Regardless of whether or not one considers its physical appearance attractive, the Perana Z-One breaks necks everywhere it goes.
I piloted this metallic burgundy coupe down a main thoroughfare in car-centric Orange County – these are people who see exotics daily – and everyone gawked as if the two-seater were covered in blinking high-intensity strobe lights. While the exhaust is loud enough to disturb those driving with mobile phones stuck to their faces, it's not just the acoustic concussion drawing their attention; the Perana's extraordinarily long nose, aggressive wide stance and massive rear clip tell everyone that this is something special.
After less than an hour behind the wheel, I had interacted with more than a dozen strangers about the alluring Z-One. Some yelled to me at traffic lights, more than a few waved from the curb, and then there was a car full of high school kids who chased me down and encircled me in a parking lot. The attention the Perana commanded was nothing short of astounding.
Three years ago, we rubbed elbows with the Perana Z-One at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show. The low-volume sports car was touted as "a vision born in the hearts of a collection of motoring enthusiasts." In the most simplified terms, the coupe was born from a collaboration between renowned Milanese coachbuilders Zagatoand Perana Performance Group, a South African Vehicle Manufacturer.
Even as that corporate description is spot-on, it doesn't really stir the soul. In layman's terms, and what we really want to hear, is that the Perana Z-One is a hand-crafted tube-frame sports car with composite body panels fitted with a very powerful Chevrolet engine. It looks bad-ass and it goes like stink.
I recently found myself staring into the deep burgundy paint of a Z-One parked inside the pristine showroom at Hillbank Motor Corporation headquarters in Southern California. The customer car, already sold, was the last of the models to be built with the "Perana" branding. All future coupes will be essentially the same, but will wear "AC 378 GT Zagato" badges (check out the details in this previous story). Nomenclature aside, this exotic was all mine for the next couple of hours. I smiled, walked around it a dozen times, and then started asking a slew of questions.
As it turns out, there is much more to the Z-One than superficial eye-catching bodywork.
Peel back the vinyl-ester composite body panels (the material is a very durable heat-set plastic resin) and a tube steel space frame, a chassis construction method more common to race cars than anything in mass production, is exposed. Its sturdy latticework provides a stable platform for the unequal length A-arms, Eibach springs and Bilstein shock absorbers that are bolted to each corner. A thick anti-roll bar at each end of the vehicle completes the suspension package.
The brakes are two-piston sliding calipers up front (12.8-inch one-piece ventilated iron rotors) and one-piston sliding calipers in the rear (12.0-inch one-piece ventilated iron rotors) with vacuum assist – there is no anti-lock supervision. Custom Perana/Zagato wheels with staggered diameters front and rear (19- and 20-inches respectively) wear 245/40ZR19 and 305/35ZR20 Michelin tires.
Dropped low in the chassis and set far back from the nose is a Chevy V8 derived from the C6 Corvette. The standard vehicle, with a base price of $128,000, is fitted with a 6.2-liter LS3 making 430 horsepower and 424 pound-feet of torque. That engine is more than adequate to lay a path of warm rubber down the street. But the owner of our test car wasn't satisfied with adequate, so he opted for the $145,000 version fitted with a hand-built LS7 stroker built by Thompson Automotive.
Unlike the standard Chevrolet Performance crate motor on which the powerplant is based, Thompson fits the all-aluminum engine with custom piston oil jets, a Callies Dragonslayer stroker crankshaft, Oliver forged I-beam connecting rods, Teflon-skirted Diamond Racing forged aluminum pistons, COMP Cams hydraulic roller camshaft, Ferrea heavy-duty stainless steel hollow-stem exhaust valves, PAC Racing dual-coil valve springs and retainers, Trend push rods, PAC Racing dual-coil valve springs/retainers and Chevrolet Performance's six-bolt LSX-LS7 cylinder heads (installation of the drivetrain and set up of this Perana was done by Vlado at V's Performance in Orange County). As you can see, the upgrade list is impressively long, and so is its resulting power.
In contrast to a stock LS7 7.0-liter (427 cubic inches) making 505 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque, the stroked, tuned and massaged engine displaces 7.2-liters (442 cubic inches) and develops 700 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque – on civilian pump gas! Harnessing the power and sending it to the rear wheels through a ZF mechanical limited-slip differential is a traditional six-speed manual gearbox.
Read more by Michael Harley at Autoblog.com
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