babaganoosh

I read somewhere that GM looses money on each corvette.

dbvettez06

NEVER been a fan of the P cars...They look like crap, have always been overpriced, the interior looks awful....Status thats about it..

MNVette

Enough with the Porsche-hating, already. Porsche makes a fine car. It is overpriced (to maintain an image of exclusivity) and just as prone to issues as the C6 or any other car. But, here are a few facts.

The posts above have been more or less correct. GM does not lose money on the Corvette. It's margin on each car is quite healthy. The MSRP you see on the sticker is a fiction - it is a number generated by corporate, in consultation with dealers, fleet managers, the pope, voodoo priests, and many others, that is supposed to yield a certain profit margin for the seller of the car. That number is complete . GM knows to the penny how much it actually cost to produce a specific car. That number is less than the "invoice," which is the cost GM charged the dealer to "buy" the car. But, every car mfg. also has "holdbacks" - a certain amount of the "invoice" that GM knocks off the actual sale price to entice the dealer to get the car. Now, the car is on the dealer's lot, and he tells you that he is selling you the car for "X" dollars. Regardless of that the MSRP or invoice is, the dealer is NOT selling you the car for less than what he paid for it. The margins might not be all that high, but he isn't losing money.

Dealers also then steer you into financing through their "special relationships" with certain lenders - read "kickbacks." They also have you buy "extended warranties," "rust proofing," and every other imaginable extra to pump up their bottom line. It's like when you go to the movies. The theater doesn't make a lot of money on the movie itself - probably only 1-2%. But, it makes a killing on the $5 popcorn (cost is about $0.25 per bag), etc. Same thing here. The dealer doesn't make a fortune on the car (a few hundred dollars, maybe a grand or so), but he makes it up on the other stuff. Again, he isn't actually losing any money - otherwise he'd be out of business.

As for the $28k profit per car for Porsche, that is . Porsche makes a better profit margin per car, but it isn't that much. Why? Because Porsche doesn't make as much on the back end of the deal with "Scotchgard" protectant, etc. and there isn't an in-house Porsche financing arm per se. Plus, the profits reported by corporate include investment income, one-time sales of assets, etc.

baddasp

You have to be retarded to believe these numbers.

05C6spdvert

They ought to be making a huge profit. The car itself isn't particularly exotic to build. Not like they use CF body panels, even if they use superior products which in a lot of cases they don't (exhaust for example) they should still make a killing.

The margin at retail is on avg. 12K for a 911.

Dealers will sell cars at a loss though I agree they make a lot of money in the F&I office, on average I'm sure its substantially more than the average gross on the sale of the car itself.

Porsche does have a financing arm Porsche Financial Services notorious for ****ty rates.

WHT

If you read the Cayman Forum (for example) you will see some positive comments about the Corvette and some negative comments, just like here. Strangely though, members of the Cayman Forum think the 911 and Cayman are better than the Corvette (At least I can't remember reading a post from a Porsche owner that stated the Corvette was better ).

Interestingly, there are several members of the Cayman and Corvette Forums who own both cars. I have noticed their posts can differ somewhat depending on the forum.

Both are great cars.

C4 Don

Corvette is probably saving GM's bacon.

ganna001

i owned a porsche convertible 911.... the car is WHATEVER at best!

i would never buy another porsche again.. PERIOD!

overprices.. slow... and too pricy to maintain.

Check 6

As you may have noticed I do own both a C6 Z51 and a Cayman S and have posted objective comments on both cars. Each is different and exciting to drive. If interested look at my old posts for details. I think there was a thread last week from a member looking at both prior to making a purchase decision. I am also a member of the Porsche Club of America and a life member of the NCM

WHT

Yes, I have read your posts on both forums.

EDIT - Just wanted to add as in my first post:

While you and others have been more objective about both cars, many Porsche owners are not as magnanimous about Corvettes as implied in your earlier post when you said: " Corvette owners never miss an opportunity to bad mouth Porsche yet you never see a negative comment on the Porsche forms [sic] about Corvette".

JKennedy1612

Wow...

Lightning Coyote

Always buy always!

AutoCutter

A Chevy dealer told me, "Do you know how many Cobalts I have to sell to equal the profit I make on a single Corvette?" Fact is CNN Money(if I have the right news company) reported a year or two ago that if Corvette was its' own brand it would one of the most successful car companies in the world. So maybe some cars do have killer profit margins. That so-called Halo theory may have been true many years ago, I doubt any car company can afford a loss leader anymore.

Please don't bash Porsche-it is bad form and undeserved-the cars are excellent vehicles. Just because you can't afford one doesn't make them "overpriced." Though that Porsche SUV really is the most silliest thing I have ever seen from Porsche

Black04Vert

Besides the 3% holdback (3% for Chevy, 0% for Porsche) and advertising allowances why is invoice not the final dealer cost?

C64BOB

I would suspect that the number is gross margin and not net margin. Gross margin is difference between selling price and manufacturing cost. Net margin is what's left over after all the non-manufacturing overhead (marketing, sales, R&D, management etc.) is paid for....

50MileSmile

The Corvette is such a small part of GM's total revenue that it actually has little effect on GM's bottom line. The Corvette is of much greater value to GM as a "halo" vehicle.

Hoosier Red

Just on it's face, that figure is not credible. There's just no way that's possible.

Chris S

LOL at bad financial analysts and those gullible enough to believe them. A new Porsche is never going to win any value awards, but they're fantastic cars w/ unique qualities you won't find in the competition.

bob53

If the corvette makes GM 10K per unit (this is a reasonable number), at 30K units per year they are making 30K x 10K = 300 million per year. So yes GM makes good money from the vette but this is not keeping GM afloat.

humvet

Also if Corvette was a stand alone company, it would not be as profitable as it is as part of GM. They leverage a lot of technology from papa bear GM.

I still don't believe the posted profits on the armadillo, I mean Porsche.