing it unless you are well healed, rolling in cash and plan to beat the dog snot out of it yourself AND work on it yourself PLUS you’ve got all of the very expensive tools that are required to work on these LT5 engines. ‘Nuff said. Good Luck.
This is a BEAUTIFUL Z-R1…..,,,,,.,….I should know because I had owned it for the last 33 Years until a few weeks ago!!!
This car is absolutely mint. I am a former Chevrolet Dealer from Saco maine and I ordered this particular car brand new in 1990 in order to add it to my personal collection.
This is one hell of a find for another collector!!
I hope a real collector gets a hold of this true beauty!
Sincerely, Mark Galos
👍🏼😊
PS The window sticker on the Corvette ZzR-1 was $60,590.00
They were selling for $40,000.00 above sticker in 1990!
This car is an abs bargain for a collectors collection!!
I hope that somebody really gets to enjoy it. !!!
Everyone here is talking about market value and durability and those are important. A little history. In 1988-1990 I lived about 100 yards from Russ Gee who was the Chevrolet chief of engineering at the time (in a little town called Orchard Lake, Michigan). He was proud of the LT5 as it represented engineering and design which were new to GM. To say it was developed in-house at GM is a bit of a misnomer. When it was announced I kidded him and asked why he had farmed out the engine design to this little English company, Lotus. (That is who really designed the LT5). Russ had a large group of engineers in Detroit who GM was proud to say were best of breed. Russ said his local guys could have done the LT5, but they were so busy in Detroit, the LT5 would have come out in 1992 in they couldn’t farm the project to Lotus. (GM did have an ownership interest in Lotus so maybe calling it in-house isn’t entirely wrong). Within GM the controversial part of the ZR-1 was the pricing. The ZR1 looked just like any other C4 Corvette (it was a little wider) but was priced at basically double what the regular C4 sold for. I think Mr. Berger was head of Chevrolet at the time and he felt that the extra costs of farming out the design to Lotus and the build to Mercury Marine, plus the exclusivity and world class performance provided by the ZR1 justified the price. He may have been right, but if the ZR1 package had been a $10,000 upgrade (about the cost of a new basic car at the time) instead of a $30,000 premium, sales would surely have been higher. At the end of the day I think Chevrolet and GM got what they wanted, a lot of publicity and showroom traffic as well as a new name for the car, “The King of the Hill”. Shortly after the introduction of the ZR1 Mr. Gee retired to Hilton Head and I, a young guy at the time, got a career move to D.C. (actually McLean VA) a few months after that. I never did speak to (Russ) Mr. Gee after that but I hope he is still there hitting golf balls (in which case he is a very old gentleman) or that he is happily looking down and admiring the impressive ZR1 models which followed.