The marketing concept behind Corvette C7 and why General Motors offers no remedy to fix its problems

Although one could write a rather lengthy and not necessarily boring book why the latest generation of  +General Motors  Chevrolet Corvette C7 such a failure, regardless of the variant, not too people (if any) realize that the failure of this Corvette generation dates back almost a hundred years, all the way back to 1920's and an individual named Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.

Alfred P. Sloan happened to be the head of +General Motors at that time and certainly a great entrepreneur, the P. T. Barnum way...  Now, Sloan, if not the actual inventor, this character should be at least recognized as the earliest adopter of the revolutionary marketing concept (at least in the 1920's) called PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE, a scheme in reality, that helped propel GM to become a major worldwide corporation.

What is that planned obsolescence?  The concept is quite ingenious, yet so simple: bait the unsuspecting buying public with insignificant changes (so called upgrades) to a production model of a car to motivate the buyers to ditch their currently owned cars and purchase the newest model year by making the owners feel like the car they own is obsolete to the point where the replacement will justify taking the financial beating.  The changes themselves must be cheap but eye catching, allowing an easy distinction while not necessarily offering actual upgrades or improvements, just VISUALLY distinct.  Pretty clever, huh?

How does this marketing scheme apply to Corvette, including the seventh generation?  The impact of this concept is actually two fold:

1. The so called "generation" distinction that amounts to retaining the same basic layout dating back to 1997, right down to the design of the chassis that now not only still lacks any meaningful form of roll over protection but currently, it lacks front impact protection as well.  In reality, the change is far from a new design and instead, amounts to INCREMENTAL change, not necessarily for better.

2. Year to year model change withing seventh generation lacking any meaningful upgrades and fixes plaguing the seventh generation from the day it was introduced to the unsuspecting public.

Now, when looked upon, in the context of this planned obsolescence, none of the problems and flaws surfacing in this generation and especially amplified in the so called flagship Z06 are considerably easier to understand.  Unfortunately, even though the understanding can be justifying from the fiscal aspect, it does nothing to alleviate the problems plaguing the latest generation in the performance department.  An absolute minimum of development has been done and the development was not aimed at actual improvements based on sound engineering (such changes would require actual engineering analyses that tend to be far from being cheap).  What happened instead was a predictable attempt to create as many distinctions between the latest generation and the previous ones, enough of them to create an illusion of obsolescence for the previous generation and superiority (purchase bait) for the seventh generation.

Again, this context is needed to understand why none of the problems noted in the fifth and sixth generation have been addressed in the seventh generation.  Instead, the team led by the current moron and all around engineering douchebag, +Tadge Juechter chose to pursue the route to make that distinction, allowing the idiot in charge to brag about the obsolescence of the previous generation- just like Sloan envisioned almost a hundred years ago.

The problem of course is the fact this is not the 1920's and the planned obsolescence no longer can be implemented literally, there has to be money to be spent on actual engineering and careful analyses since nothing comes free, especially when original design has already reached the developmental peak.

The consequences of the outdated marketing philosophy?  Fixing anything faulty in the latest generation is next to impossible since there was no thought put in it in the first place.  No way to resolve problems related to constantly out of spec alignment, no way to fix failing transmissions, no way to fix heat soak and overheating problems.  What ignorant buyers fail to understand when spending money on these disasters is that they are buying a result of old marketing philosophy which strangely enough still resonates with the buyers, purely due to their self inflicted ignorance and stupidity.

To the credit of GM, other companies still follow the same school of thought, as painfully demonstrated by the failed fifth generation Dodge Viper, a car that by all accounts should never be built in the first place.  The ironic difference here of course is the number of idiots buying Corvette far exceeds the number of Viper buyers, allowing GM to justify an actual investment in a car that should be new from the ground up.  Obviously, GM refused to discard the old mentality and marketing driven profitability and the results are painfully obvious.

Do the problems and flaws plaguing the C7 cars bother GM, is there a motivation to fix anything?
The Corvette nuthuggers really have to understand that the answer is a very resounding NO.  General Motors has no intention to fix anything at all because if anything was fixed, there would be no reason or justification to create the EIGHTH generation of Corvette, removing a possible motivation for the buyers to ditch their current cars and buy the new ones, once again something that the last Viper showed so painfully clear.

Of course, where would this blog be if either GM changed the course or dumb buyers wised up?  Throw the Corvette "enthusiasts" a bone and they jump on it every time.