I can’t shake your hand, Alex, but I can thank you.
The Corvette sells around 40K units a year (or at least the C6 did when new before 2008), and that’s without ads and paying for it’s parts that aren’t shared. The base C6 starts at 49K USD, and I very much doubt anyone would buy a base G8 if it cost that much, and that’s just to break even each year.
Cold, hard, ugly, sales numbers.
Although the G8 never sold as much and sold for thousands less than the C6, it was from a brand that, for the better part of 30 years, was directionless. If directionless is too hard a word, then the people in charge of Pontiac failed to consider the shift in consumer demands in much the same way Olds suffered.
Not everyone wants to hang the rear end out while the slide down the on-ramp, and those numbers are only decreasing every day. Sure it’s fun, but it costs an automaker more to make a car do that and to make us want it.
If an automaker is going to be conservative with their money, they’re going to chase after the boring, but highly sable and predictable compact and midsize segments. They know cars in those segments sell and sell damn well every year.
A sports car, or a sporty car, is a luxury; it’s not something that’s nessisary for the car to operate. Luxuries like having a sporty car, like a G8 GXP, are luxuries that only a handful of people can afford, and that’s ONLY if demand for them great enough.
Don’t forget the aforementioned 5-series. Sure the G8 cut it’s legs off, but even in 2009, the G8’s best year, the 5 sold more wagon 5’s than all the G8’s. Yes, the 5 is sold globally, but even in the US, the 5 simply outstipped the G8.
That’s right, even if the G8 cost less than the 5 and outpreformed it, people were still buying the 5 in droves. The G8 was powerless to stop it and it couldn’t save Pontiac.
