jschindler

I've seen quite a few C7's now with teenage kids clicking cell phone pictures of them.

JoesC5

No way................................... unless it came with black wheels and was a gift from his grandparents.

jackhall99

So you failed Marketing 101 in school huh?

FLYNLO is correct. The FRC sold 4,000 copies in 1999 compared to 29,000+ regular coupes and 'verts, and in 2000 that number dropped like a brick to just over 2,000. That is a flop in any sane man's mind!

The Z06 sales pulled that number up to almost 5,800 in 2001 and 8,300 the following year.

simplegto

The news is out.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c7-z...-released.html

JoesC5

And when they took that loser and made a Z06 out of it and jacked the price way, way up, it sold like hot cakes.

jackhall99

Wow, where did that apparent dig at GM and/or Z06 buyers come from?

Yes, the price increased $7,600,but the buyer got a different car. They got more power, lightweight exhaust, wider wheels, different tires, different suspension, etc. In other words, the buyer got a better performing car and did not mind paying additional for the improvements.

v26278

It's the right move. Demand should be pretty healthy, not to mention profit margins.

lt4obsesses

I wonder if GM had reversed the releases of the C5 Z06 and the FRC, if the outcome would have been different. Say, they came out with the fix roof Z06, higher performance, higher price, fixed roof, then came out with the FRC, at the coupe price point fully optioned or a little less as the 'stripped out' version as it was first released.

I would say they would have sold quite a few more FRC's, as they did with the Grand Sports for the C6. I think this is where they learned there lesson. They probably will come out with a Grand Sport version of the C7, but definitely not a cheaper version.

v26278

Hard to say, the attraction of the C5 Z06 was the incredible performance, the attraction of the GS was all in the styling. I'm not sure the FRC was so much of a styling hit - it didn't have the "wide body" appeal.

jimmyb

What the C5 FRC showed is that there is NOT some big pile of money that can be saved by de-contenting a Corvette. The FRC was $400 less than the coupe, if I remember correctly. The numbers posted show what a sales disappointment (by Corvette standards) the FRC was.

Jimmy

JoesC5

No dig at the Z06 buyers Jack. The original FRC was a sales flop and the replacement Z06 wasn't. Just shows you that people are willing to pay for a high performance version, which the FRC wasn't.

Dig at GM? I suppose so, as their high priced suits in their marketing department are supposed to know what people want, and they didn't want an el cheapo version of the Corvette, but wanted a high performance version, even at $7,600+ more.

Notice that with the C6, GM skipped over a el cheapo version and went straight to a high performance version(Z06) for some $20,000+ premium to get one the very next year.

Oh, and the GS was a high performance version as it replaced the previous Z51 but added even higher performance items such as the Z06's brakes, wheels/tires, and the dry sump system on the manual transmission coupe. It was not an el cheapo version. They made a new model, and jacked the price up over the base C6, and it sold like hot cakes.

And to top it all off, GM did not make a el cheapo C6 convertible, but made a high performance version called the 427 Convertible, that also sold like hot cakes, at a premium price.

I sort of believe that most Corvette buyers are not looking for a el cheapo version.

slief

I think the only Corvette buyer who is looking "el cheapo" Corvette is the buyer who can't afford one.

fsvoboda

In current dollars that would be a little more than $500, not anywhere near enough to budge the value calculation for any buyers. That the FRC came with limited options meant that it couldn't be priced as high as a loaded hatchback, but that just made it less desirable for many buyers (fewer available features).

jackhall99

I misunderstood your comments. Sorry.

JoesC5

No problem Jack. Sometimes my comments don't come across the way I intended them to read.

JoesC5

They were aimed at an entirely different market. The Miata market. They sold around 30,000 in 2007(before the economy crashed) but built around 40,000 of them that year.

At $25,000, GM wasn't making any money on them, so they were easy for GM to dump. At $35,000, they would have made some money but they would have not sold as they wouldn't have been competitive with the Miata, pricewise.

At the time, the Sky/Solstice DE plant was the most modern/efficient plant that GM had, so no room to lower the manufacturing costs for the two cars, so GM could make a profit.

fsvoboda

And they had been cleverly designed with no trunk space and a convertible top that was nowhere near as easy to operate as a Miata's . . . .

jimmyb

And then there's that.....

And don't forget the Solstice/Sky twins weighed 400 pounds more than the Miata. It's one thing to try to make a new niche, it's another when the target is RIGHT in front of you (Miata) and miss that badly.
The Solstice/Sky/Opel were GREAT show cars, sadly, they show what happens when the designers win all the battles verses the engineers (say, like, the Fisker Karma...beautiful but mythically flawed as an actual CAR).

Jimmy

rjwz28

The weight thing was a bit different... the components on the Kappa platform are MUCH stronger than the components on the Miata

You can literally bolt an LS2 in a Solstice and the rest of the drivetrain will hold it, and the chassis was engineered the same way, leaving plenty of headroom for the turbo variants and modifications