corvettor

From what i have heard the C7 with all the goodies which would be the 4LT WILL RUN CLOSE TO $70,000. That does not bode well for GM in my opinion. So all the rumors about an entry level $50,000 MAY BE TRUE

jschindler

All you have heard is internet rumors. People need to learn how to sort though what they have read and decipher whether there is any credibility to what they read.

On the other hand, a loaded 4LT C6 would have been "CLOSE TO $70,000" also, so I don't see how what you are saying is any different than what we have had.

BTW, before anyone brings it up, a loaded C7 with Z51 is essentially going to be what a Grand Sport is for the C6.

Iconic

I've heard the C7s will likey come with camaro style tail lights. If you can afford C6 tail lights, you can afford C7 tail lights






grin

lt4obsesses

Well, the base C6 coupe, 1LT, is listed at $49,500. I don't think the C7 is going to be cheaper. So this is probably a true statement.

corvettor

What i am trying to point out is GM must feel that the $70,000 price range will not sell as well as they may think. So if they offer a lesser priced car like we have seen in the past with the 1LT it will draw more interest thus more sales. I have plenty of friends who would love a vette but the $70,000 price tag is just not attainable for them. The $50,000 is there ball park. Don't forget when this car was conceived GM stated they wanted to attract the younger buyers. I for one do not know of any younger buyers meaning 25 to 35 year old buyers who are willing to pay $70,000 for a car of this caliber. $50,000 I would say they would be willing to spend. So that is why i was making my original statement. I hope that clears things up for YOU

punky

Corvette sticker prices are a joke and have been for many years. My '08 1LT stickered for 49K, it sold for 41K. Z06s have been discounted 15K for years. These price reductions are not gifts from GM or your retailer. They adjust the ridiculous MSRP to reality or what the market will bear. GM cannot force a price level. I walked out of a Chevy dealer recently just shaking my head after looking at the stickers on '13s. The prices are flatly laughable. $75,000 for a convertible coupe, $95,000 for a 427 convertible. Is it any wonder they can't sell these things.

Give the retailers about a year to bend over the initial wave of buyers and the same levels of discounts will be in force once again.

BRCC

So far the Sales Guide only list 1LT, 2LT and 3LT + Z51

corvettor

Davidl81

70k price will be for a fully loaded 3LT Z 51. Your 25-35 year old buddies will still be able to get a 50k LT1.

falco84

There ball park? Car of this caliper? I hope you're just trolling.

DaveFerrari458

You want laughable, go walk into a Porsche dealer.

Anyways, the deep discounts on the Corvette is part due to GM keeping the C6 around 2-3 years too long and also part due to GM not having better control over inventories. There is nothing laughable at a gorgeous convertible with 505 HP at $90K.

The difference between GM and Porsche is that Porsche makes one less car than the demand and GM makes two more cars than the demand. That is one of the reasons Porsche has a higher perceived value. GM has no clue on how to market a Corvette.

robvuk

racebum

i don't know why GM does this. here in the NW subaru is probably the most popular brand and their pricing is extremely easy to understand. they have actual prices on the website and at most one easy to understand discount on certain cars. the 08's are selling for nearly the same money as the 13 cars in base coupes

if gm would have set the price on the 1lt 2013 car at 39.9 i can't help but think it would have been a positive all around. as others have pointed out the furniture store sales tactics with inflated ask prices do little more than inflate kbb values on used cars.

with google one click away any owner with even the slightest sense can check to see what cars are selling for anywhere in the nation. les stanford typically has some of the better prices in the nation. if i was buying new i'd print out his prices, walk into my local chevy dealer and get a match. if they refuse i'd call les and pay the $500 shipping fee to my door.

Davidl81

The issues with pricing is that the consumer has been trained for many years that when you buy a GM/Ford/Dodge car that you haggle on the price and that they will give you a discount. Saturn tried the fixed pricing and went away from it due to lack of sales. I really wish that we could have fixed pricing on the GM, but the consumer will not let that happen. Look at JC Penny's since they took away sales/coupons. Sales are down 25%.

DaveFerrari458

The Corvette price is low enough as it is. GM needs to work better at marketing the car and what dealer gets the privilege of selling them and control inventory levels.

It needs to work on making sure there is not too much inventory as to create a distressed product.

michaelinmech

Respectfully, whom at GM ever said the target audience they were trying to attract is 25 to 35 year old buyers? What GM did say is they are trying to attract younger buyers - as in 'younger' than their present average age buyer.

I don't think GM or any other automotive manufacturer has a marketing program built around attracting the 25 to 35 year old car buying segment with a model starting north of $50k and climbing rapidly from there. I would suspect that Chevrolet's marketing plan by age segment for 25 to 35 years old is built around Spark, Sonic, Cruze, Malibu and Camaro. I may be wrong, have been many times, but those are my suspicions.

killain

Maybe I'm getting forgettable, But I'm pretty sure I saw GM Corvette manager Tadge Juechter said the 'target' Market was in the younger 25 to 35 market. I have to wonder if the C7 is priced at $40K, or 50K, or $70K Isn't it going to cut away sales of the Camaro? You can get a supercharged Camaro for $69K sticker price-wise. Why does GM get in this same "Eating itself through marketing" Like it did when Pontiac was still in production, only now we have the Camaro and not the Firebird ? Maybe I just don't understand the marketing thinking ?

killain

Ford makes a supercharged 662 HP Mustang that sells for less than $69K ? and that right from the factory, And you can go up through the Super-Snake or the Jack Roush supershop.

kozmic

You might have a point... what calipers come on the C7?



eta: IBTL

Guibo

There were already big discounts in '06-'07. It has only a little bit to do with the C6 being around 2-3 years too long. There is something laughable about a convertible with 505 hp at $90k, if a potential customer walks out and buys a similar car for $14k less elsewhere. That convertible is going to sit there until a customer (undiscerning enough to not shop around) comes in, or until the dealer lowers the price.
Your assertion about the GM vs Porsche business model is hardly accurate. If it were really that close, you wouldn't have seen the thousands in discounts, incentives, rebates, holdbacks, etc, that you see for GM products.
It has almost everything to do with offering a vehicle with investment in quality, at that price. Just as Bob Lutz mentions at 21:05 in this video:
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/06/20/l...oline-detroit/


This is why it could be different this time around for the C7. We are starting to see the fruits of Bob Lutz's drive to improve quality, to try to push away the archaic business model that GM was living by for decades (and under which the C6 was developed). Cadillacs are getting much closer to foreign competitors, and the interior design and materials of the C7 look like they're on a whole plane up from the C6.
And speaking of "push," the move away from push production should also help align production volume much closer to real demand, and thus improve the Corvette brand.

"February 08, 2010

No more push: How the Detroit 3 finally stopped overproducing

By Amy Wilson

Mike Jackson saw it coming, the tsunami that would wash over the Detroit 3 thanks to their push production system — a system that would spawn multibillion-dollar losses even in big sales years.

The model, he publicly lamented since 2005, was based on factory overproduction, high dealer throughput, huge incentives and soaring costs. Automakers cranked out cars to keep factories running whether or not there were buyers, forcing discounts and killing residual values.

And now, the AutoNation CEO says with pleasure, that push model finally may be dead. The proof: the dwindling number of cars and trucks on AutoNation lots.

Outsider CEOs Alan Mulally at Ford Motor Co. and Sergio Marchionne at Chrysler Group are imposing discipline that traditional Detroit CEOs lacked. Even General Motors, under new leadership, appears to be pulling away from push.

"It's the most exciting thing we've ever seen," Jackson told Automotive News in January. "I've lived for this day to come. The inventories for the industry are the cleanest and in the best shape ever — ever."

When automakers push vehicles to keep factories running, the unneeded or incorrectly configured vehicles don't match "real" demand. That leads to discounting by retailers, incentives by manufacturers, and brand image erosion. Manufacturers' payments actually reward retailers who ordered or accepted the wrong vehicles, further eroding the brand and reinforcing the "push" behavior.

The Detroit 3 entered 2010 with the lowest Jan. 1 days supply and fewest vehicles in stock since Automotive News began recording complete inventory data in 1992. GM, for instance, started the year with a 52-day supply, comfortably below the traditional goal of 60 days.

It's a far cry from the heyday of push. From 2004 through 2007, GM and Ford collectively lost $59 billion — even as the U.S. market boomed with more than 16 million annual vehicle sales. For much of that period, GM, Ford and Chrysler tried frantically to keep factories running at a level far beyond demand.

A new era?

But the push model now may be relegated to history's dustbin as a new group of Detroit 3 leaders vow to build only as many vehicles as consumers want. It's far too early to declare success. But so far, they're doing it.

Supplies for the entire industry — the Detroit 3 as well as the import brands — have been at 63 days or below for six straight months, helped in part by last summer's cash-for-clunkers program. As of Jan. 1, industry supply stood at an impressively slim 53 days. In the prior five years, the Jan. 1 figure for the industry ranged from 61 to 94 days.

The stakes are high to get this right. The profit potential for manufacturers is huge if they can stabilize production and reduce incentives. GM says its December incentives dropped $2,500 per vehicle compared with December 2008, to $3,900.

Leaders at GM, Ford and Chrysler say their bad habits are over. Last summer, both Chrysler and GM intentionally underproduced. Ford already had checked its overbuilding.

'Stop whining'

GM lost the most money — a cumulative $48 billion from 2004 to 2007 — and fell perhaps the furthest by clinging to the push model.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the company's heavy discounting and continued production were credited with helping to revive the shell-shocked U.S. economy. Former CEO Rick Wagoner famously told his competitors to "stop whining" about GM's incentives.

Fast forward to 2010: Post-bankruptcy and under the dictates of new leadership, executives at the world's once-largest automaker now say they will produce strictly to match consumer demand.

"No more pushing inventory into rental sales, overproducing and turning to huge incentives, losing money on leasing," Mike DiGiovanni, GM's head of sales analysis, said recently. "We're a company that's now more focused on profitability."

Along with Chrysler, GM has shown the biggest change in the last year, slashing inventories by 56 percent."

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...-overproducing