smk4565

The Porsche 718 has a turbo 4, the Supra has one, Alpine A110 in Europe, there are 4 cylinder sports cars. AMG has a 2.0 liter turbo 4 hybrid coming next year with 643 hp, I'd rather that that 4-cylinder than the 6.2 V8 making 495 hp in the Corvette. Now I know GM won't do it, they'll ride the pushrod V8 to 2030 when the ICE V8 dies.

I would say that getting younger buyers isn't as important to getting buyers with money, or appealing to those with money. Since that is where you can get profit and sell higher end models and tack on lots of options. C8 a supercar? I don't think so, maybe if the ZO6/ZR1 really dial up the performance. Part of being a supercar is also rarity and collectibility, although perhaps that is now the hyper car market and you can call a top end Corvette, a 911, AMG GT, etc super cars. And this list of Nurburgring lap times would suggest the 911 and AMG GT are super cars: You have the 488 Pista there at 7 minutes from 2 years ago, if the Corvette can crack the 7 minute mark then I'd say it is in supercar territory.

The Camaro is either going to die or become a sedan. That leaves the Corvette as the lone coupe at GM, they could do a cheaper version with a turbo 4. Or they just hold out until you have a common EV platform, and the Corvette underpinnings are no different than any sedan or SUV since you can put just about any body style on top. Then it doesn't really matter how many they sell because the economies of scale are built in. But at the end of the day, no coupe will sell well.

But they'll trash the Corvette name if it is an SUV, much like GM has trashed the names: Grand Prix, Grand Am, Cavalier, Cobalt, Impala, LeSabre, Park Avenue, Lucerne, Deville, Seville, DTS, STS, CTS, ATS, SRX, etc. All those cars GM trashed the name so they replaced them with a new named car, only to trash that or wait for the market to just phase it out as with the Buick LaCrosse for example. I could see 50-50 odds on GM taking the Cadillac Lyric dual motor, throwing a Chevy Blazer interior in it and calling it the Corvette SUV and selling it for $90k, and it will weigh like 5400 lbs, do 0-60 in 4.9 seconds just so they can claim "sub 5-seconds 0-60" in their ads. And the Corvette will be come to be know as a slow, mediocre handling SUV (that isn't as good as the German SUVs) and it will just trash any cache that the Corvette name still has. Also to be noted, is the Corvette is most popular among baby boomers, the average buyer age is in the 60s on a Corvette. Not sure this is the crowd that wants to go all in on EVs. Well yes there will be a bunch or performance electric SUVs coming in the next year or 2. But Tesla Model X Plaid is available for order now and does 1/4 mile under 10 seconds. And you can still seat 7 and tow 5,000 lbs with it.

Sounds like you need a Tesla if you want a performance electric SUV.

They don't sell a 911 SUV for a reason. Correct on no sporty SUVs, GM needs those, but they shouldn't be called Corvette. They could do a Chevy whatever, Cadillac XT-whatever, and bring out a whole slew of 500 hp SUVs, but don't call an SUV a Corvette.

Well I hope not.

Because Corvette is not a brand. If they are going to make a Corvette brand, then it should have a stand alone dealership like Cadillac, and no longer be at Chevrolet dealers. If they want to make Corvette the 5th GM brand, and supply it with a full line, 2 coupes, a sedan, 2 SUVs, and perhaps more like Porsche has, then that is another story. Also would be a dumb move to dump billions into making a new brand, rather than giving Cadillac these performance models, but GM likes to do dumb things.

I hope any electric Corvette has 2 doors and 2 seats. Or at least 2 doors and if they do a 2+2 configuration like the 911 or 2022 Mercedes SL that would be fine since without an engine you open up some space. But no on family of Corvette SUVs, that would be awful.

But the other brands aren’t building an affordable EV either. The Mach-E starts in the $40s, Toyota is missing in action, the VW iD4 starts in the $40s and is comparable to RAV4 or CRV per their own advertising but the iD4 costs $15k more. People will pay big money for a Tesla. Mercedes or BMW could sell $60k EV’s all day long because their is what their customers are used to paying. Ford customers aren’t used to paying $50k for a small SUV.

I hope they reveal with some track times.

These should both be hard pass vehicles. They are small and expensive, might as well just get a RAV4 which is same powertrains, probably a lot of the same options are available and it costs way less. The RAV4 is a pretty solid vehicle, but for $50k with an “L” on the front it isn’t. Better to just get a lightly equipped RX350 for that money.

Go to a track if you want to race.

This has a bit of a Batmobile look, looks cool. I would like to see an EV convertible, no one has one. But I feel they will just build another crossover instead.

To convert Alfa Romeo to an all EV brand is pretty easy, they only have 2 products both of which would be due for replacement by 2024 anyway. As for the bring back V6 idea, engines will never go bigger, only smaller. Car companies aren’t going to put any money in new engines, they are going to let the current ICE power trains run their course and kill them off.

But not production cars, and on a track AMG One will slaughter anything because it is made for a track, not top speed.

The fastest cars around a track that are available now are the Black Series and GT2 RS. The fastest car is the Bugatti Chiron at 273 mph. Tesla does have great 0-60 and 1/4 mile times, but the Ferrari SF90 is right there with it, the Rimac is even faster than the Tesla, but I am not really calling that a "production" car. They are all European cars. I don't know if there has ever been an American car under 7 minutes at the Nurburgring, let alone 6:43. There is no 275 mph Corvette or Cadillac Cien to take down Bugatti. And the AMG One hasn't even hit the track yet, which will just shatter anything the Black Series or GT2 GS have done, probably set a 1/4 mile record. All the high performance cars are from Europe. And it isn't just American cars dropping the call, Japanese and South Korea too. Genesis, Lexus, Infiniti, Acura are all out there, they tossed out short lived stuff like the LF-A and NSX (which is officially dead in 2022) which aren't as fast as European sports cars, the now super dated Nissan GT-R, was impressive in 2009, not anymore. Where are they all at? I don't think one Asian car company has a 600 hp car right now, not one 200 mph car either. Mercedes, Porsche and BMW make sedans that can beat a C8 Z51 around the Nurburgring, why doesn't Cadillac or the Japanese? And then you have 290 hp "F-Sport" cars or A-Spec Acura's with 350 hp that they think are performance. Those people are clueless. They need to step their game up. At least Tesla has brought performance to the table.

A Ferrari has greater performance than an M4, a Ferrari ownership experience is also quite different than a BMW ownership experience.

An M4 Comp is about $75k unless you option it up, similar to Corvette pricing. There is also only one Corvette engine now, I am still waiting in the Black Series and GT2 RS beater. Until they get something faster the C8 Z51 is all they got. Probably true that a Cadillac hyper car won’t do anything for them, but I just said a $250-300k vehicle, could be an SUV, sedan, convertible, etc. Tesla too should go up market with a more luxurious product, their interiors aren’t that great.

I am not a Tesla fan, I don’t need to defend them. Let’s see what the production version Plaid does on the Ring. If they can’t beat the Taycan maybe Tesla is a one trick straight line pony.

I think the Camaro will become a sedan because the Impala nameplate doesn’t really carry as much weight and it has to be one of the two. 2 door cars in general are dying, I suspect Mustang stays a coupe unless sales get awful, GM has Corvette for their coupe. I feel like car companies will have 1 coupe, and I don’t mean per brand, but per corporation, like Stellantis with 12 brands maybe does 2 coupes.

The C8 with Z51 is a half second faster around the Nurburgring than a BMW M4 competition, half second slower than an M5 CS. That’s not Ferrari territory and both those BMW’s have a back seat. And for $100k the Ferrari you’d get is a Maserati Ghibli or Alfa Romeo Guilia Quadrafiglio.

You are making 2 different arguments. On one hand saying the Corvette can keep up with the exotics but on the other saying that even though the Corvette is down on power or speed from a Ferrari, but it is cheaper, so that is why. The Corvette makes a great performance per dollar argument, but it is not a better performer than the exotics and super cars. And on the flip side, what is stopping GM from making a $300,000 car? Whether it be sports car, sedan, SUV or whatever. If GM engineering is that good, they should be able to build a vehicle at that price point and sell it.

I don't value the Ferrari brand name but others do. Obviously Mercedes has hammered them in Formula 1 the past 8 years and I don't see Ferrari holding the Nurburgring lap record. And no doubt the AMG One will shatter any performance metric the SF90 sets. I don't like Ferraris, but obviously people pay big money for them, new and classics, people will spend millions on one.

A Ferrari 296 is lighter than a Corvette, the Ferrari 488 is 300 lbs lighter than a Corvette, it is lighter than a Porsche 718 too. I think Ferrari could make a sub 4,000 lb EV, which makes their weight 1,000 less than what a lot of others will be probably. The 488 is a 3,000 lbs car, take out 600 lbs for engine and transmission, add 1500 lbs of batteries and electric motors and it is still 3900 lbs. And if battery tech is better by 2030, maybe it is a 1000 lbs of battery and only a 3400 lb car.