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Finally a world class 'Vette, supercharged, carbon fibre, brakes to match, but lets not forget that it is still Chevrolet.  Oh, I know what it needs!  A Plastic window right in the middle of the hood to show off the plastic blower cover!  It had to have been an April FOOLS joke that some pinhead in charge of last minute design changes took as serious!  Perhaps they wanted to emulate Mercedes or BMW or Porsche... oh wait a minute, they would never do something so totally asinine and plain STUPID.  Someone is going to make a few bucks by selling hoods minus plastic windows.  To the people at Chevrolet/GM that approved this design, SHAME ON YOU!!!  This is but one reason that GM products will never be on par with the likes of BMW's M3.  And just another shameful example is that asside from the 'Vette, Pontiacs performance sedan and Chrysler's new muscle car weigh in at near enough to 4200lbs.!  I fear for the new Camaro because if things continue in this way our new hi-performance Z-28 will be a 4000 plus pound behemouth, oh sure it will look nice but it is the 21st century for christs sake, have you not even heard of aluminum!  Arggg       Please Detroit, get it together!  

They built a 200 mile an hour supercar for 100K and you’re worried about the hood? With the hundred thousand or so you save over the competition you can afford an extra hood and some performance upgrades.
As far as the Camaro goes it was never meant to compete with the M3, trouble is you want a 70k car for 35k and that is not going to happen. Lutz has them on the right track but with gas prices rising through the roof performance cars might be gone soon anyway.  

First of all, it's not a plastic blower cover, it's actually the intercooler. Second, have you compared the price of an M3 with the price of a Camaro???? Third, the  heavy weight of vehicles is a result of all the equipment they have (a lot of it unnecessary in a true sport car but who could live without A/C or without a 14 speaker sound system, 10 airbags and traction control???), the materials used in the chassis (have you ever seen the price of all aluminum cars????), all of the drivetrain related equipment (how do you pretend to cool an engine producing 500hp, or to build a transmission capable of withstanding all the torque???)and so. I do think that the weight of the cars should decrease considerable not only for performance but more importantly for mileage concerns, but the application of light weight materials is not as easy as it looks. There's not only the higher cost of the material but also higher cost of manufacturing.     This requires the modification of existing production lines and that cost a lot of money too.

So next time you post a thread please take the time to think with a wider view of the situation. I bet that GM engineers would love to make a 500hp, 3000lb all aluminum Camaro but c'mon you have to be more realistic, that's Ferrari territory, and that's saying a lot.  

He's right. Everything to come out of GM lately has been a fat pig.

I could care less about the ZR1 and its plastic hood cover thingy, I won't ever own one so what do I care!

Fact is GM and others better start investing in and finding weights to use lightweight materials cheaply. The problem is nobody has been preparing for what we have today - whether its a real problem or created by lies and greed. If the auto companies want to sell cars they better start lightening them up and getting great mpg. I for one am not going to trade my 85 thats gets 32 mpg for a solstice that gets 18. Sorry, I don't need another monthly payment that badly.  

"If" I were to ever buy the ZR1 (doubtful), I'm sure it wouldn't cost much to have the clear cover in the hood painted to match the rest of the hood at a reputable body shop.

However, my 2009 Z06 only weighs 3175 lbs and with 505 HP, the wt/pwr ratio is only 6.281 which isn't all that bad (BMW M3 at 3704 with 420 HP = 8.82, Viper = 6.0, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR = 6.08)  On a highway cruise, it is easy for my Z06 to get 26+ MPG.  My 2001 Vette coupe turns in 30 - 33 MPG on most long trips.