What's the story on the first 100 1990 ZR-1s?

[scholtmj]

I found a Red/Red 90' ZR-1 for sale and it sounds like an interesting car. The owner (ZR-1 certified mechanic) says the first 100 cars were press vehicles and not to be sold to the public. His car is #77 and it was sold to Maxie in Georgia as a favor since Maxie was one of the largest Corvette dealers in the country. He says it has steel half-shafts which was an early production item. 48k miles but Maxie didn't put any on and the owner has put 3 miles on it since 1997.

Does this story make sense or am I being fed a lie?

[Kevin]

as for the first 100 not being sold other then to one dealer doesn't really sound true to me but I don't really know...sounds like ******** but I could be wrong. The half-shaft thing is true though

[ZR1Vette]

Not sure about the first 100 story BUT yes up until MY 90 VIN 622 half shafts are steel and then at that point switched over to aluminum

[gbrtng]

The press cars shipped to Europe for the Geneva show were 89s and not sold to the public. Don't know where those went. 90s with VINs under 100 were sold to the public; I never heard anyone refer to them as "press" cars, but you probably had to be a favorite dealer to get any of the first ones.

[Nick]

Huh. We have a member here in the PNW with 1990 #64. I believe he said it was a GM exec car at one time (McClellan's?).

[GrayZ]

At the gathering a few years ago, Gordon Killilbrew commented on my car being an early car, (#74) He said, you have a early car, 14.
I thought he'd misread the vin number, i repeated #74, He explained
the first 60 cars produced were not for sale to the general public, but
went to GM exec's, and favored dealers.
Some of the differences were the the shafts already mentioned.
Glass Headlights, he also explained that "extra time" in the engine build and overall, to insure they were perfect examples of ZR-1's.
the earlier cars are also faster, sexier, and cost more coin.
most came with fuzzy dice.

[flyin ryan]

I was just going to post about Keith's car, i thought if memory served correct it was an early one. Turns out it is, #74. Good info Gordon K. provided to Keith.

[phrogs]

As far as the half shafts mine first ZR-1 was #354 and it had steel halfshafts.

[tomtom72]

Didn't alot of the early car's also get built with the manual A/C? I thought that I saw that someplace, maybe over at the NetReg site? I can't remember where I read that the combo of steel halfshafts & manual A/C were a fairly scarce item. The auto climate control and the dual roof option are the only options listed on my sticker...mine is a May 90 build date, 2233.

[gbrtng]

As far as I know, manual air was available throughout 1990 on the ZR-1. Automatic air became standard in LT5 1991s, although manual air was standard on the L98 1991s - my wife has one.