Chevrolet’s incredible Corvette ZR1X has taken the heat to the greatest racetrack in Europe. Now it has done the same at what might be the toughest course in all the US. The most powerful C8 is now the king of the mountain, beating the record for the fastest production car up Pikes Peak in Colorado.
Hybrid Turbo Corvette Is Perfect For Hillclimbing
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X Pikes PeakLarry Chen Photography – 2026
The Pikes Peak International Hillclimb is a 12.4-mile rush up Pikes Peak in Colorado to a finish line at 14,115 feet above sea level. It’s not the dirt track it used to be, but the paved road means faster speeds and even more potential for disaster.
Most of the 72 entries this year are extreme custom-built race cars. Some are designed and built specifically for the hill climb event, and there are factory specials as well. This year, Ford set about conquering the peak with a “production-based” electric Mach-E that only sort of looks like the one you can buy at dealerships. For the record, it went faster than ZR1X, but it’s also a dedicated race car.
Chevrolet’s car was entered in the Time Attack 1 class. People can go wild in this class with modifications, but the only changes to the ZR1X were in the name of safety. It had the same Michelin Cup 2R tires that you can order from the factory, and the ZTK performance package. Chevy put former IndyCar racer JR Hildebrand behind the wheel. It wasn’t Hildebrand’s first time at the mountain, but with it being just his third attempt, he still had a bit of a learning curve to conquer.
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The Record Time: Well Under 10 Minutes
As for this new record time, Hildebrand and his Corvette ran 9:30.104. It’s a time that would have been unthinkable for even the most extreme race cars 15 years ago, and that shows just how quick this new Corvette is. Hildebrand won the Time Attack 1 class by 15 seconds over Jeff Zwart in a Porsche 911 GT2 RS Clubsport.
Still Crushed By An Electric Ford SUV
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X Pikes PeakLarry Chen Photography – 2026
The car was still well off the overall winning time of 8:18 set by Romain Dumas in the aforementioned Ford Mustang Mach-E. That Mach-E, though, is a 1,400 horsepower three-motor EV with a rear wing larger than most couches and completely unrecognizable from anything that left a Ford production line.
Hildebrand and the ZR1X beat a time of 9:53 to become the fastest production car. The old time was set in 2022 by a Porsche 911 Turbo S coupe, equipped with Porsche’s Lightweight Package. It was the first road car up the mountain in under 10 minutes.
Between practice and the race, Hildebrand spoke about the performance of the ZR1X’s 1,064 hp twin-turbo V8 and the car’s electric motor. “You just feel the front drive unit literally pulling the car up out of the corner into the ICE power band – and then it gets on the turbos and hauls the mail all the way up to the next corner,” he said. “First run on the mountain, at kind of half commitment or whatever, I was like, ‘This thing is gonna rip here.’”
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What other production cars could challenge this ZR1X? Not much, and certainly nothing produced in the same volume as ZR1X. Something like the Czinger 21C might have a chance, or the Koenigsegg it has been trading lap records with at Laguna Seca. Of course, Porsche has since launched an even quicker and more powerful Turbo S. Will someone try to take Corvette’s new crown next year? Stay tuned.
