A Four-Door Corvette? What???
by K. Scott Teeters
Holden’s new Commodore HSV W427? – Bing! Zoom! To the MOON! Get it Outta Here!
Talk about an act of desperation!
GM’s tired old car guy, Bob Lutz has spoken! But I can’t believe what I’m reading. Lutz says that a Holden-based four-door Corvette is a possibility. They’re getting all warm over the Corvette-powered Holden Commodore HSV W427. Obviously, with a Z06’s 427 LS7 engine the car will be bloody fast.
Here’s the full story from MotorAuthority.com…
http://www.motorauthority.com/blog/1041617_lutz-commodore-based-four-door-corvette-possible
As far as the styling is concerned, it could be a Nissan, a Toyota, a BMW, a Subaru, or any of about 10 other cars on the market. The HSV W427 is just another “me too” car. Let me quote GM styling genius Bill Mitchell from the seventies commenting on the Mercedes, “I know they have a styling department, but I honestly don’t know what they’re doing all day.” While Mitchell may have borrowed design elements, his cars never looked like anything else. Mitchell’s cars never followed, they lead.
Clearly, there’s a brain-drain of creativity inside GM.
From the beginning there have always been those inside GM that just don’t get what the Corvette is all about. They’ve been trying to make the car into something else or outright kill it for decades. There was the infamous 4-seater ‘63 Sting Ray that supposedly was axed because some GM executive couldn’t get his butt out of the back seat. John Delorean wanted to make the Corvette on a Camaro chassis back in ‘67. GM’s Holden cars are pretty good, although the GTO didn’t help Pontiac. However, the GTO did get rave reviews from magazines and owners. Too bad it didn’t look like a GTO.
Let’s face it gang, Corvette sales were WAY down last year and probably won’t do much better this year. Each model HAS to pull its own in any car company. If ‘10 is as bad as ‘09, our beloved Corvette could end up in the automotive history waste bin, next to the great GTO, Trans-Am Firebird and the Olds 442 performance cars.
The Corvette team should keep their heads down and keep making the car a little better every year. And PLEASE guys, if you are reading this, make a dedicated steering wheel for the Vette so that the magazine testers will stop ragging on about the Vette’s “Malibu” steering wheel. PLEASE!
Given the terrible position GM is currently in, there’s no way the bean counters will let there be a C7 Corvette any time soon. And a Holden-based, four-door Corvette is just plain stupid. And that four-door Porsche Panamera is stupid too.The car looks like a big whale.
GM, DON’T follow Porsche!
GM, DON’T follow, LEAD!
Ed Whitacre’s Got the Job
I guess you saw that Ed Whitacre is no longer the “temporary” CEO, he’s got the job. They searched and searched and NO ONE wanted the job! Ed, you got it! You’da Man! A few months ago he confessed that he really didn’t know much about cars, but he’s going to learn. Well, that’s a good thing there, Ed.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could all get high-paying executive jobs running a company that makes products that we know nothing about? Whitacre is obviously no dummy, but GM is in the position they’re in because the company has been run into the ground by financier types that think that background understanding of what they make isn’t necessary. This isn’t a uniquely GM problem, it’s become the new standard in corporate America.
God help GM.
But a four-door Corvette? Say it ain’t so! – K. Scott Teeters
Questions:
True-blue, died in wool, racer man Corvette fans… Really – Would you drive a four door Corvette? Would you want to be seen in one?
Is this a desperate marketing gimmick or something Corvette fans have been “yearning” for?
Don’t be shy – add your two cents!
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Save the Wave,
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K. Scott Teeters is the author and illustrator for The Illustrated Corvette Series as seen in Vette magazine since 1997. You can enjoy Scott’s Corvette artwork for every production Corvette from 1953 to the 2010 Grand Sport, plus every important Corvette show car, prototype, experimental, engineering study, and many racing Corvettes at his website www.IllustratedCorvetteSeries.com. The book , The illustrated Corvette Series as published by CarTech should be out mid to late 2010.
I have owned several Corvettes and cherish my 78 Silver Anniversary, however my everyday car is a BMW545i. I bought it because I love that it feels like a late model Vette and I use with clients.
I would purchase the four door if it handled like the two door. Best of both worlds and it’s a Vette! If you go four door it should be a true Vette and compete with the 545i otherwise just commercialized and may cheapen the brand. Just a thought!
Thanks for listening.
Jim Caporuscio – Ohio
PS: If you go four door make it an X drive Vette. I want performance all year, no trailer queen or winterizing for this vette driver.
Hi Jim,
I’ve seen stretched Corvettes and they always look goofy. If Chevrolet wants a sports sedan then I’d rather see them do something with the Malibu, but even that’s a stretch.
Not that Chevrolet listens or cares about what we have to say, but I have wondered where they might take the ZR1. An AWD version would sure be neat, but in today’s market, we’ll be lucky if the Corvette survives, let alone gets AWD or a 4-door configuration.
The ’09 sales were off 48% – WOW! Not good! And with the SS Camaro bleeding off some of the Corvette’s sales, I think we’re likely to see even lower sales for our favorite Chevy. Especially in a workforce with true unemployment in the low 20-percent range. People that are unemployed or are in fear of losing their job usually aren’t looking for an expensive car to buy.
Then I read that Ed Whitacre was made the official CEO because GM couldn’t find anyone that wanted the job. Could Ed be GM’s last CEO? If they can’t get in the black, that could happen. As of 2-12-10 their stock was .5969 – that’s 59 cents! Mattel Toys (my former employer) closed at $20.99 – almost 40-times the value of GM. When a company’s stock is that low, they have little capital to work with.
Another thing about GM is that Ed went on a hunt to get rid of as much of the “old GM” people, so who knows who’s running what. It all reads like rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. They can reorg and rearrange all they want, but at the end of the day, they still have the same problem – not enough customers. I live in New Jersey, so we get a lot of Donald Trump news and even the Donald filed for bankruptcy last year. Why? Same as GM – not enough customers.
I guess I’m just a purist and don’t want to see the Corvette become a bloated 4-door Thunderbird. What IS interesting are the performance figures of the latest sport sedans. Some of those cars run 0-60 in the 4-second range and the 1/4-mile in the low 13s to high 12s! VERY impressive.
But back to the current Corvette, an AWD system for the ZR1 and the Z06 would be sweet! Thanks for your comments Jim. Stop back often. – Scott