What's after Z06?

Maby this is ?

So, all you have to do is buy a C5, a Porsche, and this kit, and put a years labor into it to get a homemade streetable car that drives like a C5 and looks sorta like a cross between a C6, a GT40, and an NSX?

heres a future concept type... for the corvette.. they call it the C12... thats double of C6.. :-)

heres more....

DaLoverhino wrote: > Here's the things I can think of, I'm probably way off base, but I like

Interesting thoughts. If I may throw in an engineer's perspective:

My personal guess is the Corvette will stay with the traditional front engine layout. It's too much a part of the car's character. Actually, I think the C6's engine is far enough aft to qualify as a front-mid engine layout.

OMG the cost! OMG the difficulty of repair! And I'm not sure the energy dissipation characteristics of carbon fiber would make for a very good crash test.

Ya betcha. Or an infinitely-variable box.

Maybe if 500 hp isn't enough... but bet they can get more than that out of the 7L V8.

I thnk the Corvette's drive shaft is already pretty light. One of the advantages of the aft gearbox is that the driveshaft needs to transmit much less torque, thus is much thinner and lighter. Only payback is higher RPM of the shaft....

Ummmm... magnesium is lighter than aluminum but not as strong for its weight. And although it casts well and can can be machined it doesn't form very easily in other production processes. I think in most cases a good aluminum alloy is stronger for its weight than a magnesium alloy, and also likely more cost-effective. Magnesium's also more vulnerable to corrosion than aluminum.

Hard to do at the cost - it's awesome.

Careful - similar comments were heard for years about the hide-away headlights...

(Several months back there was a discussion here about GM's styling and I commented the Corvette looked to me like a Viper. And I still think the new C6 looks awfully similar to the Viper. Look at the issue of R&T, or was it Motor Trend, or was it Car and Driver,... with the GT-40, Viper and C6 comparison. Fold the pages so you can see both pictures of the individual Corvette and Viper on their description pages and tell me the C6 doesn't strongly resemble the Viper - headlights, nose air inlet, side fender vents... Yes there are certainly differences, but not like when you look at the GT-40!)

Here's waving to ya - \||||

Owen ___

'67BB & '72BB

-- not affiliated with JLA forum in any way -- alt.autos.corvette is original posting -- ___

"To know the world intimately is the beginning of caring." -- Ann Hayman Zwinger

Very much Viper-ese.

But if you look at the whole Chevrolet line-up, or all of GM's for that matter, you see that GM Design has lost the ability to think for themselves and are copying a lot of look from elsewhere. Most of it isn't a good look they are copying.

Bill Mitchell must be turning about 6500 rpm in his grave over some of this stuff.

GM Design was usually fresh and occasionally radical. There were often copying of traits of others in parts, but so does everyone else. But the overall design never copied.

The press accused the '63 Sting Ray of copying the Jaguar XKE, but it really was derived from the '59 Stingray. The XKE was a natural progression from the XK-D and D-Type.

The '68 Corvette coupe was often described as copying Ferrari's roof line and fender line, however, the '68 Corvette was based on the '65 Mako Shark. Ferrari probably copied that and simply executed the design faster than Chevy.

Camaro, while it copied the basic Pony Car design, copied no one with that front end that looked almost like one wide grill.

But today, Chevy is using Toyota Corollas and their trucks look like abortions from mixed Japanese truck unions.

The Impala, once a fresh look that lead the way, with over 800,000 Impalas alone produced each year in the '60s (not counting the same bodyline in Bel Air, Biscayne, and so on), is relegated to a Toyota Camry clone.

And I wonder why I can't find a car I want to buy new. And GM wonders why they have to tighten their belt on their expenses because they are having trouble selling cars.

= = = = = = = I wouldn't look for the situation to change. For the last 15 years, GM styling has been "focus grouped" to death. Good example of this was the Olds Aurora. Solid, well-integrated design--attractive car with a marvelous amount of utility as it came out of the styling salon and hit the exhibition turntable. The underlying platform was well matched to the design (but not "universal" enough to support two or three other "badge" cars.) The executive board then crammed that design through focus groups to "guarantee" its financial future and broaden its "badgeability." Result, a vanilla offering where head clearance and sill height ruined the excellent lines from the salon.

When the executive committee looks at fresh designs, they tend to recall financial disasters like the Chrysler Airflow, the Tucker, the Kaiser Darin, the Studebaker, and the Edsel (I don't vouch for its jukebox freshness but did persuade my Dad to take me crosstown to an Edsel dealer for opening night.) Result, we get things like the Packard Patrician, Olds Aurora, the Buicks, Mercury etc. With the current financial situation at GM, the paranoia and paralysis will probably continue. Possibly right into bankruptcy.

One thing that Corvette has going for it in this "extrusion" process is that GM has a goal of taking the car global. Its focus groups will therefore include some Euro, Latin, Asian and Islandia thinking. Taken in context by good designers who can still keep the design integrated rather than a "horse designed by a committee" it might survive and prosper in the marketplace.

Sorry to say this but if it doesn't prosper it's gone.

Good driving over the holidays--please stay safe and be back here in January. I'll cover 2000 miles in the next week--much of it in "Stabilitrac" country with the 'vettes home in the garage.

C'ya and I'll be wavin' in January.

"But today, Chevy is using Toyota Corollas and their trucks look like abortions from mixed Japanese truck unions."

Youre right ! I actually hated the new corvette design, especially the open headlights. (trying too hard to be ferrari ?) The flip headlamps have been to me a defining element of the corvette since the stingrays. Hard to see one without the flip lamps.

But I recently drove the C6 and it does perform like a corvette. Got me from 0-60 in about 5 seconds. (yes, my driving is terrible!) So it redeems itself in performance. The look still screams japanese wannabe. (don't know why) but thats ok.. i guess

A fair point!

Yeah. But part of this is engineering - both cars are designed for the same purpose in solving the same challenges (low drag and minimum surface area in a front-engine sports car) and with a given state of the art there's usually one optimum solution to a problem. If two organizations use similar processes optimizing their work they'll likely converge to similar designs. The closer you move towards the state of the art's optimum solution the less latitude there is. Thus they have similar layouts, a similar shape, similarly placed openings, etc.

By the same principle American and Japanese fighter designs began to converge at the end of WW II, the Space Shuttle looks a lot like Buran (the Soviet shuttleski), and Concorde looks a lot like the TU-144.

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:54:21 GMT, "Tom in Missouri" puked:

They ripped off the PT Cruiser, the Ford Mustang and Ranchero pretty much...

-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?

While I'm inclined to agree with "Tom in Missouri" that the front end of the C6 Vette has some styling cues similar to the Viper, you have remember who had what first. Vette had the front end and hood treatment before Viper, but Viper had the headlights first. The sides of both have some similarities, the most prominent being the cooling ducts at the rear of the front fenders. Having said that, I think the Vette's ducts look better. The rear end is quite distinct between the two and I personally like the Vette better. In fact, the Vette kicks serious Viper ass!

Now, getting on to lab~rat's comments, lab~rat must be too young to know where Chrysler got the retro design for the PT Cruiser. Check out these three links and you'll see that the PT Cruiser had its origins in the Chevy Sedan Delivery, which I believe was made in this design from

Let's change De Lorean (a GM guy through and through) to Lee Iacocca (father of the Mustang in the mid-60s -- before he went on to fame at Chrysler.) The Mustang grew into a pony-car but started out as a compact small personal car, with rather chintzy interior trim. At that time Chevrolet was dressing up their rear engined Corvair, transforming it from an economy sedan into a sporty turbocharged coupe and convertible. The Mustang commitment started as an anemic 6. A four was considered. The 289 arrived on the scene and the rest is history.

Classically, in the Ford product line, the Thunderbird was positioned against the Corvette as an upscale personal automobile. Two distinctly different cars but they each had their own devotees.

I think the Ranchero - El Camino comparison is valid. Trivia: The El Camino served as a flower car for many upscale funeral directors in the 60s.

PJ, that's the problem with old age - I get some of the names right, some of the time! You are indeed correct - it was Lee Iacocca who pushed development of the Mustang. Launched at the 1964 World's Fair in New York, the Mustang immediately became known as Ford's new "pony car". Here's an informative link:

While you are right that "the Thunderbird was positioned against the Corvette", the T-Bird was only considered to be a sports car in its

John De Lorean was of course most well known for developing the Pontiac GTO option in the redesigned Tempest for 1964. Some would argue that the GTO was the first factory muscle car.

On 21 Dec 2005 18:23:24 -0800, "Cool Jet" puked:

Thanks for calling me young, because my odometer's about to roll over another digit in a couple of weeks. Those vehicles may be before my time, but I AM aware of the design influences. My comment was based on the retro incarnation of them. I doubt GM would have came up with theirs had the PT not been wildly successful.

My wife bought one and we took a bath with it. They don't hold their value. Oh well, live and learn...

-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:06:05 -0800, PJ puked:

I didn't realize that. For all the bluster about bringing back the Chevy F body, I'm surprised that the public is so tacit in requesting a new Elky. They seem like the perfect vehicle to reintroduce.

Of course I may be biased since I have a '66...

-- lab~rat >:-) Do you want polite or do you want sincere?

My odometer just rolled over again last week!

I'm happy to say that they were before my time too, but I remember seeing one or two hotrodded. We used to call them "Bun Wagons" because of their popularity with local grocers.

came up >with theirs had the PT not been wildly successful.

I can't disagree with you there lab~rat. Chrysler took an old GM design as the pattern for their retro vehicle and probably sold more PT Cruisers than GM sold the original Sedan Delivery. Now that the PT Cruiser has dominated this market segment, the light belatedly came on at GM. Sad really.

CONVERTIBLE!

1. They already make a convertible. and
2. Alum> >