Game changers

Better question is whether Fiat will care about that rivalry enough to give SRT a bigger budget. Would you give a company that can't market a good product properly more money? The Viper is not selling so why would they release millions more, on a seemingly failed business case with the Viper, to compete with the Vette? Especially to folks that appear utterly incompetant at any real marketing stratagy. As it is it couldn't really compete performance-wise, as released, with the old ZR1 and barely so with the Franken TA model.

Whatever budget the Viper "had" is not going to be enough to compete too much longer with todays top level cars. Ive read they used a lot of the budget on the racing program as well. If true then I just dont see Fiat continuing this program as it is unless they have the same philosophy that Honda did with the NSX. It lost money for Honda for over a decade but they still kept making it because of its halo status. I hope Fiat sees the Viper as that for the SRT lineup. But that is probably asking for too much in todays economy.

Imho I think they will release a more powerful Viper and not just the ACR before things get worse. I think they will up the hp maybe in 2015. But I dont think it will be enough for the next round of Z cars from Chevy and it my not be enough to avoid the axe from Fiat. I hope not but Ive lost any confidence in SRT to do what is necessary to keep this car around for the foreseeable future. I hope they prove me wrong.

 

Part of it too is just that the Vette is such a bigger market share that it can get away with that kind of stuff. The Viper price tag isn't just buying performance, to some degree it's buying exclusivity as well. It's not a whole lot different than Ferrari or Lambo. Those cars aren't necessarily the fastest things on the road, but that doesn't discourage people from buying them for other reasons.

 

Salesmen and rumors

I bet he told you they'd fly too.

 

LOL @ 740 and 850 hp quotes. He probably adds 10 hp each time he tells that story. Expect 600 and 700, realistically. Slight steps up from the previous generation Z06 and ZR1.

 

This is much more realistic.

 

Unlike Viper, Corvette is not limited in horsepower wars by direct competition with Ferrari. Making Viper lighter and giving it a modern chassis would be more effective than increasing its horsepower. Horsepower requires traction to put it to constructive use. If these rumours were indeed true, new high performance Corvettes would have to employ 4 WD and this would add more weight to already heavy C7.

 

Salesmen are almost as wrong at predictions as magazines.

I agree on the 600 and 700 marks above. And frankly, the vette's don't seem to need giant HP numbers. I've never been a fan of their looks but GM really gets the max perf out of every HP that's in those cars. What would surprise me is if the topline vette doesn't run solid 10's in it's C7 package, regardless of HP. It may have 680-700-725, whatever, but I fully expect a magazine doable 10 sec number and track times to be record setting.

As far as SRT goes, we'll just have to see. I've seen door mice that are more noisy. I don't know if they're licking their marketing wounds or busy thinking up the next uber cool paint color naming contest scheme, but it's been crickets from them since VOI.

I'm staying away from GM dealerships, I surprising like the new C7 in pics, last thing I need is to see it & want it, then I'd have to buy it, shop for pinky rings and a gold chain necklace, grow chest hair, it gets complicated. (j/k my vette owners, j/k)

 

Stay away from Koons, they have two in stock with $15,000 ADM

Not surprising knowing that is their MO.

 

LoL, yea that's what we needed, one more reason to stay away from Koons. ;-)

 

We're going to wow ya!

Actually their Dodge dealer has been top notch for service. The sales, not so much.

 

I heard the C7 Z0MG will run on E85, be AWD, weight less than 3000 lbs, and do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. At least that's what my Kia dealer told me.

 

I wouldn't believe what the dealers are saying. They may even be getting that information from "reliable" sources. I was in the military engineering world during the Reagan days, and to be honest, we didn't outspend the Soviets. What we did was make up a bunch of BS about the technology that we were developing (Star Wars) and that freaked the Soviets out enough that they dumped gigantic amounts of money into projects that were not technically feasible. Their feeling was that "if the Americans are doing it, we better catch up." Well, we saw what happened to the Soviet Union and their economy... Misinformation can be just as powerful a competitive weapon as real weaponry. Get your adversary to embark on an impossible mission, and expend all of their resources doing so, and you've won without having to invest much yourself.

 

My rumor states that the next ZR-1 will be powered by a thorium reactor and produce 9 Gigawatts of power at idle...

 

If they manage to drop 150 pounds that would be a huge performance gain from the outgoing models.

 

I'm a big fan of both Corvettes and Vipers. If a Gen V ACR is produced, it too will be a game changer. God Bless America.

 

You will never see a tt in a track oriented GM car. For sure the ZO7 will be NA. A large tt has way too much heat sink and associated cooling issues for sustained high hp lapping.

 

Completely agree

 

Correct and it will lap the 'Ring in 5:59.9 on autopilot!

 

Either way the new Z06/7 ZR1 or whatever they come out with will carry a $100k price tag, just like the Viper. These new C7s can be optioned near 80k. Crazy...

 

So true. GM didn't hesitate to go the forced induction route. If they put FI on the Viper, then game over but that would entail all kinds of testing and certifications which in turn equal big money.

 

The other day I saw a 2014 C7Z51 Corvette ,Black on Black at a dealer in Palm Beach..Let me tell you,the car was excellent .What a car(loaded) for 68,000.00.I would have bought it on the spot,as course it was sold.They are not charging over MSRP...

I really hope SRT steps up to the plate with the Viper,if not they are done....

 

I own a 2013 427 convertible and am on the Corvette forum. Albeit the C7 is a good performer so were the previous C6 variations as we all know. The new car is having numerous QC issues and many dissatisfied customers. Will they come out with a NA hi-po, sure they will but it won't be 740hp and if it's a six figure car it won't sell. IMO too many people drank the C7 Kool Aid!! lol

 

If anyone has spent any time over on corvetteforum you will see that those cars have quite a few quality issue. IMO SRT is leaps and bounds above the C7. Example after example of shoddy workmanship on these things.

 

I frequent the Corvette forum and I've read some of the QC reports too. They are many and varied, but one should expect that for a new platform.

 

ACRucrazy how are you? I recognize your user name from the CF. I saw that thread of the yellow car, that poor guy is way more patient than I would be. As Ev1E9 just posted you expect problems from a new platform but the huge abundance of problems the C7 is experiencing is a joke. Typical GM inferior quality, what a shame for it is a nice performer although the looks leave a little to be desired IMO.

 

I bought two brand new C6's, one black base Z51, one cyber gray Z06. Both of them had orange peel and minor paint flaws. I wasn't too anal about those, on a mass-produced GM product. A lot of the issues pointed out on the yellow car above, I wouldn't be concerned with for the price of the vehicle. Some guys just have too high of expectations, without a dose of reality. The Viper has always had a better finish than the Corvette, as it should.

 

Yeah, but a difference is, Chevy is shipping the car back to the factory to fix it for the owner.

 

... The current C7 was rumored to be 2,900 lbs and have 550+ horsepower. How'd that work out C'mon...

 

IMO it's not about a HP number. I don't think vette has ever been about HP numbers, they're about perf numbers.

We have C7s now, bone stock, on stock tires with an auto running in the 11.6-11.7s consistently, albeit with only 119ish MPH. That's with 460HP. It's what vette does with its HP that's always impressed me and still does. Frankly I don't care how much HP my car has as long as I'm in front of you. A C7 Z car with about 600HP, well the perf they get out of that will be probably just as shocking. The joke I make about the C7 Z51 is, in a gen4, if you bobble a 2-3 shift a little, a soccer mom on her way to the grocery store can pass you by with her auto and the targa top off to let her hair wave in the wind. Kind of a joke, but kind of not. And there are already tunes & exhaust options, and more coming for the C7. Of course this is straight line stuff too. THe C7 has some issues were hearing from feedback on hot laps with its nannies, which are interesting.

But I tell ya. If I didn't have a mental block about owning a vette, and wasn't such a cool aid guzzling viper fan, I'm sure I'd pick up a loaded C7 targa and throw a paxton on it and go embarrass people with my "bland american wanna-be exotic".