The Corvette is not changing classes, the new MSRP is in-line with inflation compared to the introductary MSRP of the C5 in 1997. Maybe a bit higher, but not enough for folks who have the money to buy a Corvette to bat an eyelash. There's alot of mixed opinions on the new GTO, but I think they'll sell the snot out of 'em nonetheless. The styling is derivative of Cavalier and Grand Prix, BUT, it's clean and not unattractive, and will appeal to a more mature crowd that's not into flashy in-your-face muscle. And the interior looks awesome, and it's supposed to really drive fantastic. There's a market our there for fly-under-the-radar in comfort car like the GTO, even if it may not be your cup of tea. The F-body wasn't screwed up in the last 3 years, it was screwed up from the moment it launched in 1993. It was an ill-conceived package that had plenty of performance potential, but made for a very impractical CAR. The packaging and ergonomics were totally out-of-synch with what the public wanted in a car (yard-deep dash, sitting on the floor like you're in a hole, big long heavy doors, engine under the cowl, long dated looking front and rear overhang, just a terrible job of "packaging"). That, and bad quality issues, and a lousy and harsh vibrating 6-banger, was why it tanked. Had nothing to do with mismanagement in the later years, it's fate was sealed early. I think if GM took another clean-sheet-of-paper swing at the F-body, they could do something fantastic with it. Keep in mind that while Ford has been financially bloody and against the ropes in the last couple years, GM's been making money. Your views of GM seem to be highly tilted toward blind subjective emotion, not objective thought.
Ford GT dyno numbers are in !
- Thread starter Avenger
- Start date
RICKS said:
Your wrong about the Camaro, mismanagement is what did it in. In the last years of the F-body it was still the second best selling coupe on the market, pretty damn good for a car on a 10 year old platform with no support from its company. In 1994-1995 it out sold the Mustang.
One thing your 100% right on is the packaging of the Camaro, it was a good sized car with an interior smaller than a Cavalier. It should have had more interior room for a car of its size. Another thing is its low slung seating, some love it some hate it. The seating position definatly isn't the most practical and that turned a lot of mainstream/non-performance buyers off.
The seating and the heavy doors turned a ton of female buyers off, which is a huge reason why Mustang sales stayed healthy. I still stand by my assertion that the car was doomed from the getgo, irregardless of how many people bought the all-new model when it was the hot ticket because it was all new. Once the newness wore off, there was little that GM could do to improve it when the geometry of the car was set in stone and not changeable. Mismanagement, I'll agree on when it comes to the overall styling and appeal of the car and the marketing and image efforts that followed. For whatever reason, used F-bodies seem to "appeal" to a demographic that does little to maintain any brand prestige or good heritage like the Mustang does, and nobody really cares to be seen in an old F-body, especially the ladies, unless they're the type of lady that wears spandex, smokes two packs a day, and likes guys with mullets. For whatever reason, alot of intangibles I believe, the Camaro just doesn't have the mystique that it used to have, which I blame on lousy marketing efforts, and lousy thought process when in the design stage. It's a good looking car, but.... it just doesn't have the broad appeal it needed to be popular with the public. And those ram-air Firebirds just got to the point where they looked like a rolling circus going down the road. You drive a Mustang, you get thumbs-up from everybody from kids to senior citizens. You drive a Camaro (and I used to have an '85 IROC that I bought new and owned for several years) and you only get noticed by mullet-heads in mud trucks, and the girls that love 'em. I know that this is a harsh trashing to F-body lovers, I know. But as an objective-as-I-can-be lover of all cars, this is what I see in the downfall of the F-body. My favorite F-body is the last gen SS Camaro. That was a slick package. But image-wise, it was hard to justify dropping over 30 grand on a car that was so looked-down-upon as a good-ole-boy rattletrap. GM failed, but I think they started planting the wrong seeds long ago.
kirkyg
Founding Member
Z28x said:Cadillac
What new class? the C6 is in the same class as the C5, Also they are increasing HP, the Base Vette will have 400HP and the Z06 500HP.
yup, they definatly screwed up on the Camaro, It was more of a bad PR move than bussiness. So many people are pi$$ed at them. THe new Camaro (or Chevey coupe) will be out in 2007, also the next Gen GTO will be out that year along with other RWD GM cars.
Cadillac? The ugliest vehicles on the earth...uglier than even the pontiac aztec which is just about the ugliest thing my eyes have ever met...
You chevy guys are just amazing. You may own a few other brand vehicles but you are hardcore guys its as simple as that. You all are basically admitting oh yea they are not very attractive vehicles but thats GREAT! Sigh, last i checked the majority of people into performance cars are into aggressive VERY attractive vehicles. Yet chevy people are SOOOOOO hardcore they KNOW chevy vehicles no longer have the style they used to and STILL support them.
ITS REALLY SAD.
kirkyg
kirkyg said:
The new Cadillacs ugly? put down the Ford crack pipe and walk away. The new Cadillacs are some of the best looking cars on the Road today, not to mention they have the performance and quality to back it up. I'm a American performance fan and like pretty much all of the big 3 and in my unbiased opinion after hanging out at Ford, GM, and Dodge websites, I'd have to say that the Ford fans are the most biased and Ford is the Car company with the worst style, lets face it the new Mustang, Ford GT, and Thunderbird are good looking cars but their designs are stolen from the past, Ford has nothing new, The 500 looks like an 8 year old Passat. GM and DC are willing to take some chances and come out with some new idea. While sometimes being original doesn't pay off (Aztec) other times it is a smash hit (Cadillac, H2, Solstice, Viper, New RAM) and that Chrysler ME412 concept is god damn beautiful.
kirkyg
Founding Member
http://www.cadillac.com/cadillacjsp/models/gallery.jsp?model=cts
that is not ugly? Your on more than a GM pipe...your smoking some chit that will kill you.
kirkyg
that is not ugly? Your on more than a GM pipe...your smoking some chit that will kill you.
kirkyg
I'm a Ford mark since I was a little kid. Never have owned a GM product and likely never will but I think alot of the current Cadillac stuff looks good. Black CTS-V looks good. I love the looks of the C5(the C6 I think they did a great job on but I don't care for the headlights). I like the XLR as well.
But I guess that makes me a GM fanboy? Even when I rag on most of their efforts from the last few years.
But I guess that makes me a GM fanboy? Even when I rag on most of their efforts from the last few years.
93 teal terror
Founding Member
kirkyg
Founding Member
93 teal terror said:
Ask all the GM buddy's on here that take almost everything here and turn into a Gm conversation when it starte dto be about a ford vehicle as it should be.
I dont care whether your a fanboy or not...the new cadillacs are UGLY and i know ALOT of people that agree.
kirkyg
RedHot91GT
New Member
i4power
Founding Member
So, the GT's that the magazines used were pre-prodution. Does that mean they had the slower cars? Were these the same ~560rwhp ground-pounders?
Well my part in this was to disagree with the assessment that GM hadn't done anything right performance wise in the last few years. It somehow blossomed from that.kirkyg said:
And I know a lot of people that like the CTS-V and the XLR so evidently I'm not the only one. In fact when ever the higher priced performers come up I see CTS-V mentioned a whole lot.
kirkyg said:
This car is drop dead gorgeous, Its too bad your a close minded Ford fanboy and can't see that. Other companies than do make nice cars you know, you're probably the guy that was saying that Ferrari was ugly a few months ago too. Just because everyone else isn't a hater like you, doesn't make them hardcore Chevy, many here can appreciate a nice looking design by another company.
The new Cadillac designs are fairly cutting-edge, which always alienates more traditional-minded folk who's sense of style is always with the "safe" and predictable designs. I highly doubt Caddy designers are worried about anybody calling their cars ugly, they can barely build 'em fast enough to keep up with demand, and the Caddy division is on a serious roll these days with regards to sales and profit. Yep, the Aztek is ugly. That's not a hard one to argue. But the new Caddies are seriously stylish and distinctive. It took me awhile to warm up to the CTS, but I did. Some of the greatest designs take a bit of getting used to. Some of the lamest designs are so safe, so predictable and re-hashed, that they look good out of the gate, and become boring and old-school in no time flat. I like the new 500, it's clean and crisp and fresh. I understand the Passat comparison, but I'm getting tired of the "it looks like" crap, because at this stage of the game, EVERYTHING looks like something else if you try hard enough, there's been so flippin many different cars built in the last 100 years that there's a point where you'd have to make it look like a train wreck in order to set it apart from everything that came before it. Forget about whether something looks kinda like something else. Just ask yourself, "does it look good?" Yes or no.
kirkyg
Founding Member
Z28x said:
This car is drop dead gorgeous, Its too bad your a close minded Ford fanboy and can't see that. Other companies than do make nice cars you know, you're probably the guy that was saying that Ferrari was ugly a few months ago too. Just because everyone else isn't a hater like you, doesn't make them hardcore Chevy, many here can appreciate a nice looking design by another company.
Yea thats it this is the first ford vehicle anybody in my family including myself has ever owned and im a ford fanboy
The Ferrari statement is ludicrous. I absolutely love ferrari's. They are extremely sexy and aggressive. The CTS isn't aggressive just like the front ends on the pickup trucks. Look at the vehicle side. It looks like the profile of one of the newer mercedes. Take the front end edgyness (extremely ill-porporationed) chevy silverado and slap it on a mercedes and there you have the profile of a CTS. Its just embarassing that GM designers can't think up something original and make it a theme for a vehicle and not slap around mixing and matching vehicles styles and totally destroying their appeal. Im sure the caddie is a nice quality vehicle inside and out but thats all it is. No style imo. (BTW, if you had shown the back it would have really revealed its uglyness but we wouldn't want to do that now would we it would prove yourself wrong).
My original point was not that GM has screwed up with performance. It has screwed up with its performance vehicles. In other words im not talking about their powertrains so much as i am the entire packages, styling, marketing the works.
kirkyg
kirkyg said:
SadbutTrue brought the corvette into this conversation, not us GM guys.
You are a fanboy of Ford and have biased views against anything American made if it doesnt have a blue oval on it. I think the Mustang GT you own is a nice car. Its cute, but it is very limited in performance potential. I am a GM guy, but I like all performance cars. I would never buy a Mustang GT (an 03 cobra yes), but I wouldnt bash other people that own a GT.
kirkyg
Founding Member
RealQuick said:
your post makes little sense. You acuse of being a fanboy based on a few comments about a caddie? I dont like the new caddies. I like the old ones, along with lincolns, mercedes, bmws, ferrari, lexus's, infiniti, even audis. That being said i can't afford most of those vehicles right now so my ford will have to do the job that i need it to do. Eventually i can see myself having a luxury vehicle or maybe even an exotic car...so much for being a fanboy Your right though...i've had too many bad experience with GM and Chrysler vehicles more specifically. Here is my general feeling about the two companies GM makes ugly vehicles that are fairly reliable (which rules them out first because i put more emphasis on styling than anything else), and chrysler makes some stylish vehicles but the majority of them are notorious for lack of reliability from transmission problems to hard to find electrical problems.
I think the corvette is a good vehicle i'm just afraid they are going to destroy it the way they have everything they've touched in the past few years. If that makes me a fanboy then so be it i'll be a fanboy. I like all performance cars too. I have a focus on styling first then performance second. As for your comments about my mustang, you may end up waking up half the board on your tail because you just lied for one and two this is a mustang board.
You say my vehicle has no potential yet a low boost intercooled Kenne Bell supercharged mustang puts out more hp than a vette by far, as well as most other vehicles that are non-exotics. What is your reasoning behind this?
Oh and btw, that guy from VT posted a dyno of a n/a 2valve GT putting out over 350 rwhp and said they didn't even use aggressive cams yet.
kirkyg
