Riad

You didn't grow up in the New York tri-state are did you? Around here it's a stereotype because it's true.

Wellardmac

...and I know a fair number of very nice guys who also fit the stereotype.

palladio

This is not accurate.

Here are some Corvette production numbers by year:

1958 - 9,168
1959 - 9,670
1960 - 10,261
1961 - 10,939
1962 - 14,531
1963 - 21,513
1964 - 22,229
1965 - 23,562
1966 - 27,720
1967 - 22,940
1968 - 28,566
1969 - 38,462
1970 - 17,316
1971 - 21,801
1972 - 27,004
1973 - 30,464
1974 - 37,502
1975 - 38,645
1976 - 46,558
1977 - 49,213
1978 - 46,776
1979 - 53,807

As you can see, they actually sold more Corvettes than ever post 1972, with 1979 being the highest sales in the history of the marque.

In the late 50's and early 60's, they had only been selling about 10,000 cars per year. It was the explosive sales growth of the new Stingray model in 1963-1966 that brought the Vette greater attention at GM headquarters.

Plus, they put very little in the way of development funds/effort into the car after 1968. The 1979 version is essentially the same basic body design and rolling chassis a decade later. The earlier models had been completely re-designed every few years.

palladio

Actually, this stereotype was considered so prevalent by the early 1980's, that it was a topic of serious discussion at GM when the Vette got its first total redesign (C4 released in 1984) since the 1960's. I only know this because I did a Harvard Business School case study about it, in which some members of the Chevy marketing department participated. I'm fairly certain that most of the people in the room at the time had brains larger than peas.

BTW, my friend who owns the GT-2 is a long time Porsche owner, and his wife informs me that he does indeed have a small *****. Of course this is only a sample of one, so I won't extrapolate the data....

fast1

No I didn't, but I know quite a few Vette owners since I'm a former member of a local Vette club, and I can assure you that none of the guys that I knew fit that stereotype. As a matter of fact my recollection is that roughly half of the Vette owners were either past or present owners of 911s. You could have some fun conjuring up a stereotype for that group.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of Vette owners, and I can't believe that anyone would seriously believe that more than 1% of them would fit the stereotype. I live in MD and most of the Vette drivers I see are guys that are in their 50s and 60s, and not a gold chain in the crowd.

Strangely enough when I see an older guy getting out of a Vette, I feel that the guy is desperately trying to recapture his youth, but I don't have that feeling when I see older guys driving Porsches. I'm not certain why I have that perception, but it could be that the Vette has more dramatic styling whereas the 911 is more elegant. It's because of that perception that I can't see myself buying another Vette since I'm in that 50+ age group.

fast1

I was going by my recollection and the stats that you present are surprising. It was either '70 or '71 when the Insurance companies imposed their surcharge. I owned a '70 Vette and my Insurance climbed from around $200 a year to almost $400 a year. I believe that it was around the '71MY when GM started to add those contrapions on their engines to meet air polution standards, and HP went down precipitiously. The sales in the mid '70s were especially surprising since we were in the midst of those oil embargoes and the Dealers had to almost give away their high performance cars.

bgiere

I'm kinda sorry I made the "gold jewelery" statement earlier but it is indeed the norm in our area if you had a Corvette...I will say that the Vette owners who race with us in NASA events do not fit that stereotype but the average Vette owner is tragically going to fit the old mold....I'm not surprised the GM board had concerns...some old fat ex-drag racers probaly bought a few also!

FotoVeloce

If you read the numbers sales dropped to less than 1/2 of the previous year when you compare 1969 to 1970. Sales did not rebound to the 1969 level until 1975. Seems to me what you recall regarding early 70's sales was pretty accurate.

Maybe Chevy's C10 production went up and the needed the frames for there.

dimnslow

Speaking of Corvettes, check this out... http://www.johnchow.com/index.php/co...ered-solstice/

Corvette Powered Solstice!

"Hard to believe a big Corvette V8 can fit into a car no bigger than a Mazda Miata. The installation looks like a factory job as well and Mallett Cars, the creator of this monster, backs up their work with a 2 year 24,000 mile warranty."

FotoVeloce

Not to be argumentative but I used to own a Miata so I know them well. Two guys in my sports car club are very successfuly comaigning Solstices, so I've check them out pretty carefully as well.

They are MUCH larger than a Miata. There is an amazing amount of room under that huge hood.

All that BS spewed... sheesh.. a V8 Solstice...

dimnslow

Sorry, forgot to mention that was just a direct qoute from the article. Scary though huh?

Chaos

Depends on the drivers!

dimnslow

If it was me you will find me very quickly wrapped around a tree.

FotoVeloce

LOL. Just a little.. maybe they were thinking of some new 4-door Miata I've never seen..

Sids911

Guys speaking up from experience of older corvettes vs older porsches suffer from the fact that their judgement is coloured by past experiences.

I'm too young to know how vettes/porsches in the 60's,70's and even 80's were to have clouded judgements. But what I do know is when I drove the C6 and the 996 last year ... the C6 is really really nice. Guys - drive the two cars back to back and under "sport" settings mode ... your feelings about the new 'vette will certainly change even though you may not want to admit it !! Remember to block out everything you know about the old vette's when doing so.

I still went 996 but if I had to buy a second additional sport car under $50/60K NEW it'd buy the 'vette. (Actually I'd let it depreciate for 2 years and then buy - my heart felt philosophy about cars). Or maybe the Maita for fun !!

But yeah, I hate the fact that they label it as a Chevy when they churn out crap pickups on one end and also deliver the awesome C6 at the other. Chevy needs to fold the new 'vettes under a new performance/luxury brand to compete with ferrari and porsche in the minds of people (they're already competing and competing well in performance)

PS: Just to clarify, I still prefer the 996 but wow! - the C6/Z06 is a worthy opponent. Keeps things interesting.