Mid-Engine Corvette Reportedly Not Appearing In Detroit

1 hour ago, ccap41 said:

I'd love to see a Corvette SUV with none other than the n/a 3.6. 

Would be fine as a base engine if it had a kick ass transmission like a PDK tuned for it., but to me Corvette has always been about the v8.  I would rather Cadillac had a transverse engine CUV platform with smaller engines and Corvette had v8 versions of it if they go the CUV route.

IMO, if they want to target the performance/luxury market with a Corvette branded SUV I think their 3.0TT would be a great base engine and then the 4.2TT as the top engine. This is a performance-first brand, in my theoretical eyes. 

Looking at a Corvette, the base model is 455hp so 400hp/tq shouldn't sound too outrageous as a base for a Corvette-branded SUV. 

If they're just going to make any GM CUV but with a V8 then there's no point in giving Corvette its own legit brand. It would just be another badge-job. I understand it would theoretically come from an in-house-already chassis.

All brands PERIOD should be tagged equally for calling a premium lux or performance brand with pathetic 4 banger or 6 banger engines as crap. I do agree that it is amazing how many will attack an American brand for a certain image and not the Euro or Asian for the same pathetic small engine in what is supposed to be performance or luxury.

Reminds me of throwing stones in glass houses.

6 hours ago, frogger said:

What Porsche CUV is FWD based?

 

The Macan is AWD, but is still technically sitting on a FWD derived platform.  Is on the same system platform as the Audi A5,A4,A6,A7,A8 , and Q5

IN ADDITION:

Personally it never mattered to me in the CUV class whether it was FWD or RWD.. as long as its AWD, especially since the advent of adaptive or selective AWD systems. With the truest issue one could come up with pertains to disadvantages of FWD being that the weight distribution was front biased and thus created inferior handing versus a RWD vehicle, which was typically more balanced.

All the RIGHTWD stuff aside.. when that notion comes into play.. I find it interesting that a Macan has a weight distribution of 57.2%/42.8% (F/R) while say.. the weight distribution on the Blazer RS AWD is F/R(59/41%) or say a 2017 BMW X5 X35i at F/R(49/51%) They are off.. but not that far off.

Blazer RS performing the figure 8:

in 27.1 sec @ 0.65 g (avg) and Lateral g at .83g 

vs an X5 at 26.8 sec @ 0.69 g (avg) and lateral g .81

I'm not saying its better.. but I am saying that it in no way do these vehicles deserve the label of being inferior due to being FWD based

 

24 minutes ago, dfelt said:

All brands PERIOD should be tagged equally for calling a premium lux or performance brand with pathetic 4 banger or 6 banger engines as crap. I do agree that it is amazing how many will attack an American brand for a certain image and not the Euro or Asian for the same pathetic small engine in what is supposed to be performance or luxury.

Reminds me of throwing stones in glass houses.

But AMERICANS do it.. they hate themselves.. and will by majority these days let the Foreign makers get away with a litany of offenses that they would demand GM or Ford be put out of business for. Imagine GM being caught up in an Emissions scandal with the type of blatant deception VW pulled off.. 

The Macan starts off with a 248HP 4cyl engine for $50K. The Cadillac XT5 has a 310HP V6 and starts at $41K. How is that even cool? Even if U drop back to the XT4, it only has 11 less HP and starts off at $35K.. and I seriously don't see Porsche as a luxury Cadillac competitor. That's Audi.  I do see it as Sport Corvette competitor. GM needs to jump in that portion of the game.. with both brands

5 hours ago, ccap41 said:

Sorry, I thought responding about the Macan was being civil.. I definitely wan't looking for a rant as a response. I thought we were just talkin' automobiles. 

It's something in the water...I almost never see your responses as less than sane and civil. 

You are always civil and decent...

I have a question: why should the Corvette be a separate division within GM?

In a time when many brands are altering themselves to be just profitable and lack a unique selling point, there really is no reason to convert the Corvette into what Porsche is: a separate division within an automaker that has an increasingly weak USP.  I do not think that Porsche should have pursued the CUV market at all; leave it to Audi for that.  A Corvette is special; there is no reason to turn it into the next Pontiac between 1990 and 2008.

13 minutes ago, riviera74 said:

I have a question: why should the Corvette be a separate division within GM?

In a time when many brands are altering themselves to be just profitable and lack a unique selling point, there really is no reason to convert the Corvette into what Porsche is: a separate division within an automaker that has an increasingly weak USP.  I do not think that Porsche should have pursued the CUV market at all; leave it to Audi for that.  A Corvette is special; there is no reason to turn it into the next Pontiac between 1990 and 2008.

Simple, to me I say leave Corvette in Chevrolet, but offer Corvette CUV/SUV V8 options. Currently there is no real performance CUV/SUV at Chevy. Corvette is the ultimate performance auto, so why not have a Corvette performance series of vehicles and leave everything else the way it is. Last performance SUV was my Trailblazer SS 6.0L V8 AWD, bloody fast and fun to drive, Chevy has nothing right now to replace it unless you move up to the Heavy RST Tahoe.

@riviera74

A lotta people will hate me for saying this, but this seems like the perfect opportunity for GM to cut ties between Chevy and the Corvette. Its actually time for this to go its separate way and be sold outta of a Corvette only store or a Cadillac store IF Cadillac is not getting its own version. Heck, even if it is. As a Corvette owner since the 1990s (’79 L82, ’95, ’00 Z51, ’08 Z51, ’14 Z51, ’16 Z06) and a Cadillac owner since ’05 (’05 STS4.6L, ’09 CTS-V, ’12 CTS-V Coupe, ’16 CTS-V) I can honestly say that one gets nowhere near the treatment at a Chevy dealership as U get from a Caddy or BMW, for that matter, one. Corvette is a sports/luxury brand. Its as simple as that. $60-130K says it all. In fact, at this point it is actually more expense than any Cadillac on the top end. Luxury car owners need more.

That being said.. I think and wish the C7 continued production. To actually help populate a Corvette Brand. It already is a sub-brand and should get full fledged status. We currently have Stingray, Grand Sport, Z06, and ZR1. A mid-engined and CUV would complete the brand and make it full on a Porsche competitor as Zora saw it. Furthermore the Camaro has all the chops to take the Vette’s place in the Chevy line-up.

1 hour ago, Cmicasa the Great said:

@riviera74

A lotta people will hate me for saying this, but this seems like the perfect opportunity for GM to cut ties between Chevy and the Corvette. Its actually time for this to go its separate way and be sold outta of a Corvette only store or a Cadillac store IF Cadillac is not getting its own version. Heck, even if it is. As a Corvette owner since the 1990s (’79 L82, ’95, ’00 Z51, ’08 Z51, ’14 Z51, ’16 Z06) and a Cadillac owner since ’05 (’05 STS4.6L, ’09 CTS-V, ’12 CTS-V Coupe, ’16 CTS-V) I can honestly say that one gets nowhere near the treatment at a Chevy dealership as U get from a Caddy or BMW, for that matter, one. Corvette is a sports/luxury brand. Its as simple as that. $60-130K says it all. In fact, at this point it is actually more expense than any Cadillac on the top end. Luxury car owners need more.

That being said.. I think and wish the C7 continued production. To actually help populate a Corvette Brand. It already is a sub-brand and should get full fledged status. We currently have Stingray, Grand Sport, Z06, and ZR1. A mid-engined and CUV would complete the brand and make it full on a Porsche competitor as Zora saw it. Furthermore the Camaro has all the chops to take the Vette’s place in the Chevy line-up.

Yet you know Chevrolet will never let the Corvette go away even though they have Camaro.

14 hours ago, Cmicasa the Great said:

@riviera74

A lotta people will hate me for saying this, but this seems like the perfect opportunity for GM to cut ties between Chevy and the Corvette. Its actually time for this to go its separate way and be sold outta of a Corvette only store or a Cadillac store IF Cadillac is not getting its own version. Heck, even if it is. As a Corvette owner since the 1990s (’79 L82, ’95, ’00 Z51, ’08 Z51, ’14 Z51, ’16 Z06) and a Cadillac owner since ’05 (’05 STS4.6L, ’09 CTS-V, ’12 CTS-V Coupe, ’16 CTS-V) I can honestly say that one gets nowhere near the treatment at a Chevy dealership as U get from a Caddy or BMW, for that matter, one. Corvette is a sports/luxury brand. Its as simple as that. $60-130K says it all. In fact, at this point it is actually more expense than any Cadillac on the top end. Luxury car owners need more.

That being said.. I think and wish the C7 continued production. To actually help populate a Corvette Brand. It already is a sub-brand and should get full fledged status. We currently have Stingray, Grand Sport, Z06, and ZR1. A mid-engined and CUV would complete the brand and make it full on a Porsche competitor as Zora saw it. Furthermore the Camaro has all the chops to take the Vette’s place in the Chevy line-up.

I agree with most of what you said, especially when it comes to the dealership experience.  I am concerned that the Vette may end up with an identity problem sometime in the future if Corvette were a separate division.  GM has four divisions now; it was not that long ago that it had as many as nine.  BK forced the required pruning down to where it is now. 

Does Corvette deserve to be a separate division with its own dealer network of about 500 dealers?  I would say yes.  But as a separate division, Corvette would need great leadership and vision to prevent what happened to Pontiac in the 25 years before BK.

21 hours ago, Cmicasa the Great said:

@riviera74

A lotta people will hate me for saying this, but this seems like the perfect opportunity for GM to cut ties between Chevy and the Corvette. Its actually time for this to go its separate way and be sold outta of a Corvette only store or a Cadillac store IF Cadillac is not getting its own version. Heck, even if it is. As a Corvette owner since the 1990s (’79 L82, ’95, ’00 Z51, ’08 Z51, ’14 Z51, ’16 Z06) and a Cadillac owner since ’05 (’05 STS4.6L, ’09 CTS-V, ’12 CTS-V Coupe, ’16 CTS-V) I can honestly say that one gets nowhere near the treatment at a Chevy dealership as U get from a Caddy or BMW, for that matter, one. Corvette is a sports/luxury brand. Its as simple as that. $60-130K says it all. In fact, at this point it is actually more expense than any Cadillac on the top end. Luxury car owners need more.

That being said.. I think and wish the C7 continued production. To actually help populate a Corvette Brand. It already is a sub-brand and should get full fledged status. We currently have Stingray, Grand Sport, Z06, and ZR1. A mid-engined and CUV would complete the brand and make it full on a Porsche competitor as Zora saw it. Furthermore the Camaro has all the chops to take the Vette’s place in the Chevy line-up.

6 hours ago, riviera74 said:

I agree with most of what you said, especially when it comes to the dealership experience.  I am concerned that the Vette may end up with an identity problem sometime in the future if Corvette were a separate division.  GM has four divisions now; it was not that long ago that it had as many as nine.  BK forced the required pruning down to where it is now. 

Does Corvette deserve to be a separate division with its own dealer network of about 500 dealers?  I would say yes.  But as a separate division, Corvette would need great leadership and vision to prevent what happened to Pontiac in the 25 years before BK.

While agree with most of what you both say, I actually take a different spin on this using a perfect example as follows:

In the Greater Pacific Northwest, that covers Oregon and Washington state, there used to be a high end Audio / Video dealer called Magnolia HiFi. They only sold top end gear, always had separate rooms setup so that those that want to experience high quality / high priced gear could try it out, then buy and schedule up installation and configuration on site.

Magnolia HiFi was founded in 1954 and had 13 top end stores across the PNW. The children were not interested in Audio/Video as their dad, so on Dec 18th 2000 with Revenues topping $100 million a year, Best Buy stepped up and purchased them for $87 Million giving the children a pay day as the father retired.

Now Why do I bring this up?

Best buy then opened in every store across North America the Boutique Magnolia store within a store. To this day, Best Buy still has great high end gear / sales due to taking the concept of Magnolia and spreading it across the country in every store they have and making sure that that store inside their store is still the best experience ever.

This is what I believe GM needs to do with Corvette. Corvette needs to be a Boutique inside of the Chevrolet dealerships that only sells V8 Powered and Electric Powered cars, SUV/CUVs and Trucks. These should ONLY  be top of the line best powered performance auto's.

The benefit here is that Cheverolet can whore out the rest of the history with entry level to so called SS visual packaged auto's with a bit more power, but when people who do not want the mid level or luxury level names such as GMC, Buick or Cadillac, they step into the Boutique store for a Corvette powered auto.

That is who I see GM maximizing the Corvette without creating another division or group that has to be separate from the existing company divisions.

In fact, GM needs to figure out the best way and they might have already by just having all GMC / Buick dealerships be a required merged dealership. Is there any more sepereate GMC or Buick sites? I have not seen any in a long time. GM needs to improve marketing for all name brands covering the full product line and not just spend it all on 1 name plate for a few years till another product gets updated and then shift focus.

They need Family Coverage Marketing.