Quote:
Originally Posted by CP911
I am skeptical about reliability and quality. The exhaust temps on this base Stingray are as high as the current ZR1, according to Chevy. How is this thing not supposed to heat soak during a track day in hotter weather? All for the sake of having rear storage for the targa tops or golf bags instead of additional heat dissipation at the rear. Are their engineers that good that they were able to work around this? It has been described as a "packaging miracle," but there are no free lunches in the world of engineering. Where have other compromises been made?
The interior is gross, yet again. Higher quality materials and less plastic - sounds great, but what about the claustrophobic seating arrangement with what seems like an even taller "wall" between the driver and passenger seats closing you in? And the crooked auxiliary tablet thingy just to the right of the steering wheel and the equally unsightly "spine" made of black plastic buttons? At least Porsche can disguise their buttons a bit better and not have them be a focal point of the interior space. A square steering wheel that would suck to live with on a daily basis... no, thank you. I'll take my steering wheel round and functional all day over this gimmicky thing. Porsche and BMW still do round wheels for a reason! The seats look legit in terms of lateral support, but that's the only appealing thing I can come up with for this interior.
Styling is subjective, but the front and rear look too much like the C7 for me to be excited. I just see this car as a mid-engined version of what Chevy already had, which, again, scares me from a potential reliability and serviceability nightmare perspective. The side scoops look cool, but the fact that they are also a part of the door makes me wonder how much they'll stick out and how easy it will be to bash them into my garage walls, parked cars, etc.
I will reserve final judgment for when real owners start providing feedback on track day performance, real world reliability, livability, etc. For now, I just see it as a car that has a lot to prove before I can jump on the "supercar for Supra money" bandwagon.
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You seem like one of those that would never be satisfied, no matter what they did, even if it was better. You'd find some way to rationalize what you have as "better". The base trim is obviously not meant to go up against a much higher class vehicle, but the higher trim levels should hold their own just fine. You seem to think that the entire cockpit should be CNCed out of one piece of aluminum, inlaid with diamonds, plated with 24K gold and padded with goat leather or something. Either that or you are jelly?
Speaking about chassis disadvantages and exotic engineering, it'll be interesting to see how porsche answers this, if they can. As they push the rear-engine layout faster and faster, it takes more and more exotic engineering to make it compete with more optimal setups, like mid-engine for one. This is no doubt why the 911 RSR went mid-engine. The basic rule here is that you can make something inherently worse as fast or faster, it just takes more money and engineering to do so, which drives up the cost. Active suspension, rear steering wheels, and so on. IME, they should put a 911 style body on the cayman and call it good, but the new C8 should require them to take some more drastic steps, like hybrid drive in the 911 with electrically powered front wheels or something. If you are going to bring up a bunch of negative stuff about a mid-engine chassis, lets talk about a rear-engine chassis and the moment of inertia...