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RR4 said:
Don;t be fooled by the EPA ratings. The Z06 will eat gas like no Porsche ever would. That pushrod engine is not that efficient. Think about it. What GM needs to produce 500hp ie 7L, other companies do it in 5L or less.
While I agree that the displacement is pretty obscene for the power they turn out (a good comparison would be an M3 or 997S w/ Powerkit) the C5 Z06 anyway does actually get good gas mileage -- better in fact than the Porsches I have experience with, including a Boxster S and 996 TT. In real world conditions I have seen the C5 Z06 get 32-34MPG on the highway and (driven conservatively) 23MPG in the city. My friend who owns the one I have driven usually averages about 17MPG around town.
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RR4 said:And Syfon, you mentioned "hydro-formed" frame. So what. Yes the car will be stiffer than previous Corvettes, but my old Denali also had a hydroformed frame and it is was an absolute "noodle" compared to my Range Rover. American's love to brand with these stupid names, b/c their cars in the past have been such s*it.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. The point a lot of you guys are continually missing is that this new Corvette (C6) Z06 is not on the same level that the previous model (C5) Z06 was. The difference between C5 and C5 Z06 was very apparent, but the cars were largely the same. The differences between the normal model and the C6 Z06 are much greater -- the level of detail in the new Z06 is head and shoulders above the old Z06. This is reflected in the fact that it is being produced in much smaller quantities than the previous model Z06. Whether or not you are aware, this will be an extremely hard car to come by. Although you are spending your time insinuating this is "just another corvette" this is in reality a very special, limited edition car and many Chevy dealerships will not even recieve one for sale. The few people I have spoken to about it "in the know" have said it's very hard to recieve placement for this car and that the few orders some dealers have are taken either by the owners of the dealership or people expecting to pay multiples of the MSRP (a la Ford GT).
Your ridiculous statement about hydroforming and attempted comparison of a body-on-frame vehicle to a sportscar is evidence enough that you have your head far into the clouds. The chassis for this Z06 is not steel, it is aluminum, which is by nature much harder to hydroform. Considering the fact that the Z06 chassis architecture is hydroformed from a
single piece of aluminum and many of the other components are magnesium, this chassis is significantly lighter and much more rigid than the normal model. This was not done with the previous Z06. Nor was the previous Z06 motor
hand built, nor did it have titanium internals, carbon fibre bodywork, or the list of other insane features that the new Z06 has as a direct result of it being developed right along side the C6-R racecar -- which has been walking all over Porsche this season, might I add.
Again for the record, I am
not a Corvette guy, I'm not a Chevy guy...hell, I'm not a big fan of American cars in general. I am however very happy to see such a strong car coming out of the American lineup, which has IMHO bent over backwards to exotic european machinery for decades. Change is good and keeps the waters of competition from stagnating. This is the first American car which has truly excited me in the past 5 years, and it is the only currently-produced American car (Saleen S7 nowithstanding) that I would ever consider owning. If some snooty or clueless European companies and enthusiasts want to look down their noses at it because it bests their entire lineup at fractions of the cost, that's fine -- they are obviously far out of touch with reality.
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RR4 said:So when their marketing campaign revolves around the fact that it has 500HP and will beat most cars priced higher, what they are REALLY saying is "We admit we could never get anyone to buy this car (or any American car for that reason) if it was priced over $100K.
Man, you really are grasping at straws. If Porsche offered a special lightweight 997 Turbo with a handbuilt motor, titanium internals, carbon fibre bodywork, and independently developed chassis -- and the only thing that suffered at all was interior quality -- then set the price of such a vehicle at 65,000...would you be interested?
Give the elitism a rest.
