New Corvette Leaves Assembly Line

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. -- The first Corvette ZR1, the fastest-ever model of the popular American-made sports car, rolled off of the assembly line recently.

The ZR1, with a supercharged 638-horsepower V-8 engine, has a top speed of 205 miles per hour and the ability to go from 0 to 60 mph in a mind-boggling 3.4 seconds.

Dave Ressler, a car dealer from Montana, paid $1 million for the first ZR1 at a charity auction hosted by Barrett-Jackson. The car carried a sticker price of $103,300. The additional $896,700 he paid will go to United Way. Ressler said he plans to add the car to his private collection of 43 Corvettes back home in Bozeman.

"I've been a Chevy dealer for 31 years, and this is every American's dream car," Ressler told media outlets.
Ressler says he will add the car to his private collection of 43 Corvettes.

After an inaugural ride earlier this week, the LeMans blue ZR1 was parked outside the Bowling Green plant alongside another Ressler-owned vehicle _ a white 1953 Corvette that is believed to be the oldest Corvette still in existence.

Ressler had purchased the older Corvette two years ago for a cool $1 million.

GM manufactures about 35,000 Corvettes at its Bowling Green plant each year. The plant employs about 960 people, and the company plans to add two additional vehicle lines here by 2012, creating an additional 2,000 jobs.