ZR1 = The stripper

Interesting debate, some people think the C4 was the best looking of the moderns, true but it is a plastic rattletrap as stiff as a pancake. The C5 has amodern chassis, credible stiffness but is otherwise rated as being built like crap. The C6 is an all around improvement, but objectively what does that make it.

The ZR1 seems grerat except for an interior that would shame a rentacar and questionable durability. Seriously how hard is it to do a decent interior even hyundai does this, and we wonder why GM has such trouble, if their most expensive car still has glaring faults because they cheaped out by a few gs on the interior we must qustion their commitment to product integrity. Sadly the 80's theory that the customer is too stupid to notice still lives albeit in dimninished formn at GM. And dont even look at shutlines or the roof to windsheild header inerface. Yes a vette is bang for the buck but even a 10K honda is a paragon of build quality and attention to detail by comparison.

Rented a Caddy DTS in florida. Compared to even a mid level lexus it was pathetic, whiny transmission at low speed crappy suspension and the NORTHSTAR felt like a Japanese 6. Yes retals lead hard lives but at 8k miles this one was well on the way to being shot.

 

Actualy I have owned two. My ire is that after the last decade or so, I do expect GM to do better. Having been a victim of an 80's camaro, and then later mid 90s vette each time I think OK GM has got it I try one of their products and for each improvement there are still many signs of cynical product development.

The C6 I think looks great, GM took some risks by dumping the flip up headlights but the car is a stunner. Also unlike the C5 the design is cohesive and harmonious. Put one on a street next to a 550 and the vette takes it. But drive one and the unholy cheapness that afflicts so many GM products shines through. I mean how hard is it to get the switches and controls good feeling.

Criticism should not be seen as dislike, if people take it that way then maybe they have blinders on. These blinders are why american car companies have been able to produce **** for years, perhaps you disagree but the end results of market share speak for themselvs.

Yes we can blame unions, legacy costs medical and pensions. Realisticaly management run by beancounters to the exclusion of decent product is at least as responsible for torpedoing the good ship detroit as anything else. The proof is the vette, an almost great product that but for some proper care in development could be truly great. Yes I know a Z06 is lighter than a GT3 and all vettes are shorter than a 997, so the intent is there, but somewhere the plot gets lost.

Then take cadillac. I had a 77 fleetwood broughm, the last of the big heavies. Yes it had a solid axle and the dash was GM plastic, but the motor was quiet and smooth, the Ride sublime and at speed the car felt planted and secure on the road. A modern S class mercedes has these same traits plus modern dynamics. Yet a modern Caddy at least the ones i have tried have bluff suspension, intialy compliant but try a serious bump and it displays harsheness, the motors lack the smoothness of a good jap V6 let alone the V8 in my merc suv, the tranmission shifter feels like it is made out of seriously lightweight plastic, and the list goes on. The Architecture on the DTS basicaly came out in the mid 80's. They understood what a premium product was once, and then eneded up with a cimarron and a impala taxi badged as a caddy with a 5.0 carburated engine. GM mentality is not rid of these traits yet, they are still trying to get away with as much as possible, yes they have raised their bar but thats it, there is still a lack of desire tio just make a great product, they are stillexperimenting with good enough concepts, all manufacturers do to an extent, but Gm and detroit errs on the side of crap.

GM comes up with the new camaro, apart from being engineered in Australia(a good thing) intial reports indicate they went with the cheapo interior again, quality chevy berreta. Fo F's sake how many times are they going to build a potentialy great product that is 85% of the way there and flub the obvious stuff.
I mean an 86 celica set the template for making all the bits a consumer touches feel quality, It aint rocket science.

Try a toyota avalon and realise this is the 60's chevy impala of our era. Gm had it all and blew it through arrogance. Look the japs can develop an new engine at will, yet GM has a sorta modern V6 and they scrapped a new modern V8, yet they want to sell premium products like caddys. Look at the engine options in a BMW.

So my point is the vette is near great but seriously let down. And its not cost that holds it back, I mean they are not cheap cars given what is in them and quantity produced, more like lack of vision or effort, I suppose the effort is to cust costs at the expense of product. The same can be said of US airlines. Try Delta business and then go to Virgin, which has no bailouts, the difference is so huge its shocking.

So we used to be the best and now we are happy to be sorta Ok and make a bang for the buck excuse, sad.

When armstroing landed on the moon, people interviewed through the world said america is the best, "we knew they could do it". Now we dont even really try, we just make excuses. So the ZR1 is close, but misses because of bad attitude more than anything. Yet to raise these points upsets people, dont shoot the messenger, open your eyes and demmand decent product.

We debate scrapping detroit, yet the Chinese would do everything in their power to have our automotive ability even in its diminished state.

 

Engine durability is only one part of what makes a car durable, or feeling quality all of a piece. Just like 1/4mi times are but one measure of performance.

And yes I would like a new ZR1 and think the LT5 is one of the great all time motors. I think the corvette engineers would agree with many of the faults mentioned in vettes, if it was up to them they would not be there.

Lets not forget the roofs literaly comming off the earlier C6s, none of which to this day are assembled with anything like good shutlines, go to a dealer and compare a few to eachother. It does not make them bad cars, just a letdown compared to what they could or should be.

The bad reactions to some of my comments are a sign of patriotic blindness which is not really patriotism at all.

As for the many faults of ferraris, well one does not expect more from them, these are boutique items, great fun art maybe, they are what they are, sorta usable like a motorcycle. A vette though can and should compare to a porche except be faster, both driveable usable realtively mass produced products, sadly when it comes to so many details and componants this is far from the case. Hell even a newer harley can compare in build and quality to a BMW bike even if its architecture is purposely antique(this is not a criticism).

Hydroformed frame rails, balsa floors CF hood roof etc. Carbon brakes, yes all great stuff and the best of it, too bad so much of the rest is so mediocre. Thinking about what a vette could be, it is is like comparing a 348 to a 355. The 348 is close in terms of architecture, yet is so far in reality being let down by so many cheapo bits.

Perhaps if we could drive fast in this country our products would be superlative in areas other than AC.

Of course I would take a vette or shelby mustang over a porche if I lived in say florida where the benefits of the porche would be irrelevant and it would just be slower. But in the NE where the roads can really twist, so tactility is part of the fun, and the bumpy surface can twist the car I think the virtues would be reversed. Also on smooth florida roads the build quality of the vette would show its edges much later, it would be a better cruiser and that hard plastic interior would hold up to the sun compared to a ferraris.

In the end though the vette can and should cover all bases well, it does not. Look at some of the terrific aftermarket interiors people have put in vettes and then realise how pathetic the 7k leather upgrade from GM is.

 

Beyond calling what I say BS do you have any actual factual criticisms. Yes I expect a vette to be as good as a porche.

 

Not perfection, just not so much crap in it which is so easily avoidable. The problem with domestics is the always seem to cheap out somewhere which lets the whole product down. Perhaps you violently disagree, but any look at market share let alone profits in good years would indicate that when it comes to making cars(not trucks) the domestics seriously get it wrong.

 

Well the germans, even VW have made quality products and thier labor, medical etc costs are higher than ours. I do not brush aside the union issue, it is just not the sole issue as it is now in vogue to portray. Part of the legacy costs issu also relates to declining market share, less sales supporting more retirees, once again poor product to blame. Product counts for a lot, declining market share would indicate the domestics are missing something. You may note I have not criticised the corvettes handling, but since you raise the subject what it lacks is finesse steering feel, all of which is part of the joy of driving a car. Nor have I commented on the caddy CTS, my references were to the DTS. The CTS may well be a very good car but it is one model, BMW Mercedes make multiple models. GM used to be the leader, so now they make one good caddy and we praise them after decades of crap. Seriously they should be making whole ranges of good cars, they manged that in the 50's the fact that they do not points to serious malaise within the organaization, and its not just unions. More like decades of Harvard MBA type corporate arrogance, hence the whole economic storm.

Engine awards, where besides the domestic press. Compare the ecotec to a Honda joke. Compare the V6 to a Toyota Joke. Pushrod V8s love em, but modern products that sell in volume have something different for reasons of refinement. And does the CTS come with a modern small displacement V8 as would be expected from a premium product, no, they cancelled the northstar replacement.

And frankly making 3 decent cars for a Giant corporation is a joke. Ferraris were what I refered to as boutique items. As for the many who prefer vettes the fact that most are autos driven by oldies at 30mph speaks volumes about what people prefer. Most vette buyers like most harley buyers are concerned with some imagined image of their youth they never lived. Yes there are a few seriously into performance, and on the track vettes rate exceptionaly well, except I guess for the cheapo seats which are sub par even in a subaru, I gues that is GM's commitment to its product integrity.

The 86 celica was a seminal car because it was the first cheap car where the switches, plastics door close etc were all engineered to feel quality. So a modern vette could have the same qualities too. The reference to the 77 caddy just points to at the time they well understood that refinement was paramount in a luxury car, something lexus seems to have hit spot on recently. Modern luxury cars have refinement and performance. All I am saying is the best GM products, of which there are few, are 85% as good as they can be because the corporation cant help itself cutting out good bits here and there. BTW when mercedes tried to cheapen their product they paid the price. Say what you will but the market has spoken and even in great times Detroit declined, why, they were commited to building cheap cars, not great ones. Say what you will a 100k CAR OR EVEN A 40k CAR CAN HAVE A GREAT INTERIOR, AND NO I WAS NOT REFERING TO THE PIMPED OUT VETTES WITH FAKE WOOD INSERTS.

What is wrong with expecting the domestics to build a great product instead of making angry excuses about so so products. It seems to me that these days most people would prefer to help their own and buy domestic, sadly there are way too few compelling reasons to do so. I say this because it is one of my favorite questions to freinds and aquaintances, nealy all have had bad domestic experience and see little reason to try again. Some people buy their cars and keep them for years, for that they usualy go somewhere else. The market share indicates something aint right in motown, and its not just unions.

Do yourself a favor, visit the BMW plant in spartanbvury and see what commitment to product quality means. I am not talking about the nonunion employees, more like the entire build process.

What type of country are we where we are prepared to put 100's of billions to paper over wall street, and yet we will let our own manufacturing base be consumed. One reason is because enough people have bought detroit products to have been totaly turned off on the process. The solution is for the companies to design and build great cars, which they can do. Carlos Ghosen when he took over a toptaly bankrupt nissan said "there are no problems in the automotive business that good product cannopt fix" and fix it he did.

We both seem to want a great resurgant detroit, the only difference is that I want great products from detroit and prefer not to make excuses for so many of the current ones. We can do better than others, not almost as good, which is what a CTS is. The vette should be a worls beater, not just bang for the buck. We did all this before and we were then envy of the world, now we prefer to make excuses.