Corvette engineers first uttered the phrase "King of the Hill" internally in the mid-1980s. Their majesty was a 1990 ZR1—that’s a 32-valve, 375-horsepower V-8 designed by the GM-owned Lotus Division and built in Oklahoma by Mercury Marine. It first drew Ferrari comparisons to a sports car that had pissed away much of the ‘70s and ‘80s, mired in bureaucratic muck and rattletrap complacency. That ZR1, with its ZF six-speed manual, dashed to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds, and a 175-mph top speed.
The King of the Hill name stuck. Thirty-five years hence, it describes a turbocharged 2025 ZR1 with nearly three times the horsepower, at 1,064.
