Vroom Vroom

Attention speed freaks! There's a 2009 Chevrolet Corvette coming with 650 horsepower. You read that right. Six-fifty! All it needs is a name, and a little luck.

When the ultimate 2009 Chevrolet Corvette rumbles off the assembly line, we're betting the badge will read Z07 or SS. But we'll call it the "Blue Devil" for now.

No one outside Chevrolet knows everything about the finished product, but informed sources say those 650 horses -- an estimate, by the way -- come from a special supercharged version of GM's 6.2-liter pushrod V-8. The same basic engine in naturally aspirated form and at 7.0-liters makes 505 horsepower in the 2007 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. A six-speed manual is likely to be the sole transmission.

We hear GM's Performance Center will build the engine largely by hand at the rate of 1,500-2,000 per year, which means only that number of "Blue Devils" per year.

The special engine in the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette "Blue Devil,"and a raft of other specialized components, explain the rumored list of price of around $100,000. That's steep by Corvette standards, but not outlandish, considering the Corvette-based supercharged Cadillac XLR-V sells for similar money today.

So is the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette "Blue Devil" signed, sealed, delivered? Mostly, but there's one cloud on the horizon, a CO2 cloud that sources say has GM delaying plans for several new mainstream rear-drive V-8 sedans. That's in response to the recent Supreme Court decision that frees the EPA to set limits on carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions from cars to mitigate global warming.

If you can afford the price tag of a corvette, you can afford all of the taxes and fees that come with it. :)