Concours week a couple of months ago in Monterey, I was stopped at a red light. In front of me, at first glance, was a pedestrian Mercedes W124 with two well-to-do country club boomer types in it. I looked at its rear license plate frame, which strangely just read "Porsche Mercedes". Then I looked at the trunk lid badge-- 500E. I remember reading about this Teutonic oddity in a Car & Driver when I was in high school. Never, in all those years (15) had I seen one in person. In the early 90s, Porsche was not doing too hot. Its lineup included the perennial 911 and the aging 928 and 944. With the 959 discontinued, part of Porsche's Rossle-Bau plant in Zuffenhausen was idle. Mercedes, which at that time was aggressively churning out a new model every year, was overextended and did not have the capacity, nor the time, to turn its W124 sedan into an uber-sedan to compete with the E34 M5. Mercedes turned to Porsche. The sports car maker shoehorned the 5 liter engine from the 500SL under the W124's bonnet. An extra 22 pound feet of torque was extracted. The engine bay was widened and reinforced. The engine was moved as far back as possible to optimize balance. Heavy duty suspension bits and other performance upgrades, along with wider fender flares, completed the transformation. The 500E was hand built and each car took 18 days to complete, during which it was transported back and forth between the Mercedes and Porsche factories. The final result: 322 horsepower, 354 pound feet of torque, zero to 100 km/h in 5.5 seconds. Only 1,505 units ended up in the States. With Porsche's personal touch, this was the last great uber-Benz. Since then, everyone and their accountant's wives have been driving uninspired, bland, commodified, and superficially appealing AMGs with stupid torque and useless horsepower.
More than 750 horsepower? The fastest, most powerful production Chevy Corvette ever? Nine hundred fifty pounds of downforce from an optional giant wing? Numbers alone rarely excite me, but these have my heart pumping 鈥?and we don鈥檛 even have full information on the supercar yet. Related: 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1: Fastest. The ZR1 name bears a lot of weight for the Corvette. The last vehicle to wear it was the 2013 Corvette ZR1 (part of the C6 generation), so it鈥檚 been six years since what I can safely call the ultimate Corvette roamed the streets. Chevrolet divulged some details but not all of them. However, that won鈥檛 stop us from guessing a few things. The Porsche 911 and Chevrolet Corvette have been natural competitors to me, and it makes sense that the top performance-oriented trims would align, as well. While both cars are rear-wheel drive and have the same goal (sports car superiority), these supercars get there in different ways.
To see this, look no further than engine placement: The Corvette鈥檚 is in front while the 911鈥檚 is in back. Let鈥檚 take a closer look at how the forthcoming 2019 ZR1 stacks up against the 2018 Porsche 911 GT3. The Corvette ZR1 enjoys a massive power advantage with its supercharged 6.2-liter V-8, which pumps out 755 hp and 713 pounds-feet of torque. It offers two transmission options, an eight-speed automatic or a seven-speed manual. The Porsche 911 GT3 goes the naturally aspirated route with its 4.0-liter flat-six engine. It produces 500 hp and 339 pounds-feet of torque with a seven-speed PDK automatic or six-speed manual, so one less gear on both fronts. Though we don鈥檛 have all of the exact performance figures for the Chevy Corvette ZR1, it鈥檚 safe to say that it will be the faster of the two. Zero-to-60-mph times should also favor the American. The Porsche makes it in 3.8 seconds with the manual and 3.2 seconds with the PDK. Chevy didn鈥檛 release exact times for the ZR1, but we know the Z06 with a less-powerful engine and the eight-speed automatic can make the same sprint in just 2.95 seconds.
Excuse me while I black out again. Both of the sports cars opt for adaptive suspensions, called Magnetic Ride Control on the ZR1 and Porsche Active Suspension Management on the GT3. The Porsche does offer one thing the Corvette doesn鈥檛: rear-wheel steering, which helps a variety of situations. This is my all-encompassing, imagined term to discuss aerodynamics on both vehicles 鈥?which are, again, pretty bananas. Both feature functional rear wings and extra air bumper openings to send air to the engines. The Porsche combines the wing with a rear underbody diffuser, and the two produce a combined 340 pounds of downforce at track speeds. The Chevrolet counters with a massive optional wing of its own (part of the ZTK Performance Package). Adjust it to trade some top speed for 鈥?950 pounds of downforce. Both vehicles offer carbon-ceramic brakes, optional on the Porsche and included (unknown yet whether they鈥檙e standard or optional) on the Chevrolet, which help bring all of that speed to a halt. The 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 hits dealerships in the spring of 2018, and we hope then to put these speculations about how it drives to a real test. Cars.com鈥檚 Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com鈥檚 long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don鈥檛 accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com鈥檚 advertising, sales and sponsored content departments.