GM needs to make money on this, so they don’t have the flexibility to price it low, or anywere close to the current Vette.
Even sharing as much of the platform, drive train, suspension and electronics as possible with other product, development costs will be high on this and volumes will be low. As a result, it will need to run on a flex line (hello Oshawa???), where it will no doubt displace other profitable product. I’d fire the board and management myself if they did so just to throw money out the window.
That said, the reality is that however good it might be, you simply cannot charge well into the 6 figures for a Corvette. It will still be a GM, with terrible panel gaps, uninspired interior, and a paint job that one owner recently described to me as “someone sprayed over a pepperoni pizza”. By the time you get north of $150, there are just too many acknowedged good options out there. Perhaps (if the size and this new layout afford room for golf clubs) they may woo the odd dentist away from Porsche. But regardless of how many N’burg Ring records it might achieve they are not going to displace any sales of true exotics or even the current amazing lineup of performance saloons.
There just isn’t the cachet in the Corvette name, nor the depth of market for this type of car, to charge what they need to. Honda/Acura recently found this out, and GM will as well.
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