hyperv6

Not according to some here I keep hearing old cars related to this design. Chevy identity is derived from styling of past cars. Some call it heritage some call it retro highlights etc. You love the greenhouse on the show car and I like the blue drawing better but we both agree on the shooting brake, It is what it is.

While I have made it clear there are only parts of the car I dislike styling is subjective and there is no right or wrong here. I just hate seeing GM rehash the same things over and over from the past. I can remember in the 60's as a little kid I could not wait each year to see the new cars as they would change everything but the bow tie on the Chevys and nearly everything else. Even the carry over cars were changed enough you could tell what year it was. While I like the past and reto to a point it has become a crutch for the lack of design or lack of trust in your styling staff. Making a new great looking design is not easy but if no risk are taken then all you have left are rehashes of the past. I never saw Harley Earl or Bill Mitchell spend a lot of time using bits and parts of their old designs when making a show car or new major product. They did borrow some from some of the great designs of the past and few were GM in cases like the 69 GP and Duesenberg. Would we have ever had a 63 Riv, 68 Eldo, 69 Camaro, 55 Chevy, 63 Vette etc if all we did is cribb from the past? Failure to create full new designs is a failure to move a company ahead. Retro is ok for some things but when you have a clean sheet of paper you need to create and move the model forward. If the Chevy II and the Vega were world acclaimed styling projects I would say it may be ok to try some moder form of them on a car. As it is neither were bad looking cars but they were far from world class styling. I really do not see any Chevy II or nova here. I see more Vega and I would hate to see the media to take this idea and run with it on a new car that deserves to be itself and own.

Show me a squared off car that was so popular with todays youth? The mini is the only box on wheels that I can think of that apeals to the youth segment. Most are putting up posters of the GTr. The Chevy II is not timeless the 66/67 Nova did a little better when they gave it some sweep to the roof. The Ferrari 250 Lusso is one of the most timeless stylings of the last 50 years. It has style grace and flow. Elements of this car could apply yet today and prove to be very popular just because it looks good. The greenhouse on this car would look in place be very popular on many modern cars today. How many years did the Asians make odd and out of mainstream designs and finally woke up and learned to offer better styling. They still slip up but they learned being too different does not work long term. I feel the 130 would age as fast as many of the boxes from the 80's. Lets face it hard square lined cars do not age well at all. Ok lets put it this way. The 65 Corvair coupe green house vs the sedan greenhouse. what one has much more appeal? What one has more style and grace? I know the sedan had it's limits but one has flow and one does not. one is more form vs function. In a coupe you have already given up function so form becomes very important. Coupes in general are sold on styling vs ease of use. Even the small Saturn door did not make much difference.

Speaking of loud and proud. Even someone as challanged as David Lee Roth has learned that he can no longer wear bottomless spandex at the risk of coming off as a cliche'. There are the right reasons to stand out and there are the wrong reasons to stand out. I think you will find those that this car the majority would be targeted at would reject it as they did the Sion, Cube and Element. All targeted at youth and all missed the mark and were saved by Seniors. Sorry in the younger segment the more sporty wins out over boxy. Say what you like about the 911 but it's record even with what flaws it may have speaks for itself on the road and track. They must have gotten somthing right. As for the Mustang hatch sales numbers also speak voulmes on what styling was better accepted by the public. The LX was loved for the stiffer platform and lighter weight by racers and they really did not car about the look so much. They are still big customers of ours and I hear it from them first hand. Yes there are a few who like the upright look but but they are in the minority.

Now that I have seen the Tesla S numbers on order this car might just suprise. Even at around $75K-105K there are around 20,000 Tesla S models on order. While not a bad looking car it is still not as nice looking as the ELR. Also the car is still saddled with slow and long charge times and is not a car the average person could live with if they travel far and often. Now the ELR could go to California and back with no issuea if you need to. No need to own a second car or rent one if you need to take a trip.

BK with what ever you did on the blue it made the cars design work as one. The parts add up to a complete car working as one in stlying. The Red car looks like someone just photo shop'd my 08 Malibu C pillar on. I like the shape but not on this car. As for the red nose it still looks like the old face of GM with Ford headlamps. On the Blue car I would rework the lower black rear into more things in common with the C7. It already is similar but I would move it more to what they have now. Same on the Tail Lamps I would rework them more to the new C7. But that is just me but what you have is not bad.. Like I said get the greenhouse to work with the rest of the car and you will have something. I think the old Fox body Mustang is a good example where many bought the hatch because it just looked better. Most coupes were only sold as police fleets and drag racers because it was lighter and stronger. Americans are not hatch people but in the Mustang for years they bought them by the 10s of thousands just because of the styling. Now that is not to say I want to see a hatch but only a more flowing greenhouse. Just to note I was never a fan of the Bel Air show car either so my feelings on boxes are nothing new. I even bought my HHR SS because of how it drove and what it could haul not so much because of how it looked. But being a wagon and anti mini van I could live with it. I saw the Subaru yesterday and the original show car would be in major trouble competing for the same buyers in this segment. Now the blue car you have I feel would be a very good move to compete. As for the red car could you do more of a Chevy SS nose or Even Impala like grill? I think that is more of what would could see.

BK, The way the roof is on the blue car is more to my liking. It has a liltte better effect on the car and fits the profile of the car a little better. It is still upright but the quarter window, quarter post and roof length all have a lot better flow to it vs the show car. See it would take so little to fix what I hate on this car. I am fair and no where near as hateful to it as you like to make it. All I said is GM could do better and someone has in the blue car. The only real negitive with this style will be the fact the trunk will be useless for anything square. It would be like my Malibu where you have a large trunk but nothing will fit in the trunk opening if it is very tall. Not a big deal to me but something the media will hit on in review. Even my GTP has similar issues but not as bad as the Bu. I spend a lot of time unboxing items if I happen to be out in that car and buy something on a impulse.

Tadge in the story on the C7 said this feel is because of the lack of weight in the nose and is an advantage for the 911 for feel. He said it is something that is difficult to apply to the Vette with the engine in the nose. He know Porsche much better than any of us growing up in a Porsche family. He father owned many while he was growing up and he knows them inside and out. I feel this background will give the C7 an advantage in targeting the 911 as the leader of the team understands them. I am not a 911 fan and it took a while but I get why many like the car. I still like the Vette better but the Porsche has some really valid points and puts them into play well. Their tuning is where they have always had an advantage. Now that we have better electronics and better partsa and materials to work with the gap is closed down. I really thing for once the C7 has a chance to take a advantage in most reviews. I think many will view this car like the ATS as a equal with better areas than the long time leader. Once price is factored it is no contest then.

The mission of the ELR is much different than the sport cars. It also has no pressure to sell in great volumes so even if sales are low the results are still in the expected range. As for the ATS stlying is subjective and you are in the minority. In all the test and opinion stories styling has not been an issues. Nor seeing one in person did I find any issue there.

I am suprised how well it is selling here. I have seen many on the roads. I see much more of theses than the Smart or IQ.

What I noticed with the 911 is it made fast feel slow. This is what I find in the SS where I will be going along and all of a sudden I see how fast I am going and will be shocked at how far over what I thought. The 911 was the same way as it made 100 MPH feel like 50 MPH. It has quirks as any car does but I found it did a good job on poor road conditions. Anyone can make a car handle well on a black lake it is the real world back roads that make the cream rise.

The ELR is a different kind of car to appeal to a new and growing segment of the market. It is not a car for everyone and GM has already said it does not expect high volumes. This car will help the Volt spread some cost, it will attract attention to Cadillac of people who never would have looked at them and it will enhance Cadillacs technology image. While Benz and BMW are making a big deal with the Night Vision that Cadillac did years ago that went unnoticed they can attract a lot of attention with this car. This is just part of Cadillacs efforts to rebuild their image. The truth is Cadillac is not going to work for high volume in most of their cars as time goes on. The volumes will remain the same while prices with continue to climb. The idea is to make it special to own a Cadillac and not be a car just anyone can have with a cheap lease. This transition will take some time and more and better new models but this is where they are going. The volume will increase just due to the fact they will be offering more models in a couple years.

I just would hope they could capture the fun to drive my SS has with this car. If they could tune it to handle and ride like my F5 suspension it would be great. I looked at the numbers on the Toyota and they are nothing special. Even with FWD my SS will top nearly all their numbers and I am hauling 3200 pounds. If GM could tune this car to the degree like they have many of their recent tunes it would make for a very fun to drive car. GM has finally woke up and learned stiff springs and big bars are not always the answer. My SS will take on any back road stupied fast and still remain easy to control. I learned a long time ago a well tuned car will be easy to drive fast. Untill spent a lot of time in a 911 I never understood how much harder I worked to go fast in Trans Am's and the like unless the road was smooth. Note I am not a 911 fan but I have a lot of seat time and know it is easy to drive fast and appreciate how it taught me how bad some of the cars I was used to were.

This is something that has been on GM's mind for a long time. The Vette has been a blessing but also an issue within GM since the 80's. The problem is Chevy is GM's value leader of affordable cars. While the Vette is the affordable super car a ZR1 and even some of the lesser Vettes are not the common car many dealers would sell let alone stock. The fact is 90% of the dealers not getting a Vette have not sold a Vette in the recent years anyways. I think concentraiting the Vette on offical trained and approved dealers is the compromise to keep the Vette under the Chevy banner but better serve the owners and the Vette brand as a whole. Many have in the past inside GM looked at making the Vette a brand of it's own but that never flew with Chevy who has relied on this car as a hallmark for 60 years. Like it or not GM has accepted the two are joined at the hip. This is what we are looking at. In the last 5 years the Vette has averaged 13K in sales. Last year was only 12K units and GM knows they need to move this up or the Vette could at some point fail as all other models it does not get a free pass, I know some think it does but it does not. The goal now is to double sales with the C7 and take it global. Two areas they look to expand is the younger buyers and to capture buyers of other sports car brands. They want the owner of a 911 who they may get to consider a Vette to be treated to a higher level of service in shopping, buying and servicing his car. By putting this in the hands of larger dealers they will be able to step this up in the Chevy line and give Vette service. The 911 guy if GM gets lucky enough to consider them does not want Spark level of service. I know that GM needs to treat all buyers with a top level of service but when you get over $50K people expect even more. I think GM is looking to make this more than just selling Vettes and someone buying a Vette. What GM wants is someone to be a Vette owner and to recieve all that goes with being a Vette owner. You no longer buy a Corvette but you will become a Corvette owner. Lets face it the little dealers will mostly lose a little ego as most of the dealers that will be included here are the ones selling most of the cars now. So few are sold on the low end it should really not effect them much if at all. Many people are going to these larger dealers anyways as they are selling the cars so much cheaper as it is. I know one guy I knew who was selling new Vettes with an agreement with a smaller dealer that could not move them. He would buy them and sell them through his exotic car dealership. They made money and he made money but without him the dealer would have not sold a single car. I am not sure if GM would have been happy with this but I suspect they were none the wiser and often these cars were shipped overseas anyways. Anyways this way of dealing with the brand will strengthen the brand and hopefully capture sales from other makes that are already treating their customers like royalty.

You can not compare a XLR to the ELR as all they have in common is the emblem The XLR failed becase it was a more expensive underpowered Vette. The ELR is a better looking and better interor Volt. The question is will the interior and styling be enough to keep a hand full of people from paying less for the Volt. I wish they would just give this body an option to just come with a 2.0 Turbo sans battery.

Merkurs failed in part because of how they were marketed and for the most many of the dealers did not care or work to better sell them. It was much easier to sell a Cougar or a Turbo T bird. Cheaper too. Ford needed to work that program better with some core dealers that were trained to better deal with them. Even then they would have been a tough sell.

A small car with out a V8 too. Have you got the flu?

If you had the small dealers like we have in the outlaying areas we do here you would understand. The Vette needs to be focused with dealers that know the car and know how to sell it. They also need to have a service department that has at least one tech or more trained to work on the car. Some of the small dealers here have never even changed oil in these cars. GM I feel is working to better serve the customers buy having dealers that know the car inside and out and know what the hell they are doing here. I have seen issues just with the HHR SS owners where many owners who have had issues have taken the SS to a Chevy dealer that had never seen a SS let alone even sold one. They take it into the service department of a small dealer and have issues with solving the problem with the vehicle. My dealer where I bought mine from and had my warranty work done at has a couple techs that are trained on specialize in the turbo engines. Remember this was a few years ago when a Turbo 4 was rare at Chevy. They also did all the Diesel Turbo work and the one that worked on my car was fully trained on the ZR1 as the one say he had to clearance my I/C for the Turbo upgrade kit he also had Goodyears ZR1 in with a full cage in it. There were some issues with the Turbo up grade kits as they replaced the 2 bar Maps with 3 bar Bosch units from a Alfa Romeo. This required crimp connectors that take a Special Kent More tool to crimp. Also in some the I/C needed shimmed forward to clearance the lowe Map. I was lucky as my guy had a clue and installed mine proper. Many others worked with small dealers with no clue and had endless duability issues. In fact I learned a lot on this set up from the GM engineer that oversaw the project and the tech that installed mine. I was able to pass the info on to the others on the HHR web site and many were able to solve the issues once they told the dealer what to do. As the Corvette becomes more and more complex and as long as sales are as low as they are GM needs to do a better job of selling and servicing these vehicles. To be fair if a smaller dealer can prove they can properly do this they should be considered but too many of them are unfit and will not meet the standards this car needs. We have to remember this is not just any Chevy it is a $55K-135K Chevy and the people who shell out this kind of money expect more than someone buying a Spark. That is not to say Gm is not servicing Spark owners proplerly but with the price goes up the expectation qudruple. The Vette is no longer a car that is similar to a Impala or Camaro. At one time if you could fix an Impala you could work on any Vette but today it takes much more. This is not my opinion but what the Service writer at Doug Chevy told me. Sad that the small dealers get the shaft if they are a good dealer but often they never sold one or sold one at best so it will not effect them much if any. Hell the dealer that was in Clay WV was so small they could not get a car in it. THey would sell a handfull of Cobalts and a Impala and Monte but most of their volume was trucks. If they had sold a Vette in the last 25 years I would be shocked. Same for Buck Chevy in Canal Fulton Ohio. The one in WV closed not long ago as they could not rebuild and the town was so small they hardly could support the dealer where it was. It was a sad end of an era but times and buying habits changed. Anyone remember the Mekur failure and Pantera failure at dealers even more ill prepared to deal with a high end car they had no clue about.

They wil sell that many on styling alone but do not expect a lot more. They will not be a common site on the road unless someone in the neighborhood buys one.

Again you think in one dimension. This game is play out more than just a bunch of number on a post on the internet. Tadge pointed out how the public responds to the one upmanship of the big numbers. To me you make a car lighter all the way around you can do more things like stop faster and handle better since more HP does not add these things. But again you give the market what it wants. As for balance you can balance a car with or with out a SC. GM did it witht he past ZR1 and will do it again. As for cost you are going to get the engine and Carbon body anyways. The added cost of 10K to the engine is not a factor. Hell these owners pay extra now to be able to build their own engine in Wixcom and have it shipped to the plant to pay extra to pick the car up at the museum. Now if we were speaking on the base car where there is give an take you may have a point but most of your points are not valid in the real world with the market they are working with. Sorry but when you add real people to your numbers the number tend to lose to peoples wants. You always have to take the unlogical with the logical when selling cars in the maket place. In a perfect world most sports cars would take the lotus approch with high powered small engines in very light cars. But in a real world the public does not respond well to this and that is part of the reason Lotus has stuggled for years even now as they have finally gotten the quality up.

I think it is simple on what is coming. The Z06 or what ever they chose to call it will be a bigger brake and more composite car with a mid range engine. It also will have other performance features added. I expect it to also remain coupe only. It will also carry options also offered on the ZR1. The ZR1 or what ever they will call it is pretty simple. It will be powered by a supercharged 6.2 LT4 engine. HP will be at or near 700 HP at the least. The car will carry a entire carbon fiber body and the ceramic Brembo brakes. It will also carry over an updated magnetic shock package possibly Gen 4 by the time it comes to market. This is the model that will be below 3000 pounds. Tadge Juechter has made the mission clear on the Vette. Make it lighter, better quality, appeal to younger and non traditional buyers. He also does not want to ge the price out of sight on the lower end either. IT will go up about $5K but what has been added will account for a good value with this increase. The greatest goal of the new car is to get the base model to sell better. The last 5 years the Vette has been selling at a sickly 13,000 unit average per year. If this number drops Tadge state it could be a problem for the line. His goal is to return the car and double what it has been selling. To do this the focus has been to appeal to more than the aging traditional owners. They want to get the younger buyers who have migrated to the GTr and other sports cars. They want these buyers to see the Vette as more than a old mans car. Also they would like to sway people away from the much more expensive 911 and even Boxster with better performance and lower price. With a tight economy all sports car sales are down even Porsche. With a better performing car and a much better price it may help some down size their budgets but not have to give up any performance. The C7's goal is to change minds of what a Corvette really is. Note on the LT4. This is not just somehting I made up. It was an engine seen on a computer at GM that listed it for the C7 ZR1. A lot can happen from development to production but the LT1 was on the computer with it and many feel that this is the top engine at is to come. Many wonder why the name of a very limited model from the 90's but that is how it was tagged. Might consider I recieved info from a GM engineer a while ago that stated the present ZR1 engine could have gone to 725 HP as it was and passes all emissions and durability test at GM. I am sure the MPG suffered some. But with the addition of DI and a few other tricks they may finally make the 700 HP level. Tadge was asked if the HP wars were over and he said no. He wish they all would come together with MFG agreed limits and work else where in the cars but that is not going to happen. With the Mustang at over 600 HP the Vette is expected to make a move up.

Again there is more to this story than just MPG. The 1.6 will get as good and maybe a little better MPG but it will have more lower end torque and a flatter torque cruve than the 2.5. This is why we will see more an more of this engine in many of GM's cars. The simple truth is the 1.6 T will have a much better feel and will not have to be reved hard to get to the sweet spot where it will trans late in to a feel of power for the owner. Also note that the lower flatter torque curve helps move the cars mass up to speed faster for more off trottle time. While this may not sound like much it in a DI engine it shuts down the fuel and increases the savings. In my 2.0 when we bumped it up to 315 FT LBS it incresed my MPG by 1-2 MPG even driving it like I stole it. This is what was told to me and confirmed to me by a GM driveline engineer Bill Duncan. I think he has a little more clue than anyone here on the topic. As for the V8. Under the right conditions they can get good MPG but often they also can get much worse if you are driving them in less than ideal conditions. While my 2.0 can drop in MPG if driven hard I never drop below 23 MPG even in stop light to stop light driving in very cold temps. In the warm it will increase 1-2 more MPG with no hypermileing. I understand they have improved the V8 with lots of tricks and some versions in the right vehicles can do ok. But out 2009 5.3 is far from a 30 MPG vehicle. In fact it would be nice to see 20 MPG more often. The physics of engine size is still in play as if all the v8 engines and larger V6 engines got that great of MPG we would have a new Impala and Malibu with these engines. They are not sticking the 2.5 in the Impala because they want too. It is time to grasp reality that engine will continue to get smaller and they will resort to more turbos to help extract more torque with some power from less and less displacment. I hate to say it but we will see even wider use of the 3 cyinder too. There are a lot of variables to this but the simple fact is engines will continue to get smaller and smaller while the V8 will remain but in more and more of just a supporting role. My 2.0 has as much or more power than most of the V8 engines I have owned and has MPG that none of my V8 engines could ever touch and I have owned a lot of V8's. It is not an endorsement for the small engines as I like the V8 too but just the reality of it. I am sure if I dug around enough I could find a good V8 example of MPG too but it is not as wide spread on all models as some make it out to be.

I fully expect a 2.0 Tubo as an option here and a 1.6T as the most common engine. As an owner of a mid engine car the last thing they need to do is put the engine in the back as while it may sell good for a year or two once the market is filled the car will be gone in less than 5 years. 2 seat cars are a limited market and low priced mid engine cars are even more limited. In a slow ecomony sports car and low priced sports cars are some of the first things discretionary spending effects. This needs to be a fun car, sporty car and a car that has a wide appeal to the younger lower income buyers. As for styling I would love them to do a Buick Avant like car as a Chevy with some added C7 styling bits. Keep it a 4 seater and have a usable trunck.

I have to agree. I expected more rightfully but unless there is some thing hidden here there is not that much more in this car to make it worth that much more than a Volt. If I really wanted this technology I could easily forgo the bling for the Volt and save a lot of money. GM is either really losing their shirts on the Volt or are really over charging [pun not intended] for the ELR . Leather seats and better styling do not cost that much. Now if they had used a better engine or bigger batterys. Or if they plan to include fast charge charging stations installed or some other added value here.

The El Camino on the SS will never happen unless there is a major change in the exchange rate. GM will not bring it here and sell it at a high price and with out a change in the exchange rate it will never come here on the lower side. Inless they move Holden to a global platform on the Alpha I suspect we will never see it here unless it is built here. I could see a small hauler. Lets face it little trucks like the original LUV trucks were not heavy haulers but would do what many suburban familys could live with. It might also pay well in OZ. Lets face it even the short bed S 10 trucks were limited if it was a step side even more so.