1993 Chevrolet Corvette

1993 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 — 40th Anniversary Edition, 1 of ~245 Built, Ruby Red, ZF 6-Speed

The 1993 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 was already the most serious performance Corvette Chevrolet had ever built. Add the 40th Anniversary package, and you have a car that sits at the intersection of raw engineering and limited-production collectibility. This particular example is one of approximately 245 ZR-1s produced with the 40th Anniversary option in 1993 — a figure that makes it one of the rarest C4 Corvettes in existence.

To put that number in context: Chevrolet built 6,939 Corvettes in 1993 across all configurations. Of those, only 448 were ZR-1s. Of those 448, only roughly 245 were ordered with the 40th Anniversary package. That means this car represents less than four percent of total 1993 Corvette production, and a hair over half of all ZR-1s built that year. Collectors who understand the ZR-1's history and the rarity of the Anniversary combination know exactly what that means.

The ZR-1 was introduced for the 1990 model year as a halo car designed to put American performance back on the world stage. It was built around the LT5 engine — a 5.7-liter dual-overhead-cam, 32-valve V8 developed in partnership with Lotus Engineering and assembled by Mercury Marine in Stillwater, Oklahoma. No other American production car of the era used a DOHC V8 with four valves per cylinder. The engine was not a derivative of the existing small-block. It was an entirely separate design built specifically for this purpose, and it showed in the output numbers: 405 horsepower in 1993, up from the 375 produced in early ZR-1s. That figure was enough to push the ZR-1 to a verified top speed of 175 mph, making it one of the fastest production cars in the world at the time.

This car is finished in Ruby Red Metallic — a color that was mandatory for the 40th Anniversary package — with a matching Ruby Red leather interior. It carries the ZF 6-speed manual transmission, the correct choice for any serious ZR-1 driver and the only gearbox offered on the model. The undercarriage photos confirm a clean, solid structure with no signs of collision repair, rust, or deferred maintenance. This is a car that has been looked after.

Key details
Exterior: Ruby Red Metallic
Interior: Ruby Red
Transmission: ZF 6-Speed Manual
VIN / chassis: 1G1YZ23J8P5800334

Offered by Skyway Classics, 10420 Portal Crossing, Bradenton, FL 34212. Taxes, title and fees not included.

Photos courtesy of Skyway Classics.