A 2006 C4S started at $87K or so in 2006, add about $20K for the Vert and Options, the C4S ,especially back then, already came well equiped. That makes it $107K, it is just about 8 years old so I think if it went for $45K that is pretty good resale, over 40%. With that said it is well known with a 911 you lose the premium you pay for a Cabrio or a 4S in resale, a used C2S in similar condition/options is almost always the same price as a C4S and the Cabrio is almost always the same as the Coupe. My point is this car had both so this would be Worst Case Scenario for a 911. A C2S would be over 50% or close to it.

However I do agree a Vette from the same year has better resale value than a C4S Cabrio for sure.

Most Cayman S tests I have seen have placed it into the 107-109 mph trap speed range. The limited number of C7 tests have so far have shown an approximate trap speed range of 114-116 mph. About 7mph difference on average. I'm using the average since the Edmunds test was unusually slow, and it may be an outlyer. These two prizefighters are not even in the same weight class acceleration-wise, given these trap speeds.

My 1996 LT4 Vette trapped 109-ish mph, while my C5Z trapped 113-114. Small difference? Absolutely not, and it's very noticeable while driving. There is no need to do a full 1/4 mile run to notice this. You can feel it every time you hit the gas. Similar to comparing a C6 LS3 to the C6Z. Some non-performance enthusiasts would say these differences are minor, while others would say they are worlds apart. There is no need to do a standang start 1/4 mile run to notice this. Ride in two cars with this difference in trap speeds, and you can immediately feel it, every time you drive.

On a road course, a few seconds per lap may seem minor, but over the course of a 20 or 30 minute session, the C7 could pull a 1/4 mile gap on a Cayman at several tracks in this country. That's huge! Even though most folks will not actually do this, I'm bringing it up to illustrate that the cars themselves are not, in fact, close, when viewed though the eyes of an enthusiast, and a Corvette enthusiast will appreciate some of these differences every time he drives, and not just on the track. Engine torque and acceleration are obvious examples of this noticeability, but there are others.

A Porsche enthusiast will similarly appreciate the feedback of the Cayman, the fit & finish (although I did sit in a C7 today, and to me it seems as good as the P-car), the feel of the driving dynamics, and the performance of Porsche's absolutely fantastic PDK tranny.

The Porsche and Vette do not need to be in the same performance category to be appreciated by their owners.

The Kia is light-years apart, lol. You're exactly right, you will feel the difference between these two cars. You'll feel the road through the tires and brakes in the Cayman, and I'm betting you'll feel similar feedback in the C7. You'll feel the torque and acceleration of the C7, as I mentioned above. On the track, the C7 outshines the Cayman by a fairly wide margin, and you'll be able to feel these advantages in everyday driving if you look for it. Similarly, you'll be able to feel the advantages of the Cayman, if you look for them.

Now, put my wife in either car, and she'll probably tell you they all feel the same. :)

Agreed.




.

It's not representative of what a car in that condition is truly worth. I'm sure a person could find a Corvette that have sold for well below what sites like KBB or NADA suggest are appropriate for their condition, but they are not typical. You also used a very expensive Porsche and naturally very expensive cars (outside of limited-edition exotics) depreciate more. Find a ZR1 with similar miles and age and it too might not have "good resale value."

Chill out. There's no reason for that level of anger. Whether you THINK a Boxster/Cayman is great is not even relevant to this discussion. All I have been talking about is that subjectivity matters. You haven't brought anything to contradict that. If outright objective differences mattered so much, surely you can find at least one engineer or journalist who puts that above all else (or even all else combined), yet you haven't produced even one. Convenient that you'd put me on ignore, when the challenge to play your own Top Trumps game is thrown down to you.

Guibo is like the Energizer Bunny - he just keeps going and going and going, beating that same drum over and over................. :D

The edmunds test between the cars took place on the same day, at the same track, same elevation, same 91-octane fuel, and similar conditions. Thus they are more directly comparable. If the C7 fell off the pace while the Porsche was more consistent, then that is something to consider.

It's very noticeable to you, while to someone else the differences are not so significant. And the type of car could matter too. Some journalists who have driven the top of the line Ariel Atom think that that car feels faster than a Bugatti Veyron to 100 mph, when in reality the Veyron is faster. The difference is that where the Veyron insulates the driver from the sensation of speed, the Atom leaves him out in the elements, so visually and audibly it feels faster. We see this sometimes in track tests with Pobst or Justin Bell, where they voice surprise that they are objectively slower in a car that feels faster. As I said, it can often be more exciting to be able to extract 99% out of a car (and that goes to throttle usage too), rather than going marginally faster but being able to use much less of another car's capability.

These tests only tell the fastest lap. They don't tell what happens over the long haul, or whether one car is more consistent than another. For example, a GT-R can pull off a very fast lap and it might do that for 3-4 laps. But what happens on the 7th or 8th lap? What edmunds wrote of the 911 compared to the C7:
"the 911 defined itself in this test as much by what it didn't do as by what it did. Among those feats were the ability to tolerate triple-digit heat without wavering, endure repeated launches without faltering and remain utterly composed throughout it all. The Corvette, partly because it was a preproduction car and partly because it cost half as much, simply lacked the same quiet confidence."

A Corvette enthusiast can't automatically and comfortably take his car to the limit on the road (with varying conditions and concerns about opposing traffic), the same way a journalist can attack a road course after laps of practice and absolute certainty that the conditions are dry/perfect, and that there is no surprise coming around the corner.

Bingo! Yeah!
 

I missed this! And right on no B.S. about turning off the PTM and the Vette won overall! This number was achieved on race mode therefore:

7:19.63/1:21.9 = <7:34.123/1:24.6

I want one so I can put together my Z52 with <7:24 speed!:thumbs:

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!:rofl:

After a full day of lapping the 1.6-mile Streets of Willow racetrack, our test driver warned, "Though PTM will make you lazy as a driver, it hardly diminishes the reward of driving hard." And reward it does. With PTM set to Race, our man clicked off a 1:24.6-second lap with a peak speed of 112.5 mph: almost 2 mph faster than the GT-R.

But the same PTM that makes us lazy on a racetrack makes us bold in the canyons.

http://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/cor...son-test1.html

:rock:

I didn't say anything specifically about the test. I said, in their "sport package trims" if you will, those are the prices, straight from the source. There is still a disparity in pricing among the tested cars. Pennies to some, make or brake the deal to others. Wanna buy the fast Porsche VS the fast Chevy with sport seats? There are your prices.

Ironically, Kia has been praised for their better-then-the-price-dictates quality in recent years.

All that aside, that's a neat picture. However, you are comparing the $3200 optional seat it would appear(maybe more, as I cant find any pictures with that seat pattern, so maybe its another option) vs the corvette base seat.

Base, no cost seat to base, no cost seat would appear to be:
http://files1.porsche.com/filestore....d-86482f2bef17
(one on the left)

to:
http://www.kerbeck1.com/2014_Corvett..._Jet_Black.jpg

From these pictures, quality is obviously hard to judge, but it seems to me, that the Cayman doesn't even have power seats standard. That's not very upscale to me. Also, this "fit and finish built in" is completely subjective as well. Materials you don't like, I may. I hate carbon fiber bare pieces, it looks tacky to me. I don't like wood either, looks like it is a left over from the 60's. As far as seat material, while your buttery smooth leather may look nice, I actually preferred textured leather seats. Not only that, but as evidenced back in 2004 on the GTO, those rough looking seats, don't change much with time. Come back to me and compare those seats at 100,000 miles to see which one is really "quality."

I'd also like to point out, that's the only picture of base cayman seats I can find. So unless you order one, expect to automatically add that to the price, as I myself couldn't find any pictures of cars with them.

The Vette Already Won, and Right On Edmunds!
 

Performance Traction Management is deadly effective in making the laps both fast and easy. Turning it off, though it will more deeply engage the 'Vette's driver, ups stress without a proportional increase in driving reward.

If you want to hoon the 'Vette then, by all means, turn it off, but if you want to go quickly set it to Race Mode, warm the tires and stand on it. So potent are the Stingray's technologies here that they embarrass the Porsche in identical proportion to what happened at the drag strip. Think about the irony in that.

http://www.edmunds.com/porsche/911/2...ison-test.html

7:37.90/1:25.6 = >7:32.55/1:24.6

:rock:

The majority on here are claiming this is an outcome is a huge slight against both the C7, and reality itself, both in real world terms, and that it's a sports car comparison.

You stand steadfast in saying the tester's suajective opinion is important, and should outweigh the objective test results even. Myself, as well as many others, quite frankly call shenannigans on that for a few reasons, that all have been made quite clear by now(if I may speak for others without coming under your scrutiny).

The most obvious you don't seem to understand it seems, is that if I drive the car, and don't feel the same way that the tester did about it, then all the extra "bonus points" subjective feel is suddenly worth 0(or a fraction of). Conversely, a 12.5 will never be considered slower then a 13.5 by anyone, of any gender, any race, or any predisposition to anything. Starting off with "forget the numbers" only drives this, frankly, distorted reality home. A reality of which, in your defense of it, you clearly support. You may think so many are narrow minded as to judge first and formost numeric results, but I consider you narrow minded for judging 1, or even 1,000 men's opinion as something more detrimental then 1, or 1,000 other's opinion that differ from it. There is a saying in weight lifting. "The iron is my one, true friend, it is always there for me. Other friends may praise you, or bad mouth you... but at the end of the day, 200lbs is always 200lbs." My 12.5 is faster then your 13.5, everyday. Our feelings about the car may change so much in a year, that we agree on an even trade. But after that, the 12.5 car, now yours, is faster then the 13.5 car, now mine. You defending their subjective opinion being more important, and this tiresome "75% of owners only use 75% of the car" sure seem to imply the C7 is borderline wasteful, not even worth considering, and is best left in the shadow of the Cayman because Tim or John says so. Of course, some of us don't have an extra $20k to throw around in the real world...

Which comes to my very simple second point. Points awarded for number of seats, back massagers, or "which has HID's" should be negated in a sports car test. Stated in the write up, but negated. These are not(usually) Kia econo boxes, bought out of necessity, but irrational choices bought out of emotion or hobby. I assure you, number of thigh air bags, nor the lack of HID or LED lights will ever sway my decision, let alone for a performance car.

An example of me personally. I have a 3 1/2 year old, and after selling my vette will not be religated to something boring for much longer. To find a fun, 4 seat car, my requirmements went
1) 4 seats
2) Price
3) My acceptable level of performance
4) Looks
5) Aftermarket support
6) Other stuff

I've come down to a GTO or Mach 1/2001 Cobra. Two very different cars, however, they among others, fit requirement 1, 2, and 3. If a car wasn't X amount fast, I didn't consider it. The mustangs and GTO have different pros and cons for 4, 5, or 6, but they meet the first three, which is what counted.

Which in turn addresses your points.

Style- Should one car win a comparison because it looks better to the editor? The cars I picked don't look much alike...

Sound- Should one car win a comparison because it sounds better to the editor? The 4.6 sounds different then the 6.0(and different then the 3.2 M3 that I love, but ruled out). For that matter, there are tons of 94-98 mustang GT's that sound like they want to eat small children, but couldn't hold a candle to my vette's speed.

Feel of a big, V8 torque- Contrary to what you say, this is objectifiable. Run a C5 to 3,500 rpms and an E46 M3 to 3,500 rpm's and see which is faster. That is torque, a force, acting on the car(and thus you). Do you think the tester's opinion on this objective factor should determine the winner of the comparison?

Country of origin- Should MURICA! cars win by default or should foriegn cars win a comparison test here in America? But what if it's... VETTE VS VIPER?!?

Do you really feel the country of origin(let's not even start with the twisted "who built it" scenario of the Z3, Tundra, or camro/firebird) should have an impact on the results of a comparison test? If yes, well, there's nothing left to say. If no, then that subjective opinion should get thrown off the scoreboard, as well as ANY other.

C7 Z52 (on my license plate!)
 

.High flow exhaust
.Cold air intake
.Track rear wing
.Track front splitter
.Side rails
.Extra wheels and track tires
(with complete factory warranty!)

AN ECONOMY PORSCHE TRACK BEATER!:willy:

:rock:

You haven't provided a single shred of proof that objective results should outweight subjective ones. You haven't even disproved the claim that subjectivity matters. (I notice you keep evading the comparison for those two hypothetical cars.)

Who here is saying 12.5 is slower than 13.5?

I have implied nothing of the sort. I've been saying that a car that can more often be safely and repeatably exploited to 99% of its capability can be more fun.

None of those things were mentioned in this sports car test. All of those things, however, can be considered for which is the better overall car. People make such considerations when buying. If they didn't, the manufacturer would never offer them.

That's fine. I never said that your personal opinion about a car needs changing. The question was raised: What makes the opinions of these journalists any more valuable than any one else's? I've already provided that answer, but your answer to the question is still missing: Have you ever personally been invited (or hired) to critique a manufacturer's car?

Amazing. Your lack of reading comprehension has forced you to introduce yet four more straw men into this discussion. I never said these are factors that should determine the outcome of a magazine test. You brought up the original straw man, claiming I think it's ludicrous for anyone (to include those outside of magazine tests) to choose the Corvette. That is patently false, and I've never implied it. Nor have I said those are necessarily considerations for which car should win a magazine comparison. Those are two different things.
Secondly, I never said each of those things alone is enough to win a comparison. However, if all else is pretty much the same, it wouldn't be ridiculous for the editors to choose the car that is clearly ahead in one particular area (eg, if they were equal on balance on everything, but one car looked like the C7 while the other looked like a 1980's Yugo; sure, the C7 should get the nod for a much more exciting and drool-worthy design; why not??).
Now try that same test to 8000 rpm. How fast would the C5 be when revving out to 8000? ;) If you don't think revs are important, ask yourself why the LS7 revs much higher than an LS3. GT2 RS and Turbo will out-torque a GT3 RS, but only one of these cars has an engine with a race car feel. A GT2 RS could be faster on a track than a GT3 RS, but it's not a better track car, nor necessarily more exciting.
As I said, that question is irrelevant to what I've been saying; nowhere did I say that country of origin should be emphasized in magazine tests (though it's interesting to note that Corvettes tend to do much better in American mag tests, Porsches do much better in German mag tests, and on neutral ground the UK journalists have preferred Porsches by an overwhelming majority). What I'm saying is that there are good reasons why someone might pick the Corvette (it's not the stupid reason you claimed I said it was), and being made in America is a deeply subjective factor.
But let's see your answer on this Viper vs Vette: Do you agree with R&T's assessment that the C5 convertible was the better sports car, even though the Viper clobbered it in just about every single objective measure?

No, I do not. But then I never claimed that it should be a factor in comparison tests. I said it could be a factor in someone's personal purchasing decision. If you can't understand that distinction, then there's nothing left to say.

And there is still a disparity in comfort and safety equipment among the tested cars. I'm talking specifically about the test because the car sent by Porsche was clearly overspecified for the comparison at hand, and the price is reflected.

Of course it would be hard to judge quality on your pictures. You purposefully chose small pictures to mask the obvious quality differences. My pictures clearly show that the Porsche's leather fits tighter (check the farside bolster), that the seat base and leather fit flush on a single plane, and there's no sagging of the leather near the base. The C7 looks much fatter, more bloated on the bottom, whereas the Porsche seat bottom near the front is more trim.
The switchgear of the seats themselves is much more modern on the Porsche too. Your purposefully chosen small seat pics don't reveal the obvious differences in attention to detail here:
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/7843/g22j.jpg

You prefer textured leather seats...yet neither the Corvette nor Porsche offer that. The C6 originally had a "cast skin" faux leather dash covering with heavy leather-look graining, but for the C7, they've gone to smooth leather (as they did for the more upscale C6 interiors). That should tell you what most people in this segment prefer.
100,000 miles? The C7's seat leather was already peeling away while the 911, which had even more miles, was not.

Corvette @ 1,621 miles:
http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/ch...03132_1600.jpg

911 @ 7,926 milies:
http://media.ed.edmunds-media.com/po...03131_1600.jpg

McGirk, here's the genesis of your confusion:
As I said, I never said nor implied that buying the Corvette is a stupid choice. I've said that there are perfectly reasonable subjective factors in choosing the Corvette. It doesn't have to be only about objective track performance. If outright track times are so important, then why are so many Corvettes bought with automatics and convertible tops?
Secondly, you brought up a false choice: jawnathin didn't choose between a rough and tumble, high hp car over a crisp precision focused, low hp car. He bought both (the BRZ and the Z06).

Regarding seat time, it's nice that you can find 6 years to finally master your car's handling and power. Not everyone has that luxury. You still have not addressed why GM (Cadillac and Corvette engineers), Viper, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar, Lexus/Toyota, Lotus, etc, all strive to make their cars easier and safer to handle. Not harder and less safe.

As I stated in my original post speaking of my neighbor's car, it stickered a little over $119,000 when new.

Jimmy

Glad to Say!
 

My so called stupid posts, unlike some others, at least now have a more suitable home in Tech/Performance.:D

It is interesting, in the respect that Edmunds was able to get a trap speed for the Cayman near the top of its statistical curve, while for the C7 they were able to report a trap speed at the dead bottom of its bell curve. There are a number of explanations for this, including the explanation that you are hinting at, which is that the Cayman/driver combination was more effective at extracting the maximum performance. Maybe he tried harder being a P-car fan, or was more comfortable with the P-car, or hadn't mastered the nuances of a C7 launch/shifting.

I'll refrain from guessing any more, and this was why I prefer to use averages when trying to extract how the cars feel during acceleration - because this feeling is independent of launch and shifting, and trap speed can be noticeably dependent on launch and shifting. In the case of the C7, the feeling is justified and not perceived or imagined, as it actually is outperforming the Cayman acceleration-wise by a wide margin.

You're right, it is very noticeable to me - I tend to feel big differences between an 8.9 versus 7.4 weight/power ratio.

I've driven most every make of C5 and C6 on the track, and the only one that ever demonstrated a slight bit of inconsistency was a ZR1 that heat-soaked. I can run very repeatable "fast" laps at the beginning of a session, through to the end. I've also instructed in a number of P-cars. By far, the newer Vettes and the newer P-cars are both repeatable for the duration, at least for me, until the tires get greasy and/or the track conditions go away.

Car and Driver had a different take on the 911 vs C7. All we can do when reading these articles, is to try to pull out the signal from the noise, ie, separate the facts from the emotions when being objective, or weigh the facts with the emotions when being subjective.



.

The Common Negative Theme Thwarted!
 

Pobst and this Cayman article have discredited the Vette for not being better with TC off for them when compared to the 9114S and the little Cayman, respectively. But, Edmunds has already given the C7 great marks PTM race mode on in their GTR and 911S articles, and all but deciding against the high dollar expensive componentry 911.

Sounds like the end of the line to me!:thumbs:

:rock:

Or maybe these Porsches just performed better in these conditions. You don't know that the tester was any more of a P-car fan than he was a fan of Corvettes; not a peep about the safety and convenience items on the Porsches that you can't get at any price on the Corvette, and they absolutely looked the other way when their own photos clearly show the Corvette's leather peeling away from the seats.

C&D's take was not all that different, when it comes to fun and handling. They rated the Porsche the more fun car to drive, with an edge in handling. If they were being purely objective, should they have awarded the Corvette a 20:1 points ratio advantage for price (even though the Porsche was objectively only 2.16:1 higher in actual pricing)? Would you have done the exact same?
Unless C&D or Edmunds were specifically looking for a car with which they would use as a dedicated track racing car, then yes, the objective result matters more. But they're not. They're assessing cars that fundamentally have subjective appeal to buyers, the vast majority of whom are not racers, nor drivers who track their cars to 10/10ths in bone stock form. At the extreme end of high-end supercars, "pulling the noise" is sort of missing the entire point of why cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis are so desirable: Even though they are objectively no better than many Corvettes and Porsches, and in quite a few respects, actually worse. The noise of the car itself sometimes seals (or breaks) the deal.
We are not talking about Caterhams and Ariels here. GM clearly prides itself on the subjective appeal of the Corvette, prides itself on the fit & finish and luxury equipment, and has even explicitly cited Porsche and Audi as quality benchmarks. As such, those subjective areas are absolutely fair game in any comparison not restricted to the search of the fastest track car, IMO.

And you won't get an argument from me on any of that. My original point earlier was that the C7 destroys the Cayman objectively, and it now looks like the C7 is more than a match for the 911 objectively here as well. Subjective results certainly matter, and to each, his own. Speaking of, does the C7 actually have better steering feel than the 911? Wow. :) I'm a firm believer that one should buy what makes one happy, and you'll never overpay for something that you both want and which you can afford at the free market price.

However, this is the Corvette Forum, and it's fun to also talk a little trash about the competition, and to celebrate the victories when the "perceived" underdog manages to beat the "perceived" champions in areas they would be otherwise thought to dominate, given the weight and price of their brand.

Steering feel in C&D's comparo could encompass linearity and response, which the C7 did very well. Ferraris like the 458 and F12 get high marks for steering response (thanks in part to a very quick ratio), but aren't known for Porsche levels of feedback. One factor could be the tires; C&D rated the MPSS 50% higher in steering feel than the P Zeros using a control vehicle. Another factor is that Porsche, to the chagrin of some traditionalists, has been filtering out what some would consider "noise," but is part and parcel of what many enthusiasts actually want in communication with their cars. This could be an effort to appeal to a wider demographic or, as some cynics might suggest, a shrewd effort on Porsche's part to upsell customers into the GT3, which has those filtering mechanisms removed.
Not sure how the Corvette is the underdog in an objective performance test. It has much more displacement, two more cylinders, more power and torque. Thanks to a lightweight composite body and alloy frame, plus those pushrods, its CoG is much lower than the relatively upright steel-bodied Porsche. It has a longer wheelbase, which aids in stability, plus it lacks an engine placement that even GM couldn't make work. Control arms vs struts. Then there are the resources to consider. Porsche's employees number about 17k. There are over 48k people in GM's powetrain department alone. Generally, the fish is the underdog, not the whale.
As for pricing, that's merely a reflection of the market segment that is willing to pay for a Porsche. It's not necessarily a reflection of how much speed Porsche engineers into its cars, and as mentioned, Porsche bakes things into the price of their cars that aren't even offered on the Corvette, at any price. Some people on Corvette forum will look at something like the 918 and think what the fuss is about, where is the objective bang for buck. But to do so entirely misses the point about the car in the first place.