Every person who bought a GT500 could have bought a Corvette. Every person who bought a Challenger SRT could have bought a Corvette. I would rather have a LS7 Z/28 than either GT500 or the SRT. You do the math.

 

I think those expecting a well equipped 500-550hp z28 to come in significantly cheaper than the base c6 are going to be disappointed. It might be a bit cheaper, but probably by not a whole lot and there might even be some overlap depending on options.

These are cars currently on the market today and cars the z28 will probably be compared to. You'll see how they approach or surpass the base c6's $46,950 when optioned out.
GT500 coupe- $42,330 base ($47+k loaded)
Challenger SRT8 - $41,695 base ($45+k loaded)
EVO MR - $38,290 base ($47+k loaded)
STI - $35k base price and can push $40k when optioned out.

Judging by the cars above, i don't think it'll be too hard or inconceivable for a loaded 500-550hp z28 to approach the base c6's price. Do i think a z28 can sell at that price? Why not? it's a totally different car than the vette. Since it'll be a top of the line model, it doesn't have to sell in large volumes (that's what the v6 and SS are for). If GM can push about 5+k units a year, they'll be fine. Ford sold over 10,844 GT500's last year.

 

The LSA already cut corners in using hyper pistons. What other corners are they going to round off further for the LS8?

 

Where do you get the idea that the amount spent on the Zeta Camaro is more than an all new architecture would have cost? I haven't seen anything to support that speculation.

How do you know that an architecture designed for the Camaro would be 300-400 pounds lighter?

Repeating these things doesn't make it fact. It looks purely speculative to me, and not even solid speculation.


Uh huh. I would have said it's the spendthrift who spends the most.

 

crynoid posted a piece not too long ago, saying that Holden had about $1.2 billion into developing VE/Zeta. Add another $350 million (which is speculative, but reasonable), for Zeta 2/Camaro, and voila.
Based on GM's target weight for this Camaro.

Not at all surprised that you would say that.




Yep. Not me though....

 

I think you just made an argument for the Camaro as built, based on pricing, at least at the level of the Camaro team. If you go up a level or two in the hierarchy, where you could have approved the Torana on a new platform that Camaro could have shared, then maybe something else could have happened. But the Torana likely would not have had anything larger than a V6.....

 

If the VE was 1.2 billion, then let's assume Alpha would be 1.2 billion. Building an Alpha Camaro would have cost 1.2 billion. Now, if Holden had built the Torana, the Camaro could have used that platform. But then it would have been V6 or smaller engines only, and without the Torana or some other car to share it, Camaro would have to eat the entire cost.

So your statements assume that if Alpha would have been approved for something else, that Camaro gets to use it for the same $350 million additional. Is that correct?

Have you considered that adding a V8 to a V6 platform like Alpha would have cost more than it did to build Camaro off of Zeta?


Target weight is great. But inferring that a target weight of 3600 implies that the Alpha Camaro would have hit 3600 is a great leap of faith. That target weight would have been chosen after the Zeta platform was chosen for the Camaro.

Have you ever worked in product design (marketing, engineering, or product management)?


If you want to be better understood, a little more explanation is better than a little less.

 

It's costs much more to design, test, and tool a new platform than to modify an existing platform. There is no question about that.

 

And they're all idiots, greatly outnumbered by the +30,000 intelligent people last year who bought Vettes.

 

You're using quite abit of speculation yourself there, wouldn't you say?

Acouple of things...

-The Camaro's target weight was less than what you stated.

-The numbers I heard tossed around to develop a Camaro off of an existing smaller car architecture (let's say Torana), was way less than $350m. Who can say if that number was accurate or not - or if that $350 m we're using for Zeta/Camaro is too high or low either.

-I don't think that you can call what I do "product design", so I'm just a guy on the internet.

-Who's to say that a "Torana architecture" wouldn't have been developed to package a smallblock. The concept had a TT, DOHC, V6. No small lump itself.

 

Yeah. I think I understand Charlie's scenario.

1. If a smaller RWD architecture (I'll call it Alpha) had been approved, then the Camaro team could have based the Camaro on that architecture instead of Zeta.
   
2. The cost for basing on Alpha would be the same as basing on Zeta.
   
3. Some Zetas have been canceled due to fuel economy concerns.
   
4. If GM had an Alpha platform, there could be several models based on it, because it'd be the right thing for the times.
   
5. An Alpha V8 Camaro would have weighed 3600 pounds, because that was the target for the Zeta Camaro.

There are a lot of assumptions, such as the platform could have taken a V8, or that a smaller platform that's still V8 capable would save 300 pounds. Most of the small platform cars with V8s out there are 3800+ pounds. The M3 is an outlier, but it has a really small V8 engine, and it has a lot of aluminum. The Mustang is the other outlier, but it has a solid axle and is relatively primitive.

I'd love to see an Alpha platform from GM, and I thought the Torana was a great concept.

 

Yes, and where I'm speculating, I'm indicating why or what the basis is. And if it's not clear, ask and I'll clarify, and you can decide whether you agree or not.

Okay, 3500 then for the target.

I stipulate to the 350 million being a number out of thin air. I was using it because you were. I know it can't even be called a guess.

Torana/Alpha maybe could or maybe couldn't package a smallblock. Everything I read about it was V6 only (actually early stuff indicated I4 only). But since it never got all that far, we really don't know. But in comparing specs on a real car to specs of a paper concept, the paper concept will usually win.


Whatever the case, since the Alpha is back on (according to Automotive News a while ago, though who knows at the moment), I consider that tacit admission that there is a market in smaller RWD, and whoever said otherwise (a few years ago) only had a temporary victory.

 

That's neither here nor there. The point is, those idiots (we'll call them "customers") are customers who turned down the Corvette, but wanted a muscle car. There are some of those "customers" who would buy a Z/28 rather than the others. Without, GM loses the customer.

 

Nah, they're just idiots.

Tooling a car up for them when you have the pleasure of selling as many cars as the SSR sold = a loser of a program.

 

So you want a mass-produced LS-based 427, but without all the exotic materials found in the LS7?

Sounds great, but the issue with that is that it would be a totally new engine. GM is already building LS3s, LS7s, LSAs, and LS9s. It would be far more simple and less expensive to have Camaro use one of those. They'd have to set up a line, source new parts, etc, etc.