Howdy Folks -
Just at the 2 week (and 1K miles) mark on the Z. Thought I'd give you some insight on what I think so far
First, this is my 4th Vette, prior cars were: 94 A4 Coupe, 95 M6 Coupe, 99 M6 Coupe and finally the 03 Z06. In the interim I had/have a 00 GS300 and built a crazy 94 Supra (umm, that's still in my needs-to-be-updated sig!).
The performance is oustanding - I'm so glad to be back into a NA V8. The power under the curve is excellent, I cannot wait to get on-track at Sebring next month. I can see this car needing less gear shifting because of the power/gearing mix. I love how when the cam gets into it's sweet spot how you can really feel it - almost feel like the sudden jump of a variable valve setup! And I don't have to tell you folks the sweet sounds of the LS6 wound up over 6K! I can tell the difference on the low end too, which may be due to the special Z06 gearing - 2nd 3rd and 4th seem substantially stronger over my M6 coupe I had, even under 4K RPM.
The handling is superb as well - this car has such a pleasurable blend of big car roominess and feels incredibly solid, yet reacts and handles transitions like a go-kart. My 99 had a Z51 springs/shocks (it started life as an F45 car which I really regretted) and later GM T1 swaybars. The T1's were extremely stiff, and added a significant amount of side-to-side harshness in the ride. I'd say the FE4 feels like is handles _better_ , yet has a much more supple ride.
My paint is pretty darn good - I was looking at my wifes Z3, and my GS, and then at Toyota Sequoia in traffic the other day and they ALL have a little orange peel. Now I undestand some Z's have it worse than others, so maybe I have one of the better examples, but it's not that much worse than those other cars. It's not as milky smooth as my Supra was, but then again, it had a $6000 paint job. The edges of the hood, underneath are a little rough, but it's consistent, like they don;'t really bother to finish underneath too much. Not really a big deal - my trunk underneath, on the forward edge has really thin paint - barely shows from under the trunk liner plastc.
The interior I had always liked - it's sooo close to being just dead-on, just a few things fall a little short. The materials in general I think are good - EVERY manufacturer uses vinyl, I looked very closely at M3's months ago, and it had some so-so plastic and vinyl pieces as well - welcome to modern cars. The layout/ergonimocs of the Z are excellent, the entire drivers area is very very good. The stereo and AC HU's are a little cheap, though plenty functional. The seat leather in mine seems pretty good, though the seats need better bolsters. I had the sport seats in my 99 and I remember them being a little better. Speaking of seats, I think they should make the power drivers seat and option too - mine never get's adjusted and it adds a little weight. In fact, I think REAL Z06 specific seat would be a huge upgrade for the car.
All the other things I always liked in my 99 - the HUD is great, the DIC is a nice feature, plenty of easy to read gauges, the AC works great (really great with my partition, can't say enough good things about Andy's product). I find the stock Bose system is fine (again, the partition improved the "tightness", especially the low freq base), though I will probably wind up with a nice AV HU that handle MP3's. FWIW, the OEM HU plays CD-R's just fine (of course audio encoded and not MP3).
I LOVE the styling of the Z06 - the wheels are great (and easy to clean, which is a big downer on some 3-piece designs) - the notch/trunk back is fantastic - I've had a bunch of people comment on how much they like the style (some even unaware of exactly how it's difference than a regular C5). I have always liked the C5's in general (even when I went over the darkside for a while) - I like the stance, proportions, width, etc. - they really nailed it, umm, I even like the big butt ("I like big butts and I can-not lie...")
So that's about it - I came back into Vette ownership knowing the goods and bads - I have a positive outlook on the whole thing, hell if something breaks it will get fixed. The few annoyance items on my 99 always got fixed, sometimes a little slower than others, but at least it was never anything major *and* I never had any hesitation on my dealer's part to fix things (and he never asked any questions, just wrote up the ticket and said thanks).
I think the car is an excellent balance of performance and streetability. I had a car put out 750+HP and it was simply undrivable - I know everybody lusts for the giant HP numbers, and it's certainly fun to build a car to that level, but you'd be surprised at how it's not nearly as much fun as you'd think. My real love has always been road racing, and I wanted a car that would be competent at the track, but fun, safe and reliable for day-today use. I think the car is very serious competition to *any* car currently manufactured, however, if the bean counters will step up to the plate at the same level the engineers have, maybe we'll see a real world-class supercar in the C6. It won't take much, they got about 95% right, let's just see some extra effort for a 101% car and I'll be first in line for a C6/Z06
Seeya -
DT
Bill 
Linear Mode
