GregJ

I attended the annual Petersen Museum gala last night and this year it honored Corvette Racing. On the dias for speaking was Doug Fehan of GM Corvette Racing fame. He announced that Tom Wallace will retire effective Nov. 1, 2008. This is very hard news to take. First of all Tom is a car guy, races his own wheels and "gets" the car culture, especially Corvettes. When I have talked to him about his future at GM and especially Corvette he has always said he is there until the Corvette C7 had completed design and was born. This is a huge change and I hope the "bean counters" do not get a chance to replace Tom. I can only speculate that the 1) the early retirement package offered GM executives in this economic climate was a major incentive, 2) his marriage to his sweetheart this weekend, and 3) GM's putting the C7 on indifinete hold made the decision for him. It is really too bad, I like Tom and I liked waht his intent for Corvette was going to be, I thought he would do the Corvette world justice. Lets hope for the best now...

GregJ

ZO6 Fan

After seeing MORE bad news from wallstreet this am I'll bet it has everything to do with your first theory. Also the fact that there shelving the C7 for now. I have a friend who is a very successful Financial advisor-he told me we still haven't seen the market bottom out yet

BuckyThreadkiller

Apparently Wagoner put out an email "suggesting" this was as good a time as there is likely to be for the foreseeable future for anyone contemplating retirement from GM.
If nothing else, TW can take a hint.

j3studio

Talk about a short tenure! A pity - he seemed like a competent guy...

stinger396

It's truly unbelievable that the Biggest Auto Maker in the world has come to this. The American public dosen't see what we've done to ourselves. We wanted the big gas guzzlers when gas was cheap, now as the price of fuel goes up they don't stand behind the American Car Manufactures that helped to build this country. With all the Big Three did for America in the past it seem that most American have forgotten. They continue to purchase cars built by foreign concerns that profit the foreign countries and goverments.Let's hope and pray that it's not too late for the Big Three and GM will continue to thrive and we will see a C7 in the near future.

GregJ

I suspect that GM corporate understands the value of a Corvette in the line-up and the need for a C7. However, for all of the reasons previously stated, it will be a Corvette of different character. In order to meet the fleet fuel economy mandates the car will be lighter (smaller??) and powered by a high reving smaller engine (V6??). I am afraid that we have seen the end of the big engine, big horsepower days. The Corvette may have the same performance envelop as now but they will get there in different ways. One of the things that concerns me about Tom's departure is he was in the job to do the best job for "car guys" who love performance that he could. I fear that the GM corporate $$ and the fuel economy issues may mean that he anticapated a Corvette he could not in good conscience follow through with. Just sepculation, but I am sure it is in the mix somewhere there.

GregJ

KRAYZ308

Not surprised. Don't like it, but not surprised.

Big_George_S

For all of you young'ings don't despair. I was just getting serious wheels in 1970, a Nova 350/350 LT1. In the next few years I saw gas lines at the pump and HP plummet on cars. The addition of horsepower robbing air pumps and low compression, it was the dark ages. Somehow Chevy and Detroit in general figure out that there were people out there that still wanted to be planted in the back of the seat when they stepped on the peddle on the right. We now have more durable and reliable muscle cars. Look at what is available out of a 4 cylinders and some of the new stuff that is happening with turbochargers and other innovations. I’ll be burning gas until the good Lord calls me to the last run, and I’ll bet that we will have a lot of fun until then.

Oh yea the other car in my family is a 1969 Chevy Kingswood Estate wagon with a SB 400 that puts out 485hp on pump gas. We got it to 97 mph and 14.2 in a quarter and still haven’t had a run with the nitros working on it which will give it another 150 hp. By the way that is my son’s car that he drove to High School because I could not afford a BMW for him. The Wagon has been in the family since new when my mom and dad bought it.

christopher04z06

Did John Heinricy just leave too? I heard that but not sure.

If so, another driver/engineer responsible for great handling development would be very sad for GM. This guys got his hands all over Corvette, CTS, Cobalt-SS, and more.

jak112460

Remember the mid to late seveties and eighties with low powered cars coming on the heels of high performance cars? We are just seeing history repeat itself.