The Corvette is a status symbol. And we can ill afford to underwrite some bald fat 50+ guy’s lifelong ambition to own one at the expense of our children and grandchildren. Nobody “needs” a car that goes that fast and has enough cargo space for a box of kleenex. It’s an automotive surrogate penis, and not a great one at that.

I personally will never buy another GM vehicle (I’m proud to say I’ve never owned a Chrysler). Their quality sucks for what you pay and their lack of attention to gas mileage is unforgivable. I’ll stick with my Fords, thanks. They didn’t drink the bailout Kool Aid and their product is as good or better than the other 2 of the “big 3.” Not to mention a far wiser idea than sending your hard-earnt dollars to Japan or Korea.

I will no doubt get a bunch of “car guys” writing in that disagree vehemently with me. But if they need to validate their masculinity so desperately, they can all get themselves huge shiny belt buckles – at least my grandkids won’t have to pay for that.

Joe beat me to the trickle effect. The most important contribution to automotive engineering worldwide has been the hydro-formed aluminum frame rail. That is why C5 Corvette convertibles are stiffer than Mercedes coupes.

Having said that, and while trying to suppress the flames that are just aching to be read, don’t write about what you don’t know. Impala’s and Malibu’s are every bit as good as the truck line up. Pontiac’s are bye-bye but they built really distinctive and powerful cars. Buick has some of the most beautiful cars built today. Cadillac is Cadillac and I couldn’t live without one. To the day I die, there will be a Corvette and a Cadillac in the garage. You don’t know what you’re missing and I’m not sure you could tell the difference anyway.

Seriously I have mentally separated GM’s best cars from the cars I could afford. In other words GM can build good cars but I can’t afford any of them. The cars that I can afford – the sub ~$25K cars are either undesirable (Buick) or not worth a damn (Aveo).

The truly good GM products I could afford are centered around trucks and SUVs. And I don’t want one of those. Don’t need the size, weight or capability – I can borrow one when I need it.

They made a half-assed attempt at failing to sell us Opels (which I would have bought eventually when I needed one) but they failed to follow through with that. Did very little to make them desirable with promotion and so forth.

I think what GM needs to be able to do with the Corvette is learn to make other products turn a profit at such low production levels. I suspect that much of the Corvette overhead is shared expenses with vehicles that receive Corvette DNA eventually and without the volume of those lesser products that the Corvette will no longer be worth it’s expense to develop and build. I gotta believe that GM considers that some of the development costs of Corvettes will be paid back when those designs reach the lesser brands.

Perhaps they need to learn how to make a profitable Camaro at 2500 units per year, the SSR at 2500 profitable units are year (yes I know it is dead), and a smaller convertible at 2500 units per year and so on. Then they can have 10 different models and not absolutely flood the markets with GM products and they won’t be dependent on building 5 million units per year only to make a modest profit in tight economies. This would enable them to make several interesting products in small quantities, products that would be highly sought after products b/c they were always in short supply, and rare enough like some of the European luxury brands that people who wanted something different would be satisfied.

GM could still build some products small, medium and large in greater quantities – with production adjusted when they have a hit product on their hands.

They are going to have to leave behind the notion that they can reserve desirability for certain portions of their product lineup. The little products are still going to have to be stylish, desirable and quality products. See Civic, Golf, Corolla, etc. Corvette and Caddy can’t be the only good looking products.

See how the smaller vehicles are promoted in Europe and what options a small car comes with there. Same could be applied to small cars and mid-sized vehicles here. I don’t want to have to buy the top-dog products to get the features. I want a smaller car (again Golf sized) with good economy that comes with those little extra pieces of trim and the clever details.

I think seriously GM ought to suspend Corvette production (I see that they have) for a period if the ‘vette is not directly being a positive part of their bottom line. Perhaps GM needs to move the engineers and production staff to the other product lines to make those products as good as the Corvette – or – as good as the competition’s products in those segments. Extra quality inspections. Clever solutions for production problems. Better ways of making a car – through better designs, better materials (better plastics or aluminum instead of plastic), etc. GM is already paying those people’s salaries. Why not? Where would the extra cost come from?

Perhaps with a hybrid drive 2.5 litre hemi V8, which certainly worked well enough for the early 1960’s Daimler SP250.

By 2019, it’d probably be the only V8 on the market anyway…

This would ensure that some GM vehicles would at least have some collector car cachet despite a large proportion of the US population planning to / already boycotting New Government Motors.

Forgive his momentary thought order challenged mind.

(Sales) x (Profit per Car) = :)

(35,310)x ( $50,000) = 1,765,500,000.00
(35,310)x ( $40,000) = 1,412,400,000.00
(35,310)x ( $30,000) = 1,059,300,000.00
(35,310)x ( $20,000) = 706,200,000.00
(35,310)x ( $10,000) = 353,100,000.00
(35,310)x ( $5,000) = 176,550,000.00

I don’t think its 50K, 40k, or 30k…

I will say this, I’m not into the “four wheels transportation” thing this guy is professing as GM’s salvation. I’ve never owned a foreign car, but if Chevy dumped the Corvette, I would also have no reason to set foot in a Chevy dealership, for myself, my wife or daughters.

When people talk about GM”s problems I think they forget that the entire world is in a steep recession. France is subsidizing its car industry, Toyota is even posting losses.

Admittedly, the course he is suggesting is in line with Honda. A short line up of well-built simple cars. It works for Honda, why not for GM? Perhaps it may work. Or perhaps GM maintained it’s dominance as the worlds largest automobile manufacturer (until very recently) by doing somethings right. GM (like many other businesses) is in real trouble, when you talk about the bailout, don’t forget, you’re bailing out Americans. If GM, Chrysler or Ford die, we will all be buying our cars from companies outside of the United States. That means that while we may be able to control this crisis to a degree, if it weren’t GM, Ford or Chrysler, we (the consumers) would still be footing the bill of some other foreign car company.

Leave the Corvette alone, fix the unions, fix the economy, and the American car companies will do just fine.

For the Corvette, it was:

Mechanical Fuel Injection (late 50’s..it wasn’t “invented” here, but was made to work here)
4-wheel Disc brakes (60’s)
Suspension Technologies
R and then Z-rated tires
Port fuel injection (electronic)
Injection molded body panels
Forged AL suspension components
ABS brakes
Traction Control
Hydro-formed frames
Big cubic inch engines that get by the gas guzzler tax (without going to high-winding, overly complicated overhead cam designs).
Again…brakes, ABS and traction control.

And that is just the tip of a very significant iceberg.

I’ve owned 4 Corvettes now. It was a passion to own one when I was wrenching on my ‘70 Chevelle SS 396. The good will the Corvette gets from the world is simply astounding. Go to any Corvette-centric web site and you’ll find passionate owners around the world.

Corvettes (and racing) have done more for the GM marque than anything else the “general” has ever done. It shows we can do it better, cheaper and still with higher engineering quality than manufacturers who build cars 3x-4x (and more) $$ than the Corvette.

This race engineering is built into every GM product today. What is learned on the endurance track trickles right down to the every day car in their line. Engines that can go 300k-400k miles was unheard of in the 60’s, now it is more common than you think.

Mr. Farago…it is painfully obvious to most of us you have no clue what you are talking about.

The men with the white coats are waiting outside your door…let them in and give us all a break from your worthless rants.

To kill the only car Chevy has that actually makes money for GM AND contributes so much to the technology they put into their entire line of cars is nutz…

Is the Corvette a necessity? NO

Is it a performance giant amongst its rivals? YES

Does it do any good to the rest of GM? Most definitely YES!

And for those saying “Stop the development!” answer this…

How can GM make cars that get better mileage, possible go completely green without development?

It can’t be done.

If GM could get the UAW to slow down production of cars that are not selling, they wouldn’t be in this mess. But to be hamstrung by the unions into paying for workers…if they are actually working or not, is crazy.

It actually costs GM LESS money to produce the cars than to shut down the line for a month…all due to the $$$ they bleed out to the unions if they “furlough” the workers.

Your unions at work…

Please don’t impose your own personal restrictions on the 30 to 40 thousand of us every year that find the Corvette an eminently justifiable purchase.

I have loved Corvettes as long as I can remember. But I have never owned one. I live in a part of the country where it snows every winter. I can only afford one car for my use, and it has to get me to work and get me home every day, even if there is 6 inches of snow. Sadly, the Corvette doesn’t fit that description. Most people are like me. So even though it is true as some have said, that the Corvette is the sports car blue collar types can aspire to, most of them can never buy one no matter how much they want to. Robert is right, the Corvette is regrettably a luxury that GM cannot afford any more.

Kill Corvette you kill GM. GM is already dying. Killing the product that actually gets you airtime, be it in reviews, or TV shows, or tuners keeps the brand alive. The argument for Corvette is that its a far better bit of advertising to keep it then to get your 5 minutes of fame for killing it. Want to see GM sink even faster then do it.

That better? ;)

Really? Can you imagine the 10 O’clock news telling of the “death” of the Corvette. This story will travel globally, since the world is already pissed off at selfish American greed for screwing the global economy. Most of America will assume GM is dead. Sales, already really low, will drop further still. Yeah, RF, GM is almost dead, but management has already done a stellar job of killing it. They don’t need to push the knife in deeper, which is what killing the ‘Vette would do. Even if the car only breaks even, eliminating it would cause much more damage that the dollar value of what it brings in. Let it ride…C7 will have to wait a few years.

3. To concentrate GM’s engineering resources where it matters. (If you think the ‘Vette’s the biz, why not let these guys loose on the important products? Important as in “save the company” important.)

#1 would make sense if in fact moving the Vette to another division was part and parcel of an honest attempt at brand focus. But I don’t think it would be.

We kinda know Chevy is basic transport, but we don’t know if it means American made, Mexican made, Korean made, or if where it’s made just isn’t going to be part of the brand identity. As for myself, if I buy an import, it will be made in Ohio, not Mexico or Korea. Is Chevy going to make all sizes and shapes of vehicles – just low end? Your essay suggests a 3 model approach for Chevy, but I see no evidence Chevy is heading that way. There is more work to do than shifting ‘Vette somewhere.

Additionally you suggest ‘Vette pops up again as a Caddy, thus deteriorating (even further) the lack of focus in that division. 6 of one, half dozen of the other.

#2. Given the responses so far, I’d suspect most stakeholders would look upon the news as they’ve looked upon your editorial – WTF? GM has a vehicle they (most likely) make money on. Go ahead and make the money, and attend to the 400 or so more pressing problems.

#3. That would make sense, if in fact it were possible to put the ‘Vette team on redoing say the Cobalt. But cobalt has to sell for $15K, not $50K. But maybe you have a point. ‘Vette, even if kept, doesn’t need to be improved or updated for a while. Put the team on something else and see if they can make any progress.

You have it exactly backwards. There is now more convergence between sports and regular passenger cars today than there was in the past, not less.

If sports cars face a challenge in the future, it’s that it is no longer necessary to build such a specialized body style to get performance that would be considered absolutely outstanding by 99% of the population. It’s now possible to build a sedan that can do virtually everything that a specialty coupe can do.

Still, that sporty look is good for the brand. Get rid of the Corvette, and you’ve just transformed Chevy from a wounded brand with modest potential for recovery into Buick’s Rental Division. GM has enough problems as is, and when looked at strictly as a branding exercise, getting rid of the Vette would only make things worse.

But there is a need for those technologies in a Silverado. And a CTS. Should GM kill them off too?

What about the Malibu’s ABS/traction control? Its low tire pressure sensors? Its various weight saving measures?

Hell, even its steering wheel comes from the Vette (lol)…

I’m not sure this is really the case. There’s not much that you can share between a dedicated-chassis rear-drive sports car and a mass-market front-drive sedan. What makes a good example of the former isn’t necessarily a good fit for the latter, at least not any more. There’s not much need for a hydroformed chassis or the LS-series engine in a Malibu.

Again, let’s use Toyota as an example: variable valve timing and lift showed up in the Echo/Yaris before appearing in the rest of the lineup, while hybrid power showed it’s faced in the Echo-a-like Prius. At VW, twincharging and direct injection debuted in the Golf, as did most of it’s diesel innovation. Safety and convenience features do show up in higher-trim models, but these are usually luxury car, not sports cars. Examples include things like Mercedes’ PreSafe or Volvo’s BLIS.

It’s not the the Corvette can’t contribute engineering to the rest of the enterprise, but that it’s not as significant as it once was. I don’t think the missions of specialized sports cars and mainstream sedans/crossovers converge enough for technology sharing to really be feasible, or justification, any longer. The cars are just too different.

Sure, the Vette appeals to teenage boys. I doubt a soccer mom looking at a Traverse really cares at all about the 436hp car in the corner of the show room. But my point still remains, if you concede that a certain portion of Chevy buyers are inclined to purchase Chevy products because they’re “die hard fans”, what made them “die hard fans” in the first place? It could have been Dale Ernhardt, it could have been their family’s tradition of buying Sliverados, but for a certain portion of those ‘die hard’ fans, I would be willing to bet their love of Corvettes played a big role in their love of Chevy.

The C6 is a profitable car, been in production for 4 years. I understand (but disagree with) your first two points, but #3 really gets me. You do realize that most of Corvette’s technology filters down to other cars, right? It’s gotta be tried out somewhere. Look at ABS brakes (1986) port fuel injection (1985), low tire pressure sensors (1990) 6 speed transmissions (1989), hydroformed chassis and the LS engine series (1997)….the list goes on and on….

My point is, Corvette engineering does not exist in a vacuum. Engineering resources from the Vette benefit the entire brand. Let the C6 soldier on in its current guise, as it will probably be fully competitive for years to come. Unless massive re-engineering is going to be mandated soon by federal law, I would leave it alone. If CAFE is an issue, put the existing 4.8L V8 in it with DOD and a 2.73 rear end…and it will get 30 mpg on the highway all day long.

Yes. (ducks) There are three main reasons to kill the ‘Vette.

1. To save Chevrolet (refocus brand)
2. To send a message to all stakeholders that this ain’t no party, this ain’t disco, this ain’t no foolin’ around
3. To concentrate GM’s engineering resources where it matters. (If you think the ‘Vette’s the biz, why not let these guys loose on the important products? Important as in “save the company” important.)

I’m sure GM knows the profit/loss on each model, which I’d also like to know.

Well, let’s suppose you actually had the facts here, and that the Corvette makes a moderate amount of $$ for GM (which most believe it has, 2009 notwithstanding), would you still be petitioning for its termination?