Yes, that is what I'm talking about...and I think they let anyone who can write the check purchase any car they want. All it takes is money to buy a car with a naturally aspirated engine that breaks that barrier...nothing terribly impressive there. And while I am terribly impressed with the engineers that achieved it, I have to ask myself the question: "why?" The SMART people, with nothing to prove about how rich they are, buy a forced induction engine that produces the same performance for less than half the price. And what DOESN'T impress me about that naturally aspirated engine, is that once you fork over the mountains of ducats to obtain this item, you are now at the glass ceiling...lets see you do anything to it to improve the performance. Not going to happen. One of the major pulls of the industry towards forced aspiration is that it is so easily upgraded by the aftermarket once the car is purchased, and the factory is thereby released from having to warranty said vehicle. It's a win-win as long as the vehicle holds up to the punishment. The happy owner gets a new-smelling hotrod with insane performance, and the car manufacturers can get a strangle-hold on all the dollars they have been losing on warranty repairs for their performance lines of vehicles.

Chevy, being "The Land that Overhead Cam Forgot", is naturally the company that is still investing everything they've got into archaeic technology, when they could so easily achieve the same results by coming into the 21st century. But if it impresses some people that they can do the same things with pushrod, naturally aspirated technology by expending twice the resources and charging twice the price, then I'm glad those people are impressed. I, personally, am not.

I'm glad to see the ZR1 finally has a supercharger and is proving that Chevy can be taught...unfortunately they learn a little too late to save their failing company. Guess they had to dabble in projects like the Cobalt SS, etc. before they felt comfortable enough to put a real supercharger on a real performance vehicle and pound out the big numbers like Ford Has been doing for a decade.

I guess my point is: why do people have to hate on superchargers? Anyone who doesn't find the Ford GT an impressive vehicle just because its supercharged...well...
The Shelby GT500 mustangs are running mid to low 10's after being out for a vert short time...I've seen one break into the 9 second quartermile. It does it by using a supercharger on a dual overhead cam 5.4 liter engine, and some simple aftermarket upgrades...and I'm impressed. Who thought, back in 1994, when modular engines first came out in the Ford line, and everyday joe was struggling to see that 300hp mark, that we would be seeing mustangs that could pound out 800hp like it was a brisk set of jumping-jacks 10 years later?

There is nothing wrong with forced aspiration...its not cheating...its only the next step in the evolution of technology, and I'm sure, once forced aspiration is considered commonplace, whatever comes next will be considered cheating too..."Electric motors have all their torque available at all RPM...that's cheating. I'm not impressed. Anyone can run a 7 second quartermile with an electric motor...but lets see you do that with a steam driven engine!"