Kens Weekly News-Sept 25, 2004-Part 2B

[Ken Fichtner]

PART 2B:

Index of topics:

Weekly Newsletter – Contents

PART 1:

1) 2004 C5 Intereresting Facts
2) 2005 Corvette Pricing, Color Combinations Available, Color Change
3) 2005 Corvette Color Change

PART 2A:

4) 2005 Production Dates – UPDATED
5) The latest C6 News, Talking With Tadge Juechter, Corvette Assistant Chief Designer

PART 2B:

5) The latest C6 News – Continued from PART 2A

PART 3A:

6) 2005 Corvette Accessories - New
7) 2005 Corvette Pre-Delivery Process - New

PART 3B:

8) 2004 Corvette Recall

PART 4A:

9) 2005 SSR
10) Parts Department Offerings

PART 4B:

11) GM Rebates/Special Finance Rates - UPDATED

PART 5:

12) GMPP Details, MajorGuard – UPDATED
13) GM Employee and Supplier Eligibility - UPDATED
14) Weekly Constraint/Production News – NEW

Talking With Tadge Juechter, Assistant Chief Engineer – Continued from 2A

CL: Can you please explain performance algorithm shifting (PAS)?

TJ: Many manufacturers are applying technologies to their automatic transmissions that make them more fun to drive. One of the things we wanted to do was have the vehicle sense when the driver was driving in a sporty way and then have the transmission adjust its shift schedules to match that. The 2005 Corvette will sense if you’re on a racetrack or if you’re driving in an aggressive manor on the street. It does that by looking at steering inputs, hard braking, high cornering loads and rate of throttle application. What the transmission does then is stay in lower gears so that as you exit a corner you’re already in the low gear and you can step on it and get a nice smooth ramp-up. With regular shift patterns, as you go through a corner at less than full throttle, the car will upshift. Then when you want to go wide open as you exit a corner, it’ll have to down shift. That will put a shock into the chassis and may upset the car just as you’re exiting a corner wanting to go into a straightaway.

CL: How does the 2005 Corvette benefit from the shorter exterior dimensions?

TJ: The fifth-generation Corvette is perhaps the largest sports car in the class. Overall length it certainly is and it's nearly the widest as well. We felt that to make the car more accessible to most customers -- ease of parking, ease of placing the car in your lane, even when driving aggressively -- we had to try to compact the overall dimensions of the outside of the car while keeping everything good about the size of the inside of the car. So, the overall length was reduced by five inches in spite of the wheelbase increasing an inch and a quarter. We kept our class-leading occupant space -- we recognize that Americans like their room -- we didn’t want to sacrifice one millimeter of that.

The fifth generation also had class-leading luggage room. In fact, it's better than most midsized sedans, and our customers got used to that. A lot of Corvette buyers like to take the cars on long cross-country trips and take all their luggage with them. We kind of spoiled them by having by far the most luggage room in the class. We knew we wanted to keep that. So, we really spent a lot of time very early on optimizing the structure. For example, taking the hydro-formed rails and instead of attaching them to the back side of the front bumper beam, we actually extend them through the bumper beam to the front face, which effectively increases the crush length and also brings the bumper beam rearward relative to the driver. That’s one enabler that shortened the front overhang of the car. It’s also designed to make the car more international. We really want to be a global player.

One thing making the car shorter does not do is enable the aerodynamic performance. What that meant was we had to try harder in other areas to take the drag away from the car.

CL: What's new with the targa top this year?

TJ: One of the other attributes we really wanted to make better on the car was the open air experience with the targa top and removable roof coupe. We did that by taking the roof bow -- the pillar behind the driver's head -- and leaning that back. That made the roof opening three inches bigger. We also knew we didn’t want to make the roof itself any harder to handle. So, we concentrated really hard with our suppliers to optimize the magnesium frame that supports that roof to try to take weight out of it. As a result, even though the roof is three inches longer, it’s actually lighter than the roof it replaces. Storing the roof was also something we wanted to improve. In the fifth-generation Corvette, the roof stores down on the floor between the rear wheel wells. We wanted to store it up high and horizontal in the rear compartment, enabling all the luggage room below. We mounted the attachment provisions for the top up on top of the wheel wells and then enabled it to store horizontally underneath the hatch. This means when you’re on vacation with all that luggage you can now take the roof off, lay it on top of the luggage and have it securely stowed and safely drive the car.