[Tone]

The Corvette has brand equity with or without GM, IMO.

IF GM went under, I could foresee a couple of scenerios:

- The Corvette would become like the Avanti was for Studebaker. When that company collapsed, a company bought the tooling and naming rights and continued to build the Avanti II as a "cottage industry" car for several decades.

- Given the number of companies dedicated to tuning Covettes, it seems plausable that someone like Callaway could buy the rights to the Corvette and make the jump to a auto manufacturer. Given the huge aftermaket for smallblock parts (including block castings) it seems conceivable that a small maker could continue making the car. The question mark would be development dollars to continue to evolve it and keep it up to date.

- Another scenerio is an emerging automaker looking to capitalize on the significant brand equity and heritage in the Corvette name. For example, India's Tata has shown an willingness to pick up heritage names if the price is right (Jaguar and Land Rover). Perhaps they'd be willing to do the same with the Corvette.

Even in bankrupcy, I'm not sure GM would give up the Covette, though. I'm not sure it would raise enough money to be worth it and they'd be giving up a low volume, high margin car that brings customers that probably wouldn't consider GM otherwise.

The other possibility is to "outsource" -- sell the Bowling Green plant and other assets to someone like Callaway and agree to contract with them to build the car and share engineering/development costs. That might get GM some cash, preserve the car within their lineup and allow an organization that is passionate about the car to continue to deal with manufacturing/engineering.