rfn026

To: GM Management
RE: Inspiration

You really need to watch this video. You need to learn from it. You've given us the Volt. Porsche gives us the 918.

Ask why you spend $20,000,000 to run one race in France every year and then never tell anyone about the results.

Does anyone in Detroit have a sense of history?

You did a good job this past year with Lance Miller's Corvette at LeMans but why didn't anyone bother to get the video widely seen?

It's about inspiration. Watch this video (and the dozen variations on it) and learn.

Richard Newton
My Facebook Page
My VM Columns

CHJ In Virginia

GM should start really listening to it's customers and develop some worldwide marketing savy.

Notch

And the 911 R Hybrid

dvandentop

here is another good one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kePOy...eature=channel

dfinke23

Uh...no; because no one in Washington has a sense of history.

napacruzerc5

The difference between a passion for cars and a passion for $$$.

Gray Ghost GS

I absolutely agree! GM still doesn't "get it" when it comes to marketing the Corvete to their customer base worldwide, but I thought the UAW is *now* GM management, lol.

TedDBere

You guys are just pissin in the wind.

Any company that would screw their bondholders certainly doesn't care about their customers. They'll continue to tell you what you want and will never start to listen to the customer and produce what the customer wants.

I wonder how fast that Volt goes?

Zoxxo

GM races at Le Mans to boost their brand in the rest of the world (not to sell Corvettes to the rest of the world, btw.) Under normal economic conditions they sell all the Corvettes they want to here in the states. If they didn't, the car would have been down the road with Pontiac and Saturn. Spending a ton of money to advertise the Le Mans victories here in the U.S. would *really* be a waste of money. First, that's preaching to the choir - all the American Corvette fans either already know about it or don't care. Second, most Americans couldn't find *France* on a map and they sure couldn't care less about Le Mans.

Comparing GM to Porsche is silly. Compare GM to Volkswagon. Volkswagon owns Porsche. GM owns Corvette. Both parent companies are in business to sell as many cars as possible to as many people as possible across as many market niches/strata as possible. They do that by making many different cars. Slamming GM for making the Volt is meaningless. They should be slammed if they weren't making it. GM has to compete around the world with Toyota, Nissan, VW, Mercedes, etc., all of whom are busy developing alternative energy automobiles. (You guys can cry all you want about it but that is the way the world's car business is headed.)

They *are* advertising (TV) the Corvette here in the U.S. which tells yu two things. First, sales are way down. Second, selling Corvettes is a lot easier here than it is elsewhere in the world.

Given the current economy, be grateful that (a) GM still exists and (b) the haven't killed the Corvette altogether. I have no doubt that the subject has been discussed at the board meetings more than once.

Z//

TJM

No Love for GM " Exec." , in fact I actively dislike them, and don't much like their Marketing staff either, or the UAW,.... or Obama for that matter,

But the comparison isn't really fair.

Porsche is a Hot Rod Company, That's all they do... Their Board is positive about this sort of crap. [ probably had some Deutsche Govt backing too?]

And lest face it, Corvette is a foot note on the ledger. Performance is a marketing tool, no more.

GM has no soul because they have no commitment to anything BUT the bottom line [ and their own bottoms apparently?]

... Porsche ? Ferrari ?? ... different blood.



TJM

TedDBere

I'm still waiting for good seats in a Z06. They've been making them since 2001 and still don't put a seat in them that can hold you in at maximum g's. See how many seats you can order from the factory for a Porsche GT3?

cebars

At approx 27 sec in the video when the Porche exec says something about flywheel technology, they show a component sitting in the area of the passenger seat fits. What is this component?

Notch

Porsche calls that the "electrical flywheel battery". Braking action spins an internal flywheel, and that energy can then be used to power an electric motor at each front wheel. A fully charged flywheel can supply up to 160 hp for six to eight seconds.

Zoxxo

Here is an article that tells more than you probably want to know about the car:

http://www.gordonkirby.com/categorie..._is_no258.html

Z//

joemoia

The flywheel hybrid technology used by by the 911/918 was developed by Williams for F1

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/a...explained.html