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Ok, you shelled out nearly fifty grand for your new C6, depending on the options you may have paid a lot more. The price of that ticket makes you a member of a very honored and exclusive fraternity. As a Corvette owner you know that you drive something very special, the fastest of the fast the only American sports car. Other Vette owners give you the Corvette wave as you pass them. People look at your machine and dream about someday being able to own and drive one. That's right you are the big man on campus, or are you?

GM has always reserved the best and latest power technology for the Corvette. After all the Vette has always been the corporate flagship. The new Corvette is now equipped with a very competent 6.2 liter 430 horsepower small block. You can even order an adjustable exhaust system that will yield another 6 horsepower to the mix.

430 horsepower is more than competent, it is really outstanding. The new coupe will deliver 0 to 60 acceleration times in the mid four second range. The icing on the cake is an excellent ride and decent gas mileage. The new Vette will in all probability never see a dealers repair bay, except for routine maintenance, as the quality is almost world class.

So you may be asking, what's the point? The point is that GM has made the decision to water down the Corvette brand. The flagships colors are quietly being shifted to another GM division. The GM division that has always been synonymous with old men smoking big cigars has made a dramatic comeback. I am talking about the new corporate darling, you guessed it the Cadillac.

The new super Caddy is a spin-off of the CTS coupe. It is now known as the CTS-V. The V sports a standard supercharged 6.2-liter, 556-horsepower V-8 that has a top speed of more than 191 mph. The V's 551 pounds per foot of torque will move you to 60 mph in about 3.9 seconds. The engine is a detuned version of the LS9 engine that currently resides in the ZR-1. This new super car is priced at about 65 grand. Chew on that for a while fellow Corvette lovers. Adding insult to injury the new Caddy will be produced at the holiest of holies; the sacred Corvette assembly plant at Bowling Green.

Let me throw some more fuel on the fire. The Vettes special LS3 small block will now be offered in the new Camaro and Pontiac G8.

The new GM marketing people are simply put, "not Corvette people". They have truly lost sight of the Corvettes history,mission and importance to GM. They will continue to a push for a watering down of the Corvette brand.
So what's going on here? Some people are calling the new Caddy a four door Corvette. The question that many of you have been asking is; why did the standard Corvette get passed up for more power? Aside from the obvious attempt to water down the Corvette brand the truth of the matter is that the GM marketing guru's shot themselves in the foot this time around. The foot that got shot has the name ZO6 written on it. GM made the decision to revive the big block thinking it had tremendous nostalgia appeal which would translate into marketing appeal. They were right, that big grunting 427 rat motor has been all the rage for the last several years. 505 horses in a Corvette was big news. The marketing people took control and sold the idea of nostalgia via the big block revival. The engineers tried to tell them that the new generation of super cars should rely on lighter, smaller more efficient engine configurations. The 6.2 liter was the perfect candidate. Proof of the pudding is its debut as a 620 horse fire breather in the ZR1.

The bottom line is that the Corvette brand is now behind the curve. The standard 430 and 505 horse engines are good but not great. The Corvette powertrain has been eclipsed by the Caddy engine that the GM engineers originally wanted to put into the Corvette as standard equipment. They couldn't do this because they had to preserve the sanctity of the LS7 engine in the ZO6.

For all intents and purposes the big block was declared DOA. All true hot rodders love them. The rumble of a big block exhaust note is pure music to us. Unfortunately every party has to end and the big block is one of them.

The detuned LS9 engine will in all likelihood show up as the standard mill in the 2012 Vette. The big block will be phased out and according to GM all will be right with the world. So my tip of the day is unless you can afford a ZR-1 or want to retrofit your new ride with an aftermarket blower hold off on buying that new toy for now and wait for GM to put some real power in an affordable Corvette.

Tony Costa - Editor