FE vs ME
Thread Starter
Race Director
Joined: Apr 1999
Posts: 15,136
Likes: 477
From: NM
FE vs ME
Just watching MotorWeek and they are doing a review of the Ferrari 812 Superfast. Really nice looking car which got me to thinking. I hope that Corvette will keep making a FE car as the looks of the long hood/short deck cannot be beat. I realize that a ME is the best for all out performance but the FE will always be the best looking. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the new ME and may end up with one. Question for me is, is the ME’s added performance worth it for the way most of us use a Vette? Just keep the classic front engine to go along with the ME.
Burning Brakes
Joined: May 2018
Posts: 984
Likes: 574
From: Fort Worth, TX
I saw that Chevy was going mid engine because they felt they couldn’t push FE any further. What I don’t understand is how they can think that when Ferrari put out the 599, then the 599 GTO, then the F12, F12 TDF, 812, and I’m sure they’ll have a track 812. I get that the higher versions might be hard to take higher, but not like the base Stingray can’t be improved upon.
Safety Car
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 3,966
Likes: 1,295
From: SouthEast PA
Unmodified C8 of the Year 2021 Finalist
2018 C7 of Year Finalist
Just watching MotorWeek and they are doing a review of the Ferrari 812 Superfast. Really nice looking car which got me to thinking. I hope that Corvette will keep making a FE car as the looks of the long hood/short deck cannot be beat. I realize that a ME is the best for all out performance but the FE will always be the best looking. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the new ME and may end up with one. Question for me is, is the ME’s added performance worth it for the way most of us use a Vette? Just keep the classic front engine to go along with the ME.
“What is the Golden Ratio?
Closely related to the Fibonacci Sequence (which you may remember from either your school mathematics lessons or Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code), the Golden Ratio describes the perfectly symmetrical relationship between two proportions. Approximately equal to a 1:1.61 ratio, the Golden Ratio can be illustrated using a Golden Rectangle: a large rectangle consisting of a square (with sides equal in length to the shortest length of the rectangle) and a smaller rectangle.”The C7s proportions are perfect viewed from the side. The ME gives a different result where the eye perceives either the back end is too long or the front too short.
Last edited by CRABBYJ; Sep 9, 2018 at 07:17 AM.
Race Director
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 11,992
Likes: 1,331
From: Middletown, DE
Fibonacci - Shnibonacci. I fell in love with the Ford GT40 when I was a 12 YO kid in 1964. Pretty much everybody did. Followed by the Lambo Muira, Ferarri 308, and so forth.
Any list of the most beautiful cars ever will feature the Muira right near the top. Beautifully styled mid-engined cars look stunning; ugly ones (Bugatti, anybody?) are just as ugly as any ugly front-engine sports car (Jaguar XJ-S series 1 coupe? SAAB Sonnet?)
I hope they continue to make them both. 2 beautiful takes on the Vette, largely affordable to enthusiasts, capturing the best of FE and ME performance and day-to-day livability -- can't beat it!
Any list of the most beautiful cars ever will feature the Muira right near the top. Beautifully styled mid-engined cars look stunning; ugly ones (Bugatti, anybody?) are just as ugly as any ugly front-engine sports car (Jaguar XJ-S series 1 coupe? SAAB Sonnet?)
I hope they continue to make them both. 2 beautiful takes on the Vette, largely affordable to enthusiasts, capturing the best of FE and ME performance and day-to-day livability -- can't beat it!
Melting Slicks
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 2,149
Likes: 1,349
From: Big D Dallas TEXAS
It would be nice to have both options, at first I was hoping but now I just don’t feel GM can afford it and the days of selling 30k thousand plus sports cars per year are shrinking. Build the ME only, keep prices a little higher, pump out less than 25k per year based off demand instead of 13% plus discounting like is happening now. FE are sitting on dealer lots and people are saying in the 5th plus year of C7 production we need another FE, I guess its time to change it up. 3 years from now the forum is going to explode because corvette team will be going with electric motors on their highest powered version, can’t wait for those debates.
Ferrari is not a good comparison as they are a stand-alone sports car company and need to build more than an ME to have cars to sell. Will Ferrari follow Lamborghini and build an SUV which would be more difficult since VW owns Lamborghini and shares R&D cost across its brands. This is what I read on the Ferrari forms not one peep about Corvette. (SUV,Turbo motors,No more NA V8 and V12; Electric motors the would is ending)
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/1...rchionne-tesla
Ferrari is not a good comparison as they are a stand-alone sports car company and need to build more than an ME to have cars to sell. Will Ferrari follow Lamborghini and build an SUV which would be more difficult since VW owns Lamborghini and shares R&D cost across its brands. This is what I read on the Ferrari forms not one peep about Corvette. (SUV,Turbo motors,No more NA V8 and V12; Electric motors the would is ending)
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/1...rchionne-tesla
Last edited by fasttoys; Sep 16, 2018 at 10:59 PM.
Team Owner
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 81,241
Likes: 3,063
From: altered state
St. Jude Donor '05
The ME is a long needed facelift. The styling started going away with the C4, started looking pretty generic with the C5 and the hacked off rear end. Glad to see them gone honestly. They lost something..stling that gives em some soul, character.
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Brett Foote
Race Director
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,183
Likes: 85
From: Castle Rock CO
St. Jude Donor '15
GM sticks to a cargo space need in the Vette. Not sure what the current thinking is on what that space should be for them, but they cannot follow the Ferrari FE cars unless they severely limit the cargo space. ME is still Ferrari's, and all builders with supercar ambition, when it comes to the "super" model. Benefits of handling/weight are just better than the FE.
Le Mans Master
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 5,529
Likes: 1,943
From: Austin Texas
Ferrari is not a good comparison as they are a stand-alone sports car company and need to build more than an ME to have cars to sell. Will Ferrari follow Lamborghini and build an SUV which would be more difficult since VW owns Lamborghini and sheds R&D cost across its brands. This is what I read on the Ferrari forms not one peep about Corvette. (SUV,Turbo motors,No more NA V8 and V12; Electric motors the would is ending)
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/1...rchionne-tesla
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/1...rchionne-tesla
Race Director
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 15,049
Likes: 1,613
From: Holly Springs NC
St. Jude Donor '16-'17,'22,'24
We are so locked into the past. Why do we assume GM will follow what they did before, make one platform Corvette? There have been many indicators saying the C7 will continue through 2020, possibly 2021. And there's a statement from a supplier that another car, made from the same materials as the C7, will be introduced in 2022. Is THAT the C8? Maybe, we don't know. It might be a FE Corvette or a new Cadillac high performance sports car based on the C7.
GM has a plan, and they're spoon feeding us information at a rate that maximizes interest in their cars.
I, for one, do not think the FE is dead.
GM has a plan, and they're spoon feeding us information at a rate that maximizes interest in their cars.
I, for one, do not think the FE is dead.
Race Director
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 11,183
Likes: 85
From: Castle Rock CO
St. Jude Donor '15
It is dead in the Corvette line, unless GM takes some future generation back to FE(electric by then....). One assembly line with some flexibility, but an FE and ME don't make production cost worthy in the Corvette yearly numbers and price range.
Safety Car
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 3,966
Likes: 1,295
From: SouthEast PA
Unmodified C8 of the Year 2021 Finalist
2018 C7 of Year Finalist
We are so locked into the past. Why do we assume GM will follow what they did before, make one platform Corvette? There have been many indicators saying the C7 will continue through 2020, possibly 2021. And there's a statement from a supplier that another car, made from the same materials as the C7, will be introduced in 2022. Is THAT the C8? Maybe, we don't know. It might be a FE Corvette or a new Cadillac high performance sports car based on the C7.
GM has a plan, and they're spoon feeding us information at a rate that maximizes interest in their cars.
I, for one, do not think the FE is dead.
GM has a plan, and they're spoon feeding us information at a rate that maximizes interest in their cars.
I, for one, do not think the FE is dead.
Last edited by CRABBYJ; Sep 11, 2018 at 07:39 AM.
Thread Starter
Race Director
Joined: Apr 1999
Posts: 15,136
Likes: 477
From: NM
My minds vision is that the ME is the C8. The current C7 will continue as is for one to two more years to aid in transition to the new ME. If the sales of the C7 stay high enough then GM will introduce a new FE, the C9. After that the survival of either will depend upon their sales.
Tom...
Tom...