Corvette - the future?
Discussion
The closure of Bauer Millett is indeed sad day for all UK Corvette fans who had perhaps hoped and dreamed that they would one day see the brand achieve the market share,and the international stature it rightfully deserves.
Other dealers have come here and gone in the night [Stratstone?} - But it seemed there was always BM!
They were always there to offer that simple but essential recipe for sales success - that being factory backed warranty service and wise experienced advice, for the non technical customer to just wanted to own a 'Vette'.
BM represented an 'oasis' as it were, in that vast 'desert of ineptitude' which defines GM's abject failure to successfully deploy the Corvette brand, in the mainstream market outside of the USA.
Now BM have gone, sadly, things do indeed look bleak for potential customers.
Those who hanker after a brand new ‘Eurospec’ Corvette, are surely advised presently to ‘hasten slowly’ before parting with their hard earned cash.
The idea that GM continues with what amounts to a 'Fortress America' position with regard to Corvette sales, in what is today a Global Marketplace for high performance Sports Cars - just beggars belief!
Porsche, Aston, Jaguar, Bentley etc - all of course do big business in the USA but now do almost as many sales in emerging markets like China.
I wonder how many Corvettes for instance were sold in China in 2014 - if their pathetic UK effort is anything to go by, then, will someone surprise me by telling me a figure greater that 0 ??
It's bad enough for Corvette fans and all those potential customers in the market place - what the investors, shareholders and indeed the employees at Bowling Green must think - well I can only imagine!
Admittedly UK Corvette fans are well serviced with regard to personal import service providers, specialist Corvette dealers, and enthusiast forums.
However, with the best will in the world, these areas of activity are of little interest to mainstream market customers, who are looking to spend £70k+ on a car!
These customers are looking firstly for a product which, ex showroom - at the first turn of the key - is fit for use on European roads!
A product which is served by an easily accessible, established and competent retail dealer network, offering the prospect of manufacturer backed spares, warranty, service and repair, and general after sales functions.
I am by no means centrally located in the UK, but I am only 10 minutes driving from Nissan GTR, BMW ‘M’ , Mercedes and Audi service and sales outlets - and 30 minutes form Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and Bentley offering’ gold star’ customer attention.
In that same 30 minutes driving, I can even arrive at a McLaren showroom where sharp suited salesmen are very keen to pitch for my business!
Corvette! Corvette, where art thou - 300 miles away - not good enough!!!
Not even in the UK??? Just pathetic - a joke, and no other word for it!
A sad one at that mind you, especially for all present Corvette owners, as well as for potential new customers - because they, and the Corvette brand in general, deserve a whole lot more respect, and much,much better treatment from GM than that offered, for whatever reason, by the present state of affairs.
The house of GM has many rooms to be sure!
In those rooms marked ‘Design and Development‘, there are some sharp cookies, and really smart guys behind the door - respect and good luck to them!
In those rooms marked Business Development, Financial Management, Sales and Marketing, Quality Control - there are a team of no hopers hiding out, and undeservedly living well on the proceeds of past glories.
Time for them to go!
The future for Corvette?
THe Corvette is a great product, and providing the vehicle is tailored for the specific demands of each particular market it engages, there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that it will not to be a sales succees, anywhere there are customers hankering to buy high performance machinery.
Best way for GM is to hive it off to a younger team of forward thinking, motivated and committed industry professionals, who are best able to develop the brand, and maximise its fantastic potential in a modern Global Marketplace eager for its presence.
Other dealers have come here and gone in the night [Stratstone?} - But it seemed there was always BM!
They were always there to offer that simple but essential recipe for sales success - that being factory backed warranty service and wise experienced advice, for the non technical customer to just wanted to own a 'Vette'.
BM represented an 'oasis' as it were, in that vast 'desert of ineptitude' which defines GM's abject failure to successfully deploy the Corvette brand, in the mainstream market outside of the USA.
Now BM have gone, sadly, things do indeed look bleak for potential customers.
Those who hanker after a brand new ‘Eurospec’ Corvette, are surely advised presently to ‘hasten slowly’ before parting with their hard earned cash.
The idea that GM continues with what amounts to a 'Fortress America' position with regard to Corvette sales, in what is today a Global Marketplace for high performance Sports Cars - just beggars belief!
Porsche, Aston, Jaguar, Bentley etc - all of course do big business in the USA but now do almost as many sales in emerging markets like China.
I wonder how many Corvettes for instance were sold in China in 2014 - if their pathetic UK effort is anything to go by, then, will someone surprise me by telling me a figure greater that 0 ??
It's bad enough for Corvette fans and all those potential customers in the market place - what the investors, shareholders and indeed the employees at Bowling Green must think - well I can only imagine!
Admittedly UK Corvette fans are well serviced with regard to personal import service providers, specialist Corvette dealers, and enthusiast forums.
However, with the best will in the world, these areas of activity are of little interest to mainstream market customers, who are looking to spend £70k+ on a car!
These customers are looking firstly for a product which, ex showroom - at the first turn of the key - is fit for use on European roads!
A product which is served by an easily accessible, established and competent retail dealer network, offering the prospect of manufacturer backed spares, warranty, service and repair, and general after sales functions.
I am by no means centrally located in the UK, but I am only 10 minutes driving from Nissan GTR, BMW ‘M’ , Mercedes and Audi service and sales outlets - and 30 minutes form Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and Bentley offering’ gold star’ customer attention.
In that same 30 minutes driving, I can even arrive at a McLaren showroom where sharp suited salesmen are very keen to pitch for my business!
Corvette! Corvette, where art thou - 300 miles away - not good enough!!!
Not even in the UK??? Just pathetic - a joke, and no other word for it!
A sad one at that mind you, especially for all present Corvette owners, as well as for potential new customers - because they, and the Corvette brand in general, deserve a whole lot more respect, and much,much better treatment from GM than that offered, for whatever reason, by the present state of affairs.
The house of GM has many rooms to be sure!
In those rooms marked ‘Design and Development‘, there are some sharp cookies, and really smart guys behind the door - respect and good luck to them!
In those rooms marked Business Development, Financial Management, Sales and Marketing, Quality Control - there are a team of no hopers hiding out, and undeservedly living well on the proceeds of past glories.
Time for them to go!
The future for Corvette?
THe Corvette is a great product, and providing the vehicle is tailored for the specific demands of each particular market it engages, there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that it will not to be a sales succees, anywhere there are customers hankering to buy high performance machinery.
Best way for GM is to hive it off to a younger team of forward thinking, motivated and committed industry professionals, who are best able to develop the brand, and maximise its fantastic potential in a modern Global Marketplace eager for its presence.
A bright future for Corvette?
A light at the end of the tunnel - indeed?
Well, all we who love Corvette can all hope for, is that it's the light of the dawn of a day for the brand's success , and not the light of yet another express heading back towards it, the down the line - and the consequent disaster thereby.
If the - 'sod the customers, who needs them - they can wait' - attitude that Corvette appears to adopt to selling its wares outside the USA, is indeed at the core of its mission statement, then we are right, unfortunately, to be very pessimistic about the brands future under the present management.
In my experience across the years, I've seen the 'sod the customer' mantra and its variations employed by many companies, and the vast majority of those companies today have one thing in common - they all went bust.
Indeed, it’s worth remembering, painful as it is, that in 2008, GM was bust, - big style!
Corvette today is primarily brought to you in the marketplace, not as a consequence of the sales success of its brilliant design, but as a function of the financial generosity of the US taxpayer funded TARP bailout.
That generosity extended to the tune of the US taxpayer having to shoulder losses of $11.2 billion dollars to support GM!!
The ‘old ‘GM was a bloated inefficient behemoth of an organisation which failed magnificently for two basic reasons.
It was a Company managed by a crowd of chancers who, with the one hand, blithely led the enterprise into financial oblivion, whilst with the other, went about producing products which no one wanted to buy.
Wonderful stuff!
So what of the ‘new’ GM?
Is it ‘meet the new Boss - same as the old Boss‘?
Well we’ll have to see - certainly Ms Barra certainly has her problems, and behind the present smokescreen of ‘happy hype’ it’s again not looking good.
Buick sales in China - OK - but no big deal really!
In the present Chinese market conditions, even Lada, if it was still in business could have made a mint selling cars there!
The really interesting and revealing fact about Buick, is that GM announced this month that is going to build Buick in Europe for sale in the USA in a desperate attempt to bolster flagging European Opel production capacity - now I wonder what the UAW will say about that!
In truth GM wants out of Europe - it announced so in Dec 2013 - but it’s stuck there, mired in, because it can’t afford the financial cost of the exit.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/05/news/companies/gm-...
Of course GM said then that they would still maintain a Corvette presence in Europe - ha-ha!!
In truth, GM is in retreat from major sources of potential revenue in its export markets, because it is still struggling, big style, to come up with a business model which it can use to generate the profitability needed to make ends meet.
Gloomy stuff.
So then, what about things on home front USA?
Recall - recall - recall! it’s all we hear from there!
Constant quality control issues - production problems deliberately left for years, unaddressed and unresolved, with law suits and vast extent of consequent multi billion dollar liabilities, looking to wipe out GM’s whole years profits!
Finally back to Corvette, and its confidence inspiring sales policy of ‘let the customers queue up in the cold and wait, we’ll get round to them sometime - yawn’
So what of this queue of customers?
Take the C6Z06 - the C6 range topper and without doubt, one of the best enthusiast Sports car designs ever to come from any USA producer.
A fantastic product - if Porsche had produced it, they would have asked twice GM’s the price for it - and would without problem, have sold twice as many in the Global marketplace.
Taking a look at published production figures what do we see?
We see a production output in the period 2006 - 2008 which was in the region of 6000 to 8000 units per annum, dwindling in the period 2010 - 2013 to fewer than 1000 units per annum.
Here is a Corvette, a Manufacturer that has been in business for more than 50 years producing the Brand Leader in the US Sports car market - and its documented as only able to produce a whopping 471 units of its range topper in 2013.
What happened to all those queuing customers out in the cold waiting patiently to be offered the privilege to purchase one of these wonderful creations?
I know!
They all surfed the net and put in a Google search for - Corvette LS7 valve guides.
Having read the results consequent of their search, they all promptly shut their wallets, and breathing a sigh of relief at their lucky escape, they, countrywide, rightly ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction from Corvette dealerships
Oh yes - we know it was all Linamar’s fault - ha-ha
Did someone say Corvettes were reliable??
The new GM -eh! - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
Caveat emptor.
A light at the end of the tunnel - indeed?
Well, all we who love Corvette can all hope for, is that it's the light of the dawn of a day for the brand's success , and not the light of yet another express heading back towards it, the down the line - and the consequent disaster thereby.
If the - 'sod the customers, who needs them - they can wait' - attitude that Corvette appears to adopt to selling its wares outside the USA, is indeed at the core of its mission statement, then we are right, unfortunately, to be very pessimistic about the brands future under the present management.
In my experience across the years, I've seen the 'sod the customer' mantra and its variations employed by many companies, and the vast majority of those companies today have one thing in common - they all went bust.
Indeed, it’s worth remembering, painful as it is, that in 2008, GM was bust, - big style!
Corvette today is primarily brought to you in the marketplace, not as a consequence of the sales success of its brilliant design, but as a function of the financial generosity of the US taxpayer funded TARP bailout.
That generosity extended to the tune of the US taxpayer having to shoulder losses of $11.2 billion dollars to support GM!!
The ‘old ‘GM was a bloated inefficient behemoth of an organisation which failed magnificently for two basic reasons.
It was a Company managed by a crowd of chancers who, with the one hand, blithely led the enterprise into financial oblivion, whilst with the other, went about producing products which no one wanted to buy.
Wonderful stuff!
So what of the ‘new’ GM?
Is it ‘meet the new Boss - same as the old Boss‘?
Well we’ll have to see - certainly Ms Barra certainly has her problems, and behind the present smokescreen of ‘happy hype’ it’s again not looking good.
Buick sales in China - OK - but no big deal really!
In the present Chinese market conditions, even Lada, if it was still in business could have made a mint selling cars there!
The really interesting and revealing fact about Buick, is that GM announced this month that is going to build Buick in Europe for sale in the USA in a desperate attempt to bolster flagging European Opel production capacity - now I wonder what the UAW will say about that!
In truth GM wants out of Europe - it announced so in Dec 2013 - but it’s stuck there, mired in, because it can’t afford the financial cost of the exit.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/05/news/companies/gm-...
Of course GM said then that they would still maintain a Corvette presence in Europe - ha-ha!!
In truth, GM is in retreat from major sources of potential revenue in its export markets, because it is still struggling, big style, to come up with a business model which it can use to generate the profitability needed to make ends meet.
Gloomy stuff.
So then, what about things on home front USA?
Recall - recall - recall! it’s all we hear from there!
Constant quality control issues - production problems deliberately left for years, unaddressed and unresolved, with law suits and vast extent of consequent multi billion dollar liabilities, looking to wipe out GM’s whole years profits!
Finally back to Corvette, and its confidence inspiring sales policy of ‘let the customers queue up in the cold and wait, we’ll get round to them sometime - yawn’
So what of this queue of customers?
Take the C6Z06 - the C6 range topper and without doubt, one of the best enthusiast Sports car designs ever to come from any USA producer.
A fantastic product - if Porsche had produced it, they would have asked twice GM’s the price for it - and would without problem, have sold twice as many in the Global marketplace.
Taking a look at published production figures what do we see?
We see a production output in the period 2006 - 2008 which was in the region of 6000 to 8000 units per annum, dwindling in the period 2010 - 2013 to fewer than 1000 units per annum.
Here is a Corvette, a Manufacturer that has been in business for more than 50 years producing the Brand Leader in the US Sports car market - and its documented as only able to produce a whopping 471 units of its range topper in 2013.
What happened to all those queuing customers out in the cold waiting patiently to be offered the privilege to purchase one of these wonderful creations?
I know!
They all surfed the net and put in a Google search for - Corvette LS7 valve guides.
Having read the results consequent of their search, they all promptly shut their wallets, and breathing a sigh of relief at their lucky escape, they, countrywide, rightly ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction from Corvette dealerships
Oh yes - we know it was all Linamar’s fault - ha-ha
Did someone say Corvettes were reliable??
The new GM -eh! - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
Caveat emptor.
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