Click on the blue text for more articles of interestBecoming an annual tradition, Corvette Product Marketing Manager Harlan Charles and Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter made the trip down to Sebring Florida last weekend to show off some cool Corvette concepts and several 2011 regular production cars as well as give a couple seminars with Corvette owners. The first seminar was held Friday afternoon and the topics were the latest updates on the 2011 Corvette as well as some non-specific C7 Corvette news.
Regarding the C7 Corvette, Tadge and Harlan have become quite adept at dodging the C7 “future product” questions and this presentation was no different. Tadge took some time to make sure Corvette owners are again aware that car magazines are in the business to sell magazines and held up the latest Car and Driver which showed a
red illustrated C7 prototype on the cover as well as rendering inside of a C7 with a rear end similar to that on the Corvette Stingray Concept. He assured us that both designs missed the mark and that there are no employees of any magazines walking around the design studio checking out the next-gen Corvette.
Another magazine article that Tadge discussed was the
April 2011 Consumer Reports that listed the Corvette Z06 as a “recommended buy”. Consumer Reports hasn’t been a friend to Corvette in the past but as Tadge stated, they could no longer overlook the data and customer surveys.
Tadge did take an informal customer surveys to gauge what Corvette owners are looking for in the new C7 Corvette. Questions were in the vein of “revolutionary vs. evolutionary”, “Front Engine vs. Mid-Engined” and “V8 vs. Turbo V6″. As you may have guessed, most voted for an evolutionary designed front-engined V8 Corvette.
When it was Harlan’s turn on the microphone, he talked about the latest 2011 news including the
new blue convertible top and color stitching options and the open ordering for the 2011 Corvette Z06 Carbon limited edition. He also spent some time talking about several of the concepts that were at Sebring including the 2011 Grand Sport Jake Edition and the 2011 Corvette Z06X track concept that were both displayed at the SEMA show last November.
The team spent nearly twenty minutes or so doing a Q&A with owners and overall it was another informative session. For those of you interested in 2012 Corvette news, Tadge says they’ll roll that information out at the Museum’s C5/C6 Bash in April.
Here is the full 46-minute seminar for you, if you have the time and down caps to handle it.
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