Quote:
Originally Posted by Branden
XLR's problem is quite easy to understand really. In order to succeed in the market place at the price it sells for..it needs to be a better all around car than the Corvette. While it is better than Corvette in terms of luxury and comfort...it is a lesser car in every other mesurable detail..especially performance.
Put youself in the buyers shoes...
If some said for $80K you can have either a base Northstar powered XLR, or a LS7 powered Z06...I know what car wins 99 times out of hundred (no matter how old you are).
The other problem is..there is no prestige to owning a XLR. A Corvette is a Corvette..people grow up dreaming about buying one. On the other hand..no one has the same setiment about an XLR. In reality, if you buy an XLR...people will just snicker at you for spending Z06 money on a car that is slower, softer, and twice the price of a base Corvette.
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I disagree. I'll bet that 90% of XLR owners are males over the age of 55. They look at a Corvette and think of the ridiculously unrefined, bare bones 1970s Corvettes. Even if they grew up wanting to own a Corvette, they have, in fact, grown up. None of them is saying "my Corvette is faster than your XLR". (Does any high school graduate actually say "my car is faster than yours"?)
In any event, the XLR is not competing against the Corvette. It is competing against the far more sophisticated (I mean socially, not mechanically) SL. The XLR has an interior that look slike it was lifted from a 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo.
It appears that GM's thinking is:
we don't sell enough XLRs to justify an all new interior. But, of course, GM never will sell enough
until it gives the XLR an all new interior.