General Motors has filed an application to register ZR1 as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), GM Authority was first to discover.

The automaker’s May 16th, 2016 application is assigned serial number 87038207 and specifies that the mark will be used for “Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles”.

The GM Authority Take

First and foremost, we should mention that General Motors currently does not hold any trademark rights for the ZR1 name with the USPTO. Second, we don’t believe that this trademark — or others filed by GM over the last few years — are for the purpose of protecting prior names or intellectual property, as doing so is nigh impossible with the trademark requirements established by the USPTO (as outlined here).

Keeping all that in mind, this filing is quite intriguing: though it’s far from an official confirmation that an even more capable Corvette is in the works, it certainly hints at such a vehicle. The biggest questions revolve around what kind of a vehicle a new Corvette ZR1 will be; namely, whether it will be based on the current Corvette C7 platform and what it will be powered by.

To note, GM has a total of three years to complete the registration of this trademark with the USPTO, including proving to the organization that it has plans to use the name on a real-world product or service.