Epic Drives: Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 in Europe

You don't bring a knife to a gunfight

A ZR1 in Germany: We're driving the fastest Corvette in history on the fastest roads on earth. Of course we're going to try for 200 mph.

The day before, on the normally crowded A9 autobahn between Nuremburg and Munich, I'd averaged -- yes, averaged -- 132 mph over a glorious 55 mile stretch in the Corvette ZR1, the needle on the metric speedo of the European-spec car never falling below the 200 km/h mark (about 120 mph) and occasionally flickering past 300 km/h (187 mph) when I could read the traffic flow in the far distance.

The sonic boom of 638 hp, supercharged V-8 rattled the squadrons of Benzes and BMWs and Audis minding their own business in the middle lane as we blasted past them. The slightly nervous, squirrely feeling through the steering I'd noticed from the super-grippy Michelin Pilot Sport Cup tires at lesser speeds disappeared as the aerodynamics kicked in, as if a giant invisible hand was gently pressing the car into the tarmac, steadying it. And the power! There are very few cars on the planet that will accelerate from 160 mph to almost 190 mph with the urgency of this Corvette.

And today we were going to make the most of that weapons-grade thrust...

I think it was while we were shooting our 2011 Best Driver's Car video last year that Justin Bell and I got talking about great road trips. Justin's one of those rare people who can drive fast and talk coherently at the same time, which is why he's one of our go-to guys for the new Motor Trend YouTube channel. He also likes good food and wine, and has that outrageously suave demeanor that only the English can pull off, which makes him an excellent travelling companion. We'd done a short road trip up Highway 1 in a Cadillac CTS-V Coupe a few months earlier, and it had been a lot of fun.

Justin's dad Derek, the former Ferrari F1 driver and five-time Le Mans winner, used to take him along to some of the European races when he was a kid; more than once he woke from a nap to find Bell senior cruising at 160 mph along a deserted Italian autostrada late at night in the family Ferrari. On one trip Derek took him all the way to Maranello to meet Enzo Ferrari himself.

As Justin's own racing career took off -- he won the 1997 GT2 Championship in a Viper GTS-R -- the road trips ended, and when he mentioned it had been years since he'd actually driven over the Alps into Italy, an idea began to form. Why don't we meet in Germany and drive over the iconic Stelvio Pass into Italy and down to Maranello? And just to make things interesting, why don't we do it in a Corvette ZR1, and see if we can introduce a few Porsches and Ferraris to some all-American shock and awe on their home turf?

Which is how we ended up heading northeast out of Munich on the A92 autobahn in Detroit's own supercar. Driving the fastest Corvette in history on the fastest roads on earth: Of course we'd try for 200 mph...

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