Very well put.

 

So, were 68's called Stingrays even though they were not badged as such, simply because all 63-67's were Sting Rays?

My take is that 68's are sharks but not Stingrays. 69's are both. Because they have the fender badges.

 

GM put different marketing ads out there over time and varied the names on the cars including whether the name was one or two words, with badges or without but over time everyone generally refers to c2 and c3's almost interchangeably as Stingrays, all as Corvettes and C3's only as sharks though the general public doesn't know that, mostly Vette owners.

It doesn't matter unless you are a collector.

Right now GM is confusing the world again making a really powerful and fast Corvette but also advertising a little CTS R Cadillac as one of the fastest production cars at 3.7 seconds zero to sixty. They love to shoot themselves in the foot, Cammaro's with big engines, Caddies with fast engines and Corvettes all competing for many of the same customers.

No one has ever confused GM marketing with intelligent design.

p.s. the C5-c6's were developed by the head Corvette engineer at the time, Dave Hill, who came over to Corvette from his work with fast engines at Cadillac! Look at Cadillac today...carried that tradition on as they downsized. Dave is retired now and living in Colorado.

Lance P.

Lance P.

 

The Corvette is a low volume car for GM & emblems are an inexpensive way to identify a new car. 68 was obviously new & called a Sting Ray in ads. They don’t need CHEVROLET emblems either.
Stingray refers to the body style.

If one can recognize it no need for a label...

 

GM is advertising the CTS-V as the fastest production SEDAN.

 

I've been into Corvettes for 30+ years and my opinion is all C3s are Stingrays and no Corvette is a Mako Shark except the concept car.

 

A 565 hp v-8 with a six speed manual or paddle shifters and supercharged whether it's a sedan or a saloon or a sports car has one niche...FAST and I just described the caddy. Most caddies today are relatively small cars.

That niche of speed and power GM marketing somehow seems to be trying to fill with Corvette, Camarro and Cadillac. The sublety of sedan versus two door versus sports car gets awfully blurry to most people. If anything, they are selling speed at different price points or trying to would be my guess.

Hardly your grandfathers Caddy is it?

I'd argue from a marketing perspective GM is more than a tad confused and the divisions are competing with one another in a sense. They probably are competing with one another in a real sense as well. No one in recent years has said GM was well organized.

They show the Caddy above compared to a BMW M3. Some of us have seen BMW 3, 5 on race courses racing against Corvettes.

L.P.

 

this is true.

The CTS-V is really nice. I think given the option of a new Corvette or the Caddy, I'd Take the Caddy.

I'm actually looking for a 2004-05 CTS-V to use as a daily driver.

 

I heard a joke once that GM is so bad they conpletely disproved the theory of 'Intelligent Design' and that if we just let car parts lay around by themselves for a few million years, they would evolve into something better than GM could make, even if they only evolved to dust.

 

That's funny. I actually think their engineering people, their marketing people and their management people are all fairly well out of synch with one another. They don't talk enough, they aren't coordinated well enough, they are or have been heavy on bureaucracy, weak on introducing productive change.

However, some of their recent decade engineering is actually outstanding. I had a 2005 Trailblazer with the 4.2L straight six and bought another 2008 with the same 291 hp engine. The absolute best engine in a vehicle I've ever had. Smooth, quiet, powerful, pulled a 4400# suv that then pulled a 4000# boat and trailer. Without the boat it gets 22 mpg on the highway and is just remarkable with fly by wire, coil on each plug, injection, sensors that are very intelligent and totally trouble free. In 2005 it was one of the world's ten best engines and GM never marketed that fact. Would love to have my 2008 with a six speed auto tranny in it instead of the three speed. There is a new 8 speed auto transmission plant going to be built by Gm for the future cars.

The little test bed that these new Caddy and Vette engines are in have been flourishing in their engineering and only now are some of them coming out in marketing.

Meanwhile, Ford and others are really moving in the V6 turbo high rpm areas. GM may have them but their focus on the electric Volt may have taken their eyes off that ball to some degree. I drove a Chrysler 300 v6 in Colorado in the mountains in January and it was way, way better than the Chevy Malibu v6 I'd had there the previous summer. Way, way better and it hurts me to say that about Chrysler/fiat.

I bet if we could talk with the Vette and Caddy engineering departments minus the GM marketing and managing people we would be amazed at what they can do. Before all that shows up in a car it gets filtered by the other two groups and today if it isn't some kind of hybrid or electric it's somewhat out of vogue.

Wonder what all these guys are doing with power cells? Bet they know more than they say.

Lance

 

I like this. Make it mid-engine, give it 600 Hp, charge less than $100,000 and I am a buyer.

 

PK...I've read as others have about discussion about the possibility of mid engine and the greater possibility seems to be they will offer whatever the new c8 (c7 will just be an interim continuation,mild evolution only) of c6 for a year or two is the main guessing I've read about) will be in two engine configs...one is a very high revving small non naturally aspirated v8 of about 3.0 litre or so but generating about 400 hp and another some type of more standard 6+ liter v8 with muscle in the 550 and up hp range. No one knows if they would go mid engine that I've read. If you did, would that change everything else and make it revolutionary change instead of evolutionary change? I'd think it might be likely. There isn't a lot of room inside in the Ferrari's I saw at the track.

As far as I've read, no one knows other than GM just got Kentucky to pony up some money for the plant and they plan to spend $140mm of their own to get ready in Bowling green.

Just lots of speculation as any of us could though done by auto press people generally that I've read.

l.p.

 

I'm not a marine biologist, but I don't think any sharks or stingrays have eggcrates.

 

I would not be happy with a mid-engine Corvette. But then, I remember being pretty upset back in 2004, when the new 'vettes came out with the non-hideaway headlights, so maybe I'm one of those jerks who doesn't like anything new. I AM starting to get old, after all. Just turned 46, wow, I thought I had at least another 20 years or so before I became a Grumpy Old Man.


Scott

 

Here's the most recent which claims GM has ruled out mid engine and more detail.....for C7

http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2009/...ected-in-2013/

Some thought that flip up headlights are going, going, gone...in favor of molded in, higher intensity, smaller lights.

 

i love the flip up headlights on all cars but think the c3's look goofy when they are up.(like a fiddler crab).apparently they are a pedestrian hazard cause when you get hit and runned,and left for dead in the gutter you will receive an additional injury from the lights.

 

If the last thing you see before the car hits you head on as a pedestrian is my flip up headlights your *** is already going to be broken in so many pieces it won't matter what you see last except it would be nice to know it's unique. Actually, the more modern molded in ought to be less wind restrictive anyway.

Technology marches on and it would be nice if these uber sports cars for all the money were also advance test platforms of the newest and greatest to some extent I think.

Anybody ever driven a mid engine Ferrari? What's that feel like?

lance

 

If they ever put the Aerovette from the mid 70's into production, I'd sell everything I own to have one (wait...I had to do that after the divorce, nevermind). Anyway, the last attempt at a production mid engined Corvette was renamed (thankfully, the Fiero)

 

I don't know the classic definition but when you put the engine in the back mostly over the rear wheels or just forward of them like the Ferrari 430 and 458 shown, you put the driver well forward. I've never driven one but the engine in these is further forward than the Porsche 911 C3R which is at or behind the rear wheels with its well known propensity to come around fairly easily with the mass. Just look at my old 76 classic shaped vette and you can see the driver sits where the engine is on the Ferrari more or less.

I'd guess the feel from driving a mid engine would be very different than a front engine, rear differential. I think in the newer super cars they balance the weight better by using torque tubes and putting the transmission in the back with the engine up front. Honestly, with electronic shifting I'd think a front engine with the tranny well back with two clutches would possibly be a good weight distribution, better even than the Ferrari. Wouldn't Corvette engineers know all of those choices forward and backward? If the mid engine were so much better why haven't they already done it?

Makes it seem to me like it might not be the way to go.

Your thoughts?

Lance