Edmunds - "Route 66 in a Z06"

[pow]

The Mother of All Vettes on the Mother Road By Bill Baker Email Date posted: 12-01-2005 I had driven a 2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 more than 2,000 miles from Chicago searching for bits of Historic Route 66. In California's Mojave Desert there was a long, lonely stretch of the old road that just might let me flirt with the 6's top speed of 198 mph. I hadn't passed anyone in miles and I could see the road ahead was empty to the horizon. I dropped the six-speed gearbox from 6th to 4th and floored it. Like a cathedral pipe organ playing Bach's "Toccata" with all the stops out, the 7.0-liter, 505-hp LS7 V8 began to thunder and howl toward its 7,000-rpm redline. The dual-stage mufflers opened to release back pressure and a soul-stirring roar that echoed off the mountains. The head-up digital speedometer and tach display changed numbers faster than a premium gas pump totals dollars. 105, 118…think, look, stay on it. 139 — the front end is feeling light over the rough pavement. Stare at the horizon 'til your eyes harden — and keep your foot planted. 145…flick your eyes for an instant to check the HUD. 154 mph. Things are beginning to blur…there's a slight rise looming…. Not today, folks. The cross-drilled front and rear disc brakes hauled the most powerful Corvette ever from 156 to 90 in two heartbeats. Sanity (and the wife-in-my-head) nags. I settle down to a speed that will allow me to further contemplate this F-16 of the road that so willingly responds to commands to take you where you want to go as fast as you want to go there. Route 66 and a boyhood dream My fantasy of driving across America in a Corvette was born when CBS launched the Route 66 TV show in 1960. The black-and-white drama put actors Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and George Maharis as Buz Murdock in a new Corvette roadster and sent them down the road in search of some meaning to life and "a place to put down roots." The show ran for four years and remains the most dramatically creative of any series that has had a car in a continuing role. For a 15-year-old car-crazed kid living in Sacramento, California, the thought of having the freedom to explore the open road in a Corvette instead of struggling with algebra and chemistry was a damned enticing fantasy. Forty-five years later I got my chance to live it. The Z06 The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is the most powerful production Corvette in the 52-year history of the marque. The performance specs are hard to find in any other production vehicle, let alone one that has a base price of $65,800: zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds; the quarter-mile in 12.2 seconds at 120 mph. And then there's the officially quoted top speed of 198. When a car can deliver this kind of performance, its ride characteristics are usually harsh and nearly unlivable. The Z06 rides just fine, thank you. It has no squeaks, rattles or wind noise. I did more than 3,000 miles in it with only one complaint: The seats lack lumbar support. I found a "Trucker's Pillow" which fit behind my back perfectly making the rest of the journey pain-free. As a teenager, the '60 Vette with its 275-hp 283CID engine with dual quad carbs was all I wanted in life. The '63 Stingray was cool, too. But Corvettes lost their appeal for me and I gravitated toward cheaper and more socially hauteur British sports cars. Corvettes didn't reflect my personality any more than a Harley-Davidson did. I traded American horsepower for English leaks on the driveway. But after years of solid Le Mans victories and design refinement, Corvettes are back on my radar screen. The new C6 and now the Z06 are among the very best sports cars in the world at any price. U. S. Route 66 is the highway that wouldn't die U.S. 66 was started in 1926, but wasn't fully paved until 1937. It linked Chicago with Los Angeles — crossing Illinois, Missouri, a corner of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Bobby Troup wrote a hit jazz tune "Get Your Kicks on Route 66" in the '40s and John Steinbeck immortalized it in The Grapes of Wrath, the story of the Joad family and other "Oakies" fleeing the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. In the '40s, defense workers headed to California's aviation and aerospace industries. Family vacationers by the millions headed west when Disneyland opened in '54 and on into the '60s. Then came the interstate highways with their limited access. The historic road was officially replaced (east to west) by Interstates 55, 44, 40, 15 and 10. The last stretch of U.S. Route 66 was decommissioned by the federal government in 1985. But legends, and memories of a time when families were closer, die hard. Now, "Historic Route 66" signs are springing up in many towns along the old two-lane. Annual festivals and cruises are increasingly popular with us old farts who have never let go of the sense of adventure the highway instilled. Dilapidated buildings and their neon signs are being restored and preserved. Rural communities that withered when the interstates took tourists past without stopping are setting up Route 66 museums. Tourists from Europe and Asia are lured on the Internet and by marketing campaigns to see America as it once was. But that vision is illusory. It is often very depressing to see the vacant stores and factories in the cities, and rusting relics of motels and ice cream stands littering the old roadway as cars and trucks whiz mindlessly by on the interstates. Reading the history behind Route 66 and early highway development in America helps you appreciate where we came from as a nation and who we were as a people. You could take a week or a month to cross the country if you hunt down all the remaining bits and pieces of Route 66 and its various "alignments" over the years. Dedicated "roadies" who search out the old two-lane often return year after year to add stretches to their logbooks. Fantasies then and now My dream of a driving adventure was first realized in a cross-country car trip in 1960. Setting out on the road in those days meant you were going to have to be much more self-reliant; a phone call was from a booth, a breakdown was much more likely, and predictable food and lodging were a gamble. You had to learn to fold a damn map. But the places you saw for the first time in person, the regional accents you heard, the genuine "Indians" you encountered gave you a sense of being "out there." When you reached your destination, you had a greater sense of journey and accomplishment. While I was crossing New Mexico, my daughter called my cell phone to ask if I felt "isolated." Well, considering that she just called me and we were chatting while I rolled along at 75 mph; that I had read my e-mails on the phone; that I could listen to AM, FM, 155 channels of XM Satellite Radio, CDs, or my iPod — the answer was no, I wasn't exactly feeling cut off from the world. Today's generation of sons and daughters have been labeled "X" or "Y" by marketers like some kind of chromosomes. They're switched on, plugged in, media-savvy, and targeted by a never-ending marketing onslaught. They can download the wisdom of the ages or mind-warping techno music. They can see sex on cable, DVD and the Internet that inures them to the pleasures of discovery. But they can't experience the soul-stirring sound of a high-compression V8 running through the gears and the attendant G-loads on the body without actually doing it. Getting away from it all is all but impossible anymore. Finding a fantasy about it may be even more elusive. But I got mine.

[bobo]

One of my life's ambitions is to drive Route 66 in a Corvette.

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

One of my life's ambitions is to drive Route 66 in a Corvette.

[post="51585"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

I'll second that..

I wanted to do it as my senior trip in high school, just a road trip with a bunch of friends, but didn't have the $$$.

[capriceman]

I wan to tour it in my caprice but Gas cost is a issue. but iwould stop in arizona cuz i have family down there