At the time I visited DeMambro, these pieces hadn't yet been installed. So when he invited me to drive it, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. DeMambro is a sly dog, though, and although he had been filling me in on all of his various travails with the car, he knew that the package was still plenty impressive. He handed me the keys, and we were off.
While I'd driven older cars with big horsepower, I'd never had a chance to unleash a Z06. And a Z06 with a supercharger-even at lower-than-ideal boost-was something significantly beyond my experience. DeMambro had any number of descriptions for it, all of them involving the unbridled thrill of the overall experience. "It takes you back to being a teenager-but not an especially intelligent one," was a favorite.
Leaving Falmouth and entering the divided section of highway that leads to Boston, it was time to do my own version of DeMambro's vehicle-dynamics test. Rolling onto the highway in Third gear (in First and Second, the car just spins its wheels), it was time to cut loose. I eased into it, and cars in the slow lane just disappeared behind us. It wasn't long before DeMambro brought me back to reality by saying, "You better slow down; the cops hang out just ahead."
We played for a while longer, then took the car back to DeMambro's house to reflect on the experience. He told me that the search for power wasn't as easy as most people think, but when you get it right, it really is right. Having sampled his car's extraordinary performance firsthand, I couldn't agree more.