Quote:
Originally Posted by Rmtt
I've always bought a generation behind as I usually end up dumping mod money into them. Have always had a Corvette as a 2nd car as soon as I was financially to do so!
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I'm a true believer in 1) never buy a 1st or 2nd year car model and 2) never pay MSRP for a car. So you won't see me shopping for a C8 for at least another 2-3 years.
I'm also a true believer in NEVER buying the lowest base trim, as if you're going to do that, you might as well save a few bucks and buy a Hyundai Accent base model because they all drive and feel the same. So either way, I'm waiting for the "wide body" models to come out and all the typical GM beta tester problems to be worked out before I even take a sniff.
The C7 is the first Corvette in the garage, as I've NEVER bought American cars until the Corvette. Not for lack of trying, since the latest generation of Mustangs and Camaros certainly tick every box off my checklist. Plus I'm just not your typical Corvette owner.
What I will say though, is I thought even the C7 was ground breaking, as it offered supercar like performance with a tolerable interior for dirt cheap price. The C7 Grand Sport lapped Laguna Seca faster than just about anything under the sun. All except the Ford Shelby GT 350R, 10 cars on each side of this list:
https://fastestlaps.com/tracks/laguna-seca-post-1988 are all over $100K. Heck it was 2 full seconds faster than the M4 GT4, and that's a $140K car when all said and done. Really the "mid engine" C8 is but an evolutionary step forward for Corvette, as prior generation Corvettes have always offered way more performance than the dollar value would suggest. The ONLY ground breaking part of C8 is by moving the engine behind the driver, they can finally claim the acceleration in a straight-line advantage too (for all of the C7's test glories, no C7 can beat a good Porsche in a drag race straight up except the ZR1).
But that's neither here nor there, C7 is old news. Mid engine C8 IS breaking the mold. Instead of the same old formula, different length sausage, they bucked 50+ year of history and decided to upend the industry, which is way more than what I can say for BMW in the last 15 years. It's gotten stale. Reactionary. Revenue and marketshare driven rather than innovation driven. Heck even Porsche has gotten 30,000 advanced deposit for a car they haven't even made (Taycan production is expected to be 40,000 for 2020, they've already sold 30,000+ without the factory churning out a production car).
Back to my original point. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN BMW?
Anyway, what GM did with the C7 to get the cost and price way down in comparison to the rest of their competitive field, you can and probably will see in the C8 as well.
1) Parts bin sharing. The LT1 is used ubiquitously across their entire vehicle line-up, and I fully expect the LT2 to be slotted in some of their highest selling trucks and SUVs as well. When you're making 200K of the same engine and primary for your high volume trucks and SUVs, all of a sudden that small block V8 cost far less per unit than your average inline 6 turbo, where it already had a massive advantage in cost in material.
2) Material. SMC (I forgot what the full name is) for body panels not only save weight, but raw material cost AND tooling cost. The primary drawback is time, as you can't stamp out 100 panels in an hour like you can with steel or aluminum. So for a production run of 30,000 a year, a single plant can handle a car who's outer panel is made of plastic/fiberglass composite.
3) Quality. There's just no way around this, but if you don't have to invest up front on making sure that each and every panel fit is within a better and higher tolerance, there's a ton of money to be saved per vehicle in the number of QC rejects and also tool calibration. My 13 year old BMW MZ4 Coupe has much, MUCH better panel gaps and assembly and less creaks and rattles than the 2017 C7 Grand Sport. Sure, it's not perfect everywhere, but the fit and finish is better. Much better.
4) Touch: This is all subjective, but having owned 2 GM products so far, I honestly can say this. It may look decent, it may work decent, but every single touch interface on both the Corvette and the Bolt EV feels...Different. Like how the mode selector wiggles in your hand, or the signal stock sort of feel "loose," or any of the buttons and switch gears kind of rocks a little. All the switches and buttons have a little bit of play in it, like they didn't bother to put in an extra rubber seal to keep it in place. If you're used to upper trim Japanese cars or German luxury, it's a shock to the system to find as many "loose" buttons and knobs. It's just...Different. Everything you touch is different.
5) Experience. This is ALSO subjective. The whole buying experience, service experience, and just overall ownership experience is piss poor in comparison to any of the other major manufacturers. The only one that's worse, and it's significantly worse, that I've experienced, is FCA. FCA ownership experience is by a giant margin the worst in the industry. Even my Hyundai ownership experience was much better by comparison. Just having to walk through the dealership to buy (look it's the 21st century and everyone has access to the internet. Don't try to sell me a car like a slimy sales guy with the stupid quadrant and drag the process out to 7 hours just to get a f**king lease done), to service (actually service has been okay, but it's shocking to me when waiting in the service area to pick up the Corvette after its initial break-in oil change to hear a service writer openly confront another customer about a $10 light bulb. Just weird), to little stuff like the bill due for the lease payment is significantly different from the actual written contract (I had to actually call Ally/GM financial or whoever it was to confirm, as I suspect someone had made a huge mistake, and they weren't shy about admitting that they outsourced it all. If I didn't call and double check, it would have ruined our credit AND had the Bolt repossessed in 3 months).
Which is to say, none of this is going to really dissuade me, because for me, the car's insane level of performance for the dollar just about makes it all worthwhile. And since I do the bulk of my own service, IF I'm willing to overlook the fact that it shares an engine with a truck and feels like you're typing on a cheap keyboard every time you touched a button, that's all fine knowing that I'd be several seconds per lap faster than my buddy in his BMW at the local track without working up a sweat (whereas my MZ4 Coupe and his 340i churns very similar lap times, at least, similar enough where traffic equalizes it).
Speaking of not ever buying a first year car and never paying MSRP, I have made one single exception. I bought the MZ4 Coupe, sight unseen, when they announced it in March of 2006. I put down my deposit for one in April, waited five months to pick it up in September, at MSRP. The one and ONLY first model year car I've ever bought, the first and only car I've ever paid MSRP (heck the one and ONLY car I've ever paid more than INVOICE for). Probably why it's still in the garage after 13 years, as I've had to justify paying MSRP for it.
