Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobrabill
You mean that the customers asked them to build a Vette slower than a Dodge Pick-up?(1978-Little Red Express Wagon).It took Chevy around 50 years to come up with a car that wasn't laughed at abroad.Not to mention,the "protectionary"policies of the 14th floor.Everytime another division would come up with a car with potential to out shine the 'Vette,that car was cancelled.
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Oh goodie! Corvette history! One of my favourite topics!
Corvettes have not been laughed at for a long time - roughly 1960 when privateers Cunningham and Casner entered 4 Vettes at Lemans and one of them placed 8th. The Vettes were faster down the Mulsanne than just about everything else that often cost 2-3 times the price of the Vettes . They also scored a bunch of race/class wins against Ferraris and Astons at places like Sebring, Daytona, Marlboro, and mostly without real factory support. Cobras were able to beat them regularly, but they only did so for a few years. An L88 Vette blew its engine (a $.50 part that the race team wanted to replace, but were not allowed to by GM) while leading its class at the '67 LM race.
Pretty much any Vette from about '66 to 71 would beat that Express Truck in just about every category except maybe cargo capacity. The '79 Vette had to adhere to a different set of regs than the Express Truck - apples and oranges.
Corvettes sucked for a lot of years during the mid '70s to the late 80s. And yes, they squashed things like the Fiero (not a good idea IMHO considering the performance the Fiero was starting to produce).
These days Corvettes have regularly won at ALMS and LeMans against Ferraris, Vipers, Astons, Porsches, and so on. Go to Corvettes at Carlisle, or a number of other events and you will find reps (sales, engineering, design, and so on) there as well. There has been a lot of feedback in both directions about current Corvette development, and it has resulted in improvements to the cars. The new group is much more welcoming of competition and honest feedback.
The Vipers V10 will not be compliant with new regs in 2010, and rumours indicate that no development has been done for a replacement. I had hoped for some factory race competition between the Viper and the new Vette ZR1 (and the Astons).
Steve
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