I'll just leave this right here......

[Racer Boy]

Slamming American engineering is ridiculous. For all intents and purposes, a Corvette is as quick as a 911 for a lot less money, and it's probably a lot less expensive to maintain, as well. Do you expect the Ford GT will be a bad car?

I recently had a base model Camaro as a rental car, and it not only would smoke my Boxster in a straight line, it would out-handle it as well, all season tires and all.

I realize this is a Porsche forum, but let's not get too far away from reality!

[billh1963]

Originally Posted by Racer Boy

Slamming American engineering is ridiculous. For all intents and purposes, a Corvette is as quick as a 911 for a lot less money, and it's probably a lot less expensive to maintain, as well. Do you expect the Ford GT will be a bad car?

I recently had a base model Camaro as a rental car, and it not only would smoke my Boxster in a straight line, it would out-handle it as well, all season tires and all.

I realize this is a Porsche forum, but let's not get too far away from reality!

I agree. I currently own more Porsches than many (two Boxsters, four aircooled 911's, three 914's (one with a 2.7 six) and have a 997TT coming in). That's not counting all the ones I have owned before.

That being said, I am no Porsche fanboy. Porsche has had their share of engineering issues over the years...and I'm not just talking about the IMS issues.

Crappy interiors? Anyone remember what was said about the early 986 /996 interiors? They were a huge drop in quality compared to the 993.

Most Corvettes will be sold with automatics...really? What the hell do you think Porsche (and Ferrari, and McLaren and so on) is putting in all their cars? It sure isn't a manual transmission. In fact, I dare say you can get a manual more easily in a Corvette than you can in a 911.

Build quality? Really? Since the water cooled era Porsche's have been built to a price. Don't talk about "door clunking" until you compare the door closing on my 1976 911S to that of a new Porsche. My '76 clunk will bring tears to your eyes. Even my '74 914 has a better "door clunk" than many 986/996's I've looked at or owned.

I've never owned a Corvette. However, I'm getting close. The new Corvette is a helluva a machine for the price. For that matter, so is the new Mustang. My oldest son bought a new one with the V6. With the new IRS, it handles great and will smoke an older 996 while getting better gas mileage.

The car world is changing....

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Racer Boy

Slamming American engineering is ridiculous.

Sorry if it appeared that I was slamming American engineering - that was not my intention. American engineers, as a group, are the best, brightest, and most innovative in the world and I am proud to call myself one of them.

With that being said, all I was saying is that I doubt GM's ability to create a world class car out of the box on Version 1.0. My thinking was that it will likely take them an iteration or two before they really get it right because of their inexperience with the mid-engined platform. Its not that I consider GM engineers to be stupid or dumb or bad engineers, just inexperienced with the mid-engine platform.

I went on to say that the reason that I believe Porsche to be ahead in the mid-engine game is because of their 20-year head start with the Boxster/Cayman. I'd suggest that it also took Porsche 2-3 iterations to get it right. The 986 Boxster was a great first try but certainly not a perfect car by any means whereas the Cayman GT-4 is considered by some to be one of the greatest mid-engined sports cars.

In regards to Ford, the GT was a great car out of the box, so American engineering can certainly do the job! But the 2005/2006 Ford GT was a halo car that listed around $150,000 (or $185K in today's dollars). Unfortunately, the mid-engine Corvette isn't going to be able to command a price anywhere near $185K so it will be full of engineering and materials compromises in order to meet the $80K price point. And just for reference, the new 2016 Ford GT lists at $450,000 so its mostly irrelevant to this discussion.

The question is whether GM can design and build a car as good as the Cayman GT-4 (which lists for around $85K) for a slightly lower price (around $80K)?

Honestly, I hope GM proves me wrong.