RE: C8 Corvette Stringray convertible breaks cover

RE: C8 Corvette Stringray convertible breaks cover

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Mr Cod

140 posts

104 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
300bhp/ton said:
They aren't 45k in the USA though, so bit of fools dream to think it should be here....

I know I know, you are converting USD to GPB to get that figure. But that isn't a realistic way of comparing.

The current Corvette starts as 55k in the USA. If it was 55k here, that wouldn't be unreasonable however.


Rather than converting currencies, just swap the symbol. The average person in the USA earns comparable money to we do in relative terms, so it works out quite well this way.

For example, a Fiesta ST in the USA starts at 21,340 which is very similar to ST in the UK which starts as 20,700. The same sort of person in the USA with the same sort of take home pay as someone in the UK could own such a vehicle.

The issue we get here is, some car makers for some models get greedy and massively overcharge for the model. Such as the Mustang and past GM performance offerings.
Afraid this isn't correct at all. Median household income in the US is around $60k. In the UK it's around £30k. You can't just swap the signs and say it all comes out in the wash. My point was, and is, that these cars are considerably cheaper in real money terms for an American consumer. Shouldn't be a controversial one.

z06tim

558 posts

186 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
Mr Cod said:
300bhp/ton said:
They aren't 45k in the USA though, so bit of fools dream to think it should be here....

I know I know, you are converting USD to GPB to get that figure. But that isn't a realistic way of comparing.

The current Corvette starts as 55k in the USA. If it was 55k here, that wouldn't be unreasonable however.


Rather than converting currencies, just swap the symbol. The average person in the USA earns comparable money to we do in relative terms, so it works out quite well this way.

For example, a Fiesta ST in the USA starts at 21,340 which is very similar to ST in the UK which starts as 20,700. The same sort of person in the USA with the same sort of take home pay as someone in the UK could own such a vehicle.

The issue we get here is, some car makers for some models get greedy and massively overcharge for the model. Such as the Mustang and past GM performance offerings.
Afraid this isn't correct at all. Median household income in the US is around $60k. In the UK it's around £30k. You can't just swap the signs and say it all comes out in the wash. My point was, and is, that these cars are considerably cheaper in real money terms for an American consumer. Shouldn't be a controversial one.
And C8 is $60k + taxes. With the convertible about an $8k premium over that.

CanAm

9,221 posts

272 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
z06tim said:
Not just lazy. You'd expect someone employed at PH to have some knowledge/experience of these things, or at least the enthusiasm to find out, before writing about it.
Not the first time that such comments have been made about PH staff articles. frown

Fittster

20,120 posts

213 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
Mr Cod said:
Fittster said:
New vs Used argument has been done to death.

Which do you think will have the lower running costs?
Well a nearly new 570s would be under McLaren warranty etc. so probably not much in it over 3 years.

I fancy carrying on the new vs used argument, sorry mate. Particularly when we're talking about sub 5k miles 570s which are around as a result of much discussed Mclaren issues. So it's more a argument around "new vs very nearly new". My point, which I'll make again, is that in the US these are the supercar of the masses. Not over here, where they are swimming in an entirely different pond.
We don't know UK pricing for the C8 yet but taking the first 570S I've come across in the ads, it's 130K for a one year old car with 2.5K on the clock.

If the C8 comes in at less than 100K I don't think they are really competitors, if I can afford 100K it doesn't mean another 30K is a trivial amount to come up with.

Carl_Manchester

12,217 posts

262 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
Echo13 said:
"Stringray"?? Come on proofing peeps...
The name was tweaked for the Chinese speaking market.

kambites

67,578 posts

221 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
Fittster said:
If the C8 comes in at less than 100K I don't think they are really competitors.
Personally, I don't think it'll be under £100k here.

As for competition... I suppose the Evora is the obvious one. Stretching it a bit further the 911 and Nissan GTR? F-Type R? Admittedly two of them aren't available as drop-tops but still, there's quite a few sports cars around the £90k mark.

dazmanultra

432 posts

92 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
I think I will be seriously tempted by one of these, depending on the final price. If they can get it over here in a decent spec for less than ~£70k then it's got a lot going for it. Supercar looks, great performance (not too much to be unusable) and cheap maintenance.

thelostboy

4,569 posts

225 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
kambites said:
Fittster said:
If the C8 comes in at less than 100K I don't think they are really competitors.
Personally, I don't think it'll be under £100k here.

As for competition... I suppose the Evora is the obvious one. Stretching it a bit further the 911 and Nissan GTR? F-Type R? Admittedly two of them aren't available as drop-tops but still, there's quite a few sports cars around the £90k mark.
For comparison, I was looking at the Trackhawk Jeep recently.

$82,000 in the US
That's £66,500 converted
Actual UK price is £88,000
That's +£21,500

On that basis, you should expect the Corvette to be under £80,000. But it will need to be, as most will pay far more for a 911 and be 'safe'.

emperorburger

1,484 posts

66 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
MB140 said:
https://uk.motor1.com/news/360782/corvette-c8-righ...

Owwww it might be available in RHD...... Now if only the price was right. £40-50k to compete with the mustang.
GM have had plenty of cars over the years competing with the Mustang and the Corvette was never one of them. The C8 won't be any different.

The Camaro would be the closest competitor to the Mustang.

Expect it to be priced competitively against the R8 IMHO

tvrolet

4,275 posts

282 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
thelostboy said:
kambites said:
Fittster said:
If the C8 comes in at less than 100K I don't think they are really competitors.
Personally, I don't think it'll be under £100k here.

As for competition... I suppose the Evora is the obvious one. Stretching it a bit further the 911 and Nissan GTR? F-Type R? Admittedly two of them aren't available as drop-tops but still, there's quite a few sports cars around the £90k mark.
For comparison, I was looking at the Trackhawk Jeep recently.

$82,000 in the US
That's £66,500 converted
Actual UK price is £88,000
That's +£21,500

On that basis, you should expect the Corvette to be under £80,000. But it will need to be, as most will pay far more for a 911 and be 'safe'.
Not quite. You are not comparing like with like.

I have a TrackHawk and the only choice of spec we have in the UK is exterior and interior colour (no cost options) and one (extra cost) alternate wheel style. Pretty much everything else that is an option on the US price you are stating is standard in the UK. Feel free to price-up a TrackHawk on the Jeep US site (I've just done it) but to match UK spec you need to add the sunroofs, red seat belts, uprated sound system and leather wrapped interior. So to revise your figures with a UK spec car:

$97,830 in the US
That's £79,300 converted
Actual UK price is £88,000 (including road tax and all the other stuff we pay)
That's +£8,700

Therefore at list price the TrackHawk is only £8,700 more than the US price. I've no idea what discounts US dealers do, but there are (ar at least were, when I bought mine) discounts around and so I actually paid less than the US list price for the same car converted to dollars.

But it's not uncommon for the UK versions of US cars to have a far higher spec that the entry level US model which is what most folks do the comparison against. Now, why shouldn't we also get the same base-spec cars is another question...but I'd assume like the Jeep and Mustangs lots of stuff the 'mercans can exclude from their option list to get a low entry level price will be standard on the UK cars.

Back to Corvettes then - I'm guessing we'll be at something in the high £80Ks, but with a better spec than the US entry level car. If it had been available in RHD in the UK at the time I bought the Trackhawk I'd certainly have bought one instead, but as it is I'm happy enough to have a 'sleeper' that seats 4 and sounds like armageddon...but I'm going off topic. Maybe once they've been out for a while here and the prices drop a little a second hand, one might share the garage with the Jeep though.

Dr Interceptor

7,789 posts

196 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
tvrolet said:
Pricing info
Same on a lot of American cars... Wow £45k is expensive for a Mustang when they're only $26,000 in America - but spec them the same, and in America one to the same spec as mine is $48,815, and that's without tax, title and registration, which varies state by state.

All of sudden considering they have to ship it over here, and lump in 20% VAT, £45,000 (before discounts) doesn't seem so bad.

unsprung

5,467 posts

124 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all




J4CKO said:
Will the buyers scuttle for the safety of a Base 911 or similar, i.e. business as usual for UK Vette sales ? will the new design, RHD and the fact its a proper mid engined supercar win it friends or will folk just pay a bit more for an R8 ?
Mr Cod said:
in the US these are the supercar of the masses. Not over here, where they are swimming in an entirely different pond.
It's the elephant in the room, isn't it: brand positioning and its most visible attribute, price.

I'm savouring the currently unknown status of the UK price. How often do we get to do this? (guess at a price and justify this guess with a combination of fact and moxie)

And just look at the calendar: Chevrolet are stretching this plot for longer than bad daytime television.

The best part, and the maddening part, is that the moment I feel comfortable with my guess (about the UK price), somebody posts a different point of view that I quite agree with. Ask me periodically throughout the day, and I'll tell you that the guy who's right is the last guy I spoke with! hehe

So now there's a convertible version. And some months from now there will be the high-performancec Z06 version (lol, as if the regular version is somehow lacking in performance). There might even be, in the years to come, a dragon slayer of a version in the form of a C8 ZR1.

But if we think about the brand and the UK price, we might want to know about some other versions of the Corvette that Chevrolet has in mind.

"GM insiders tell us a Corvette brand will eventually include a sedan and an SUV or crossover"
https://autoweek.com/article/car-news/corvette-bra...




f1ten

2,161 posts

153 months

Friday 4th October 2019
quotequote all
Having driven at length a c7 I salute them. I like what you are doing Chevy!

Motorsport3

499 posts

192 months

Saturday 5th October 2019
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Is the colour, the shape or both, it reminds me of McLarens

Motorsport3

499 posts

192 months

Saturday 5th October 2019
quotequote all
Maybe worth importing second hand from the US in a couple of years?
What would be the import cost?

Dr Interceptor

7,789 posts

196 months

Saturday 5th October 2019
quotequote all
Motorsport3 said:
Maybe worth importing second hand from the US in a couple of years?
What would be the import cost?
10% duty on the purchase price, and then 20% VAT on the landed cost (including Duty and shipping)

unsprung

5,467 posts

124 months

Saturday 5th October 2019
quotequote all
Dr Interceptor said:
Motorsport3 said:
Maybe worth importing second hand from the US in a couple of years?
What would be the import cost?
10% duty on the purchase price, and then 20% VAT on the landed cost (including Duty and shipping)
For a few folks, it might make more sense to "export" yourself to the other side of the Atlantic wink

Whenever somebody posts the fact of VAT on the full landed cost, I wince. Tax upon tax. (and this sort of thing happens the world over, not simply in the UK)

We should remember, also, that any benefit of the impending and so-called "great" trade deal between the UK and the US will only minimise or eliminate the 10 percent duty. That's nice. But it's not a tremendous savings.

For the first two years of production, I wouldn't buy and import a used US car. There are likely to be teething problems with this new production, and you'll want to have the full force of a UK warranty. Not to mention: the luxury of having this fabled Yank in a comfortable RHD format.


ZX10R NIN

27,625 posts

125 months

Saturday 5th October 2019
quotequote all
That looks good.

Wammer

394 posts

188 months

Wednesday 9th October 2019
quotequote all
Mr Cod said:
300bhp/ton said:
They aren't 45k in the USA though, so bit of fools dream to think it should be here....

I know I know, you are converting USD to GPB to get that figure. But that isn't a realistic way of comparing.

The current Corvette starts as 55k in the USA. If it was 55k here, that wouldn't be unreasonable however.


Rather than converting currencies, just swap the symbol. The average person in the USA earns comparable money to we do in relative terms, so it works out quite well this way.

For example, a Fiesta ST in the USA starts at 21,340 which is very similar to ST in the UK which starts as 20,700. The same sort of person in the USA with the same sort of take home pay as someone in the UK could own such a vehicle.

The issue we get here is, some car makers for some models get greedy and massively overcharge for the model. Such as the Mustang and past GM performance offerings.
Afraid this isn't correct at all. Median household income in the US is around $60k. In the UK it's around £30k. You can't just swap the signs and say it all comes out in the wash. My point was, and is, that these cars are considerably cheaper in real money terms for an American consumer. Shouldn't be a controversial one.
Are quoting before Tax or After Tax household income figures? Americans pay a hell of a lot less tax than us but they do have to pay for Medical insurance which we don't as we pay for it in our taxes. So if you take that into account are income would be roughly the same.

z06tim

558 posts

186 months

Wednesday 9th October 2019
quotequote all
Wammer said:
Mr Cod said:
300bhp/ton said:
They aren't 45k in the USA though, so bit of fools dream to think it should be here....

I know I know, you are converting USD to GPB to get that figure. But that isn't a realistic way of comparing.

The current Corvette starts as 55k in the USA. If it was 55k here, that wouldn't be unreasonable however.


Rather than converting currencies, just swap the symbol. The average person in the USA earns comparable money to we do in relative terms, so it works out quite well this way.

For example, a Fiesta ST in the USA starts at 21,340 which is very similar to ST in the UK which starts as 20,700. The same sort of person in the USA with the same sort of take home pay as someone in the UK could own such a vehicle.

The issue we get here is, some car makers for some models get greedy and massively overcharge for the model. Such as the Mustang and past GM performance offerings.
Afraid this isn't correct at all. Median household income in the US is around $60k. In the UK it's around £30k. You can't just swap the signs and say it all comes out in the wash. My point was, and is, that these cars are considerably cheaper in real money terms for an American consumer. Shouldn't be a controversial one.
Are quoting before Tax or After Tax household income figures? Americans pay a hell of a lot less tax than us but they do have to pay for Medical insurance which we don't as we pay for it in our taxes. So if you take that into account are income would be roughly the same.
Incomes are definitely higher in the US. This older data supports that: https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-medi...

Having worked in both the UK and the US for a number of years I can confirm the same too. Cost of living varies wildly, dependent on where you live, but you can see the same in the UK.

With regards to medical insurance, in the US if your household income is around the median, your employer would be likely to pay for your medical insurance, although probably if you were to insure dependents you would have to fund this.