The Corvette, long admired for its cheetah-like quickness and agility, was becoming an endangered species.
Since the mid-1980s, the General Motors Corp.’s two-seat Corvette has been outgunned by ever more sophisticated Japanese sports machines, and the tiny population of buyers who will spend nearly $40,000 on a sports car has not grown. On top of that, GM is strapped for investment capital to develop models purely for image or esprit.
So admirers of the Corvette breathed easier when GM executives, after much debate, approved money to design a new model to appear in 1996, rather than ax the car or introduce it as a version of another GM car, such as the Camaro, which was reportedly considered.
The issue was money. GM does not discuss the profitability or development costs of individual models, though it is a safe bet that when fewer than 20,000 of a certain car are sold annually-even a specialty car such as the Corvette-the car cannot be making much profit.
Jim Perkins, general manager of the Chevrolet division, said he made his case to GM executives about why he thought the next Corvette would be profitable. But to do that sales of the new model must, within several years, recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars for engineering and tooling to revamp the body and the interior.
The chances for Corvette to regain its vigor appear mixed, auto analysts say. The car’s sales have fallen by more than half since a peak of 43,000 in 1978. The numbers are too small for individual Chevrolet dealers to value the Corvette for anything but increasing customer traffic; a typical sedan such as a Lumina has annual sales of more than 200,000.
As the price of the Corvette has risen, the appeal of the car has shifted to mostly older buyers. According to a 1992 GM survey, the median age of a Corvette buyer is 43, and three-quarters of the buyers are men. Their median household income is $90,000, up sharply from the ’70s.
Still, the car has a strong heritage, reflected by devoted owners, former owners and wannabe owners. Fan clubs have about 20,000 members nationwide. A Corvette museum is being built near the plant where the cars are made, in Bowling Green, Ky.
“You won’t see many Mitsubishi 3000 GT clubs around the country,” said David Hudgens, a Chevrolet spokesman. “This is a cult.”
Some automotive experts had encouraged GM to reinvent the car, despite the shaky economics. They argued that designers and buyers were emotionally attached to the car, an appeal lacking in other models made by the biggest car company in the world.
“GM really needs a Corvette,” said Bob Hall, a product planner for the Mazda Motor Corp., in Flat Rock, Mich.
Added Thomas O’Grady, an automotive consultant in Newark, Del.: “To dump this vehicle would have been absolutely ludicrous.”
In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the Corvette became a symbol of fantasy and youth-full-throated, aggressive and sensual. Coincidentally, the first car rolled off the assembly line in 1953, the year another vehicle of seduction, Playboy magazine, appeared.
A decade later, NBC popularized the car further through the television series “Route 66,” about two bachelors who prowled American highways in their ‘Vette. In 1962, when a two-door Chevy Impala sold for $3,415, the Corvette started at $4,252, pricey but within reach.
At about $37,000 for the least expensive 1993 version, up from $9,000 in 1977, the plastic-body car remains one of the most expensive GM models-right up there with the $43,000 top-of-the-line Cadillac.
But the gap in price between it and the middle-of-the-road models has widened, with a Chevy Lumina family sedan selling for about $20,000. The high price of the Corvette partly reflects the array of luxury appointments and electronic gadgetry, such as a computer that alerts the driver to mechanical troubles.
One Corvette model will not survive. The low-volume, high-performance, top-end ZR-1 will be retired before the 1997 model bows, said Dave McClellan, chief engineer for the Corvette line from 1975 until he retired in 1992. The emission standards set for 1996, he said, have doomed its engine, which delivers 405 horsepower, compared to 300 in the standard LT1 model.
Though enthusiasts admire the ZR-1 for its power and advanced technology, the $66,000 price tag has held back buyers.
In its early days, the decor of a Corvette was spartan, and features such as windows were operated mechanically rather than electrically. Decades ago, the Corvette buyer was often young and single. Once he married, he switched to a sedan or station wagon. As the Corvette got more expensive, fewer young people could afford it.
“For years the Corvette sold like crazy, better than any other sports car in the world,” said David E. Davis, editor and publisher of Automobile magazine. However, as more models invaded the Corvette’s market segment, sports-car customers showed little loyalty.
But the car did have a timeless draw. “Corvette was the only one that didn’t seem affected by the cycle of novelty,” Davis said.
Today, the Nissan 300ZX, Toyota Supra, Mazda RX7, Dodge Stealth, Mercedes SL’s and others have taken turns beating the Corvette’s price or overshadowing its styling and technical attributes. Though the Mazda Miata is not a direct competitor, it has carved a niche as a sports car within reach of the middle-class wallet, with a price of less than $20,000.
Since 1989 the competitors that have most directly damaged the Corvette have been the Stealth and its twin, the Mitsubishi 3000 GT, said Doug Scott, executive vice president of Allison-Fisher Inc., a market research firm in Southfield, Mich.
In surveys of buyers conducted last winter, Scott said, shoppers gave the Corvette high marks for looks, technical features and handling. But the grades were below par for workmanship, dependability and value.
Perkins of Chevrolet has offered only a few hints about the new model: front-engine, rear-drive and plastic body, just like all previous Corvettes. “It will remain a true sports car and employ high-value technology to expand its performance,” he said.
From a performance standpoint, the most important component of the new vehicle will be its engine. GM has a new Northstar V-8, featured in some Cadillacs, with multivalve technology that improves air, fuel and exhaust flow in the pistons, improving power.
GM engineers also may consider “active suspension,” an evolving computer technology that “reads” the road to smooth out bumps and keep the car upright in steep turns and severe braking.
But cost, and thus price, will greatly determine whether the new Corvette succeeds. So Chevrolet engineers could elect to save research costs by keeping the current engine and technology and changing only the styling.
