Transcript [Music] why do this well you know you look at Corvette over the years and you look at all the different generations of Corvette and whether it was you know the first generation that started in 1953 and ended in 1962 with fuel injection or the mid the mid year cars from 63 through 67 which had the first big blocks and then whatever generation we’ve done has always been we had one of the first cars over 1g of lateral acceleration capability remember that we are now at the end of the envelope for a front engine Corvette from a horsepower handling and desirability standpoint of taking advantage of all that performance so you start looking at you know over 60 years the company’s been looking at going to mid-engine in the Corvette it’s hard to crack the code to make sure that we have you know a very aspirational car that’s very attainable for people and so that’s that’s a lot of engineering and a lot of care and a lot of care in the design so our materials are still not compromised the design is never compromised but we deliver the customer something that no one else has ever done and that’s why we went to mid-engine on this it breaks open the capability for the car for the next you know foreseeable future in terms of propulsion traction vehicle dynamics ride and handling refinement all of that so that’s really why we started with the c8 as is it mid-engine and General Motors has among its goals zero crashes zero emissions does that sound like zero Corvette no not at all I mean you know at the end of the day the automobile business is still reflection not everything’s a rational purchase you know it’s still important how the car looks both inside and out it’s still important how the car drives it’s still important as a reflection of who you are and what you buy it’s the second largest purchase behind a house for a lot of people so that those are emotional factors that lead to you know an attachment to to a car you know just because in some part of the lifecycle we’ll have you know electrified vehicles you know Corvettes whatever we’re doing they’ll have electrification in it in its lifecycle those can bring huge enjoyment and and huge fun to a lot of people and so we look at it that way we also look at it from a safety equipment standpoint for zero crashes you know things like adaptive cruise control things like super cruise right that we have on our Cadillacs which are actually self-driving cars that take the fatigue away for drivers for long trips those are huge safety breakthroughs and you’ll see those on cars like Corvettes and and Chevrolet’s and everything that we make so no problem with that and I think the runway on a mid-engine car like this has a room for every one of those technologies as we as we pursue zero zero zero as a company okay and finally the price on this car how important was it to you to maintain a certain price as you’re developing this car or was it first like let’s get to maximum performance and see what we can do about the cost yeah this is gonna be a car that’s you know under $60,000 with under three seconds zero to sixty and we haven’t we haven’t published some of the other specs on yeah but we were over in Germany at the Nurburgring here and I think you know we’re all very happy with how the car behaved on the Autobahn on the track so this is in relatively bass form with the Stingray as you know the lowest price point what we don’t want to do is ever walk away from our customer base so I think a lot of people don’t understand that there’s going to be great utility and storage in this car you’ll see it here as its unveiled then both the front and the rear you’re gonna see great performance from it obviously but y’all gonna see a price point that is unheard of you know we’ve got regular pony cars at over $70,000 these days this guy’s going to come in mid-engine exotic supercar under sixty thousand dollars I think it’s going to change everything and we want those customers to to enjoy us and be able to attain and have the aspiration of always buying a Corvette that’s what Chevrolet is and that’s what Corvette is okay last question why is this important to GM this is important for us internally this has always been a lot of including myself one of the reasons why I wanted to work for for General Motors and Chevrolet from day one was to be able to work on a car like this that means so much to so many people but it’s also an unbelievable technology rallying call it’s a demonstration of what our engineers can do and deliver a car like this at this price point for profit for a lot of people is a is a big bar and do it in mass production and in a plan in Bowling Green Kentucky so you know those are very emotional and very exciting things for everybody everybody that works on that and the company and it’s it brings the company together it brings the morale of accomplishing something that no one else has accomplished before it brings that into the core of our company and it spreads through every product we do so it’s that’s the way I feel about it I know that’s the way all the people that work with me on lots of different car programs feel about it so yeah it’s it’s emotional
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