| Re: What do you think about this................ |
Subject: Re: What do you think about this................ by bogus on 2012/4/17 4:51:09 I know there has been discussion about RHD for each new Vette since the 80s... And with the car being so popular in Oz, Japan and GB, and with India becoming a potential market place, I see RHD C7's as being very plausible. Before the crash/bankruptcy/resurrection, there was talk about creating a Corvette division with multiple cars carrying the Corvette nameplate. One being a traditional front engine/rear drive, the other being a mid-engine car. That concept also opens up for a luxury sport sedan and any number of other vehicles. Think about it for a moment, the C5 on, all use this transaxle. It won't take much to make that mid-engine - please refer to Mosler Engineering and the MT900. With proper engineering, the driveline is now set. There are many parts they could share, too... doors, seats, dashboards, steering wheels, suspension components, most electronics. The difference would be in proportions/appearance and lack of storage space. Don't forget, the Bowling Green plant has capacity since the Caddy XLR stopped production. Figure that the plant could build another 30k cars a year, if needed. So if you have one line of C7s going, and a good economy, and global sales, figure, say, 40k sales, plus a mid-engine car, limited production, say 5k sales, and the same thing with a sedan, 5k sales, and your still under capacity. With proper parts reuse, it becomes affordable. Think of it this way: Aston Martin has several cars, the DB8, DBS, Rapide, Vantage, One-77, Virage, DB9, V12 Vantage... and they are all based on the same platform - VH. Lotus has done the same thing with their line, one platform. This one platform can be made larger, longer, wider, shorter, smaller, all depending on what they want it to be. Short of and SUV, they are ok. I can see this becoming a trend, to offer a lot of different cars, with marginally unique (corporate) looks, but on the same basic underpinnings. Ferrari does this with the front engined cars, not so much with the mid engine cars, but there are still components shared. I know it's a stretch, but I sees what I sees... and I am more then likely wrong, but if I am right, won't I look like a real genius?  |
