I used iPods in each car because I had an insane amount of high quality music, 106 GB, so my last iPhone I got 256 GB storage, most of my cars I can just stream, and now all my iPods are retired, carry everything in my iPhone, just keep the iPods for backup just in case

I verified today that UBS stick, formatted NTSF, will work in the ZR1. I had some files loose, others in folders, it saw all of them and used their tags automatically so I could search by artist, album, etc. Most likely my previous iPod issue was cable related, will test with a different cable I have once I get my X3 back from repairs.

Zr1
 

I do the same thing and it works great. It even shows the album art on the screen. This is in my 2016 Z06.