Corvette vs Corvette..........

[Beau]

Corr69 dump that blower, go turbo.

[Firebird00]

Further proof the Corvette is the best car in the world.

[blkwrxsti]

Originally Posted by eb110americana

Or you can look at it as a way to capitalize on development costs for the ZR1, which will never pay for itself in sales. It is such a limited production car, and so much effort has been put into every aspect of its development, that it will always command a high price, even used. The Z06 and ZR1 use an aluminum frame, so it would essentially be impossible to "build your own ZR1" out of a base Vette without reaching near XLR levels of weight. The Z06 would be a lot closer, but it lacks the carbon fiber bodywork of the ZR1 and the huge carbon-ceramic brake package in addition to an extra 133 hp and 134 lb ft of factory warranted, emissions-legal torque. You could probably build something similar, but in the end, I doubt you'd save enough of the $30K difference to make it worth your while.

GM will sell every ZR1 it builds, I have no question in my mind. Why not make some money off of its development by offering the best Vette suspension calibration as an optional upgrade to the other two Vettes? No need to dumb down the base models to upsell to the ZR1 which people will buy anyway. The Vette was always about offering the best to just-within-the-means-of-the-working-man-incomes with few compromises. Now it's available as the most expensive car GM sells, and it would be a low cost, wise decision to let the knowledge gleaned from the ZR1's development trickle down to other models. For example, the greatness that is the CTS-V would never be possible without the ZR1, and even though it costs considerably less, it will probably make more money than it will lose in potential ZR1 sales.

Your argument seems counter-intuitive. Assuming GM has a larger profit margin on the ZR1 than the Z06 and that the Z06 margin is larger than the base car, and that GM continues to sell every corvette that they can make => Any move that increases the appeal of the base car with respect to the other two actually lowers their revenue and profit for the plant.

I'm also not sure that there wouldn't be extra development resources to use the ZR1 suspension calibration in a car 200 lbs lighter, or one making 200 horsepower less. I do agree with your statement that the tech should EVENTUALLY trickle down to other models. The CTS-V is not a good example of this however, since the Cadillac is a clear-cut case of a customer who places a very high value on compliant ride.

I'll admit I don't know what the actual difference is between the base Corvette MR shocks and the "more capable" ZR-1 setup. If it's just software or slightly more expensive magnetic fluid, I'll agree that it's a no-brainer, and I'm sure GM would too.

[eurohazard]

AWESOME video! The sound of the ZR1 is so angry....I love it. I really think a base Corvette has enough power/handling/braking to get me in plenty enough trouble on the streets, and it's value is unheard of. I would probably buy a base (well Z51 pckg) Corvette.....but I wouldn't doubt if sometime later I would have Z envy only to find myself wanting to upgrade.

[JBsZ06]

cool video..

Thanks

JB