For the truly hard-core Corvette fanatic who likes to spend weekends thrashing his or her car at the track, there is only one Corvette worthy of consideration: the Z06. However, thanks to the ZR1, the lightweight, normally aspirated 7.0-liter coupe is no longer the absolute quickest Vette, but it is felt to have the most responsive handling. What it doesn’t have is the uber-cool carbon-ceramic brakes, carbon-fiber body panels and magnetic ride active damping system of its supercharged sibling. That can now be changed to past tense with the birth of the Z06 Carbon edition announced today by General Motors.

The Z06 Carbon was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first appearance of the Corvette at the 24 Hours of Le Mans when John Fitch and Briggs Cunningham won their class and finished eighth overall. The Carbon edition is essentially a Z06 with a ZR1 chassis and some of the carbon skin. When production starts this fall, only 500 examples will be made and they will only come in two colors, Inferno Orange and Supersonic Blue. All examples get black-painted wheels and a black interior upholstered in leather and suede.

By AutoBlog