Corvette ZR-1 unveiled

efoolution said:
... yeah, Pagani is probably making a shitload of money each year, giving out credits for Pagani-buyers and at Koenigsegg they?ve probably got a whole house full of Money they?ve made from Fleet management and at Ascari, they?ve now got golden toilets, thanks to all the Ascari owners that pay for inspections and repairs. :rolleyes::p

In all seriousnes ... what?s the Point here? GM, Volkswagen or Ford may not only make their money on Cars, but that still means it?s the big companies and the small ones don?t so they can?t use the money (they don?t make) to cross-fund their cars.
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Koenegsegg has a large number of customers suing them for being basically ripped off because they can't seem to turn a profit and are refusing to give refunds.

The big car makers that do fleet sales and produce small cheap cars use cars like this to show off their engineering. VW lost $4million per Veyron build/sold. Ford didn't turn a profit on the Ford GT because it's purpose was to get people to come to dealers and go "oooh" and have a salesmen con them into a Focus/500/POS.

All that is about brand image. VW showed that they can build a car like the Veyron to say they can engineer a car that quite possibly defies the laws of physics, GM is saying they can build a car that can keep up with everything short of a Veyron for chump change (so imagine what you get in a cobalt!), etc...

Porsche makes a lot of money from selling their engineering services to other companies, largely Audi and VW. Lotus makes jack didly on their cars, nearly all of their money comes from the engineering company that develops everything from aluminum brake rotors to special plastics to be used on a cheap toy.
 
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M3lover said:
It lacks something you can't find in a spreadsheet
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Like some over-hyped brand name slapped on the front of it? ;)

Seriously, all this talk of cars having souls, x-factors and whatever else; is just silly. They're hunks of metal: some of them suck, some of them are a blast to drive, some are just rolling art work. Intangibles are a weak defense when your car is being demolished by something with half the price tag :lol:.
 
tigger said:
Like some over-hyped brand name slapped on the front of it? ;)

Seriously, all this talk of cars having souls, x-factors and whatever else; is just silly. They're hunks of metal: some of them suck, some of them are a blast to drive, some are just rolling art work. Intangibles are a weak defense when your car is being demolished by something with half the price tag :lol:.
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I've spent alot of time thinking about this, and i think their is one question that sums up if a car probably has a soul or not, and that is "when this car was developed, was the main objective to make money." If the awnser is yes then your probably driving something a bit lackluster, maybe not at all bad, but not as heart-stoppingly wonderful as a car that was built simply because somebody had a idea that kept them up at night that they just HAD to go through with, hell or high-water. So far as individual design elements, if either the chassi, the bodywork, or the engine was designed by one lone soul then that also gives it bonus points. I think with large groups of engineers focusing on something that has to be "marketable" you usually get compromise in the design philosophy of the car, aka lots of grey areas.
 
Ottobon said:
I've spent alot of time thinking about this, and i think their is one question that sums up if a car probably has a soul or not, and that is "when this car was developed, was the main objective to make money." If the awnser is yes then your probably driving something a bit lackluster, maybe not at all bad, but not as heart-stoppingly wonderful as a car that was built simply because somebody had a idea that kept them up at night that they just HAD to go through with, hell or high-water. So far as individual design elements, if either the chassi, the bodywork, or the engine was designed by one lone soul then that also gives it bonus points. I think with large groups of engineers focusing on something that has to be "marketable" you usually get compromise in the design philosophy of the car, aka lots of grey areas.
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IIRC GM engineers looked at the Z06 and said "damn, we built that for $70k... I wonder what we could do with $100k" the ZR-1 is what they came up with.
 
let's guess the dealership markups. i'm going to conservatively say... $20,000. the dealerships around north carolina were sticking $10,000 on the evo's, and the ford dealership i worked at was adding $10-$15k for the shelby gt and shelby gt500.
 
efoolution said:
... well Ferrari, Porsche, Koenigsegg, Pagani (just to name a few) have to make profit on their Cars and don?t have mass-market Products they could divert funds of. Porsche coulnd?t sell you a 911Turbo if they woulnd?t make profit of it (and they make quite a lot actually), neither could Pagani sell any Car without getting the costs back. GM can (like VW with the Bugatti or Ford with the Ford GT) do this, and it?s great for the lucky few that profit from it (not so great for the ones that actually pay for it - other GM-buyers) ... it?s not like it?s illegal - but most of the competition simply can?t do the same.

All I?m trying to get at is, IF Gm were to cross-fund the ZR-1, it?s price (I?m not talking performance or anything else, just price) can hardly be criteria for comparrison against cars from manufacturers like Ferrari.
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Actually, I suspect Ferrari, like Harley Davidson in effect, sells cars so that they can make money on merchandizing. I suspect they make huge profits on selling the rights to their name for hats, books, toys etc.
 
Wisheyehad1 said:
Actually, I suspect Ferrari, like Harley Davidson in effect, sells cars so that they can make money on merchandising. I suspect they make huge profits on selling the rights to their name for hats, books, toys etc.
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Well yeah, that's true for any product under a big famous name. Look at those Porsche pipes that were on Top Gear last season. When your name has such a brand following as Porsche or Ferrari, you could slap that on anything and probably mark up the price 200-600% and people would still buy it.
 
No Boss said:
Well yeah, that's true for any product under a big famous name. Look at those Porsche pipes that were on Top Gear last season. When your name has such a brand following as Porsche or Ferrari, you could slap that on anything and probably mark up the price 200-600% and people would still buy it.
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The pipes and several other products are sold by Porsche Design. I really don't know if Porsche Design is considered to be another company or if it's basically like a Porsche gift shop though.

Here are the "smoking accessories" btw:
http://www.porsche-design.com/live/P3600_Smoking_Tools_en.PorscheDesign?ActiveID=59173
 
^ From what I heard it was a member of the Porsche family who wanted to get into industrial design (and not just car related stuff) -- I've seen hard disk enclosures, sun glasses, etc. But yes the rogue family member is leveraging the family name and it doesn't surprise me that it's under the family corporate umbrella.
 
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