It would be 18 years before Corvette would reuse the ZR-1 badge. After 1972, the ZR1 tag vanished until Chevrolet had a Corvette worthy of the badge. That ended up being 1990, with the C4 Corvette.

Take the 375-hp 1990 Corvette ZR-1—its inflation-adjusted price comes to around $143,000. In a win for the progression of time, that ZR-1's only boast over today's model was the hyphen in its ...