New Z06 is speediest Vette ever

And with a gutsy 470 foot-pounds of torque to power just 3,130 pounds worth of car, it's no wonder the new Z06 can roar from standstill to 60 miles an hour in just 3.7 seconds -- all of it, by the way, in first gear.

Two-seat, rear-wheel-drive Corvettes debuted in 1953 to become a favorite American sportscar and a cultural icon. Chevy turned out the Z06 designation a decade later as an option package that made regular Corvettes into power machines to be reckoned with on racetracks.

The same description is apt for today's Z06, except that while being a racy automobile, the 2006 Z06 also is a usable daily driver.

It's usable, that is, if you don't mind squeezing down into the low-to-the-pavement seats, hearing the V8 and road noise from the tires all the time, feeling some road bumps intimately and, especially, watching your speed.

Did I mention that the Z06 gets lots of looks?

With a bright yellow paint job, the test Z06 stood out like the sun amid other cars that looked dingy and dirty in the winter weather.

It was also noisier than these other cars. Right at startup, the hand-built, overhead valve V8 growled in low tones.

Regular Corvettes -- coupe or convertible -- have a smaller V8 with 400 foot-pounds of torque at 4,400 rpm, which is strong power, to be sure. But it's amazing what 105 more horsepower and 90 more foot-pounds of torque in a car that weighs at least 49 pounds lighter than a regular Corvette can do for performance.

The Z06 shocked me when I pressed hard on the accelerator in virtually any gear, because my head snapped back immediately as the engine roared and the car raced forward lickity-split. This is not an engine, and a gas pedal, to play around with.

The test car had the standard six-speed manual transmission, and while the shifter had a notchy feel and sometimes went from first gear directly to fourth, the overall gearing was pleasing.

In fact, I reveled in how much power this engine could produce at low rpms, and with no stress or straining.

City speeds were easily reached in first gear and could be held -- without raucous engine revving -- in second gear. And at nearly 70 mph on the highway and in fifth gear, the test Corvette V8 was operating at just 2,100 rpm. When I upshifted to the fuel-efficient sixth gear, the tachometer needle dropped to an unexpectedly low 1,500 rpm, but I was still traveling smoothly at highway speeds.

There's a lot of modern technology and material in this Z06, everything from titanium connecting rods to forged aluminum, flat-top pistons.

But fuel economy in this high performance model still is the worst of any 2006 Corvette: 16 miles a gallon in city driving and 26 mpg on the highway, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition, premium fuel is required for the Z06 engine.

Starting manufacturer's suggested retail price, including destination charge, is $65,800. This is nearly $21,000 more than the starting MSRP, including destination charge, for a 2006 base Corvette coupe with 400-horsepower, 6-liter V8.

But it's less than the $86,995 starting price for a 2006 Dodge Viper SRT-10 coupe with V10 and the $72,095 starting price for a 2006 Porsche 911 Carrera with six-cylinder engine.

The Viper gets 500 horsepower and 425 foot-pounds of torque at 4,200 rpm from a larger, 8.3-liter, V-10. It even feels much heavier than the Z06, and it is, with a weight of 3,410 pounds.

Porsche's base 911 Carrera coupe, on the other hand, weighs about 3,100 pounds but has a 3.6-liter, boxer six cylinder that produces far less power -- 325 horses and 273 foot-pounds of torque at 4,250 rpm.

The road-hugging Z06 handles road curves with ease and feels surprisingly comfortable when traveling on smooth, asphalt road surfaces. There was nary a shake or bump felt in the test car on these kinds of roads.

But it can feel extremely stiff on rougher roads. I bobbed and bounced on some uneven road surfaces.

A creaking sound developed at the passenger door, and the 18- and 19-inch Goodyear tires sent loud "ba-boom" sounds through to passengers traveling over some road expansion cracks.

There's not much isolation of road noises, especially on stone-and-tar-covered roads. But they grip well on dry pavement.

Standard traction control helps keep tires from spinning on wet pavement, but this didn't always do the trick in the test car.

The Z06 sits low to the ground -- so low, in fact, that drivers must watch not to scrape the front of the car as they turn into sloped driveways and parking lot entrances.

But the massive brakes are impressive in their stopping power, and a driver only has to make slight changes to the steering wheel to get a quick response.

Interior room seems a bit snug for me. But maybe this is because with my short legs I had to move the driver seat up a considerable way to reach the pedals.

Storage space in the seating area is limited to small, shallow map pockets on the doors and a very shallow center console area. Cargo room behind the seats measures 22 cubic feet, but there's a high liftover back there to get items inside.

Interestingly, the recline of the front seats in the $68,000 test car was manual, while the track and height adjustments were power. I appreciated that the Z06's leather bucket seats fit me like well-used gloves.

I also liked the standard head-up display that projected tachometer and speed information onto the lower part of the driver's windshield area, because it kept my eyes from straying too far from the road.

The Z06 is surely one of the rarest of cars: a classic that, while it has a modern aluminum body structure and areas of weight-saving magnesium, isn't so changed, redone and remarketed that it has lost its personality.