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by pointing out that the GT40 was really European. Paid for by Americans,
yes; engineered by Americans; raced by Americans; relaunched in 2004 by
Americans; but deep down, British.
Whereas the Corvette Stingray... a Stingray should have a long bonnet,
pointy nose, curvaceous hips, a short, chop-top, two-door cabin sat way
back over the rear wheels and metalflake paint. The Stingray should be
John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever on wheels, not generic Europop.
Then there’s the issue of the dynamics. With an aluminium chassis and
6.2-litre V8, I’m sure the new Corvette will be a great car to drive, but cruel-
ly, it doesn’t matter how good it is, because when it comes to brand stretch,
even if it’s right it’s wrong. Like Zippo perfume for women (yes, they really
launched that). It might smell great, it might smell like lighter fluid, I don’t
know; either way it’s wrong. Colgate – the toothpaste brand – actually
launched a line of ready meals in the 1980s. Never tasted a Colgate lasagna
but I’m feeling a lot of MPR about that one too. Lotus SUV? Don’t care how
it drives, it’s an abomination. They shouldn’t do it.
And a Corvette that can post a great lap time? It goes against the laws
of nature. Corvettes should be magnificently raucous and fast in a straight
line and absolutely terrifying in the corners.
So it looks like Chevrolet has made a terrible blunder with the Corvette.
And despite the fact that C8 prices are due to start at just $60k, that Chevy’s
website had a record 2.4 million visits over the first 24 hours after the C8’s
unveiling, and that the configurator was so popular the site crashed... I’m
going to predict the new Corvette will be a dismal failure. Engine’s in the
wrong place. Should have launched some excavators instead.
Editor-at-large Mark Walton is a hugely stretchy brand, able to write brilliantly
about saloons, SUVs, hatches and supercars. Watch and learn, Peugeot
ome brands are definitely stretchier
than others. Back in the late 1980s,
McDonald’s launched a new line of
pizzas. The experiment didn’t last –
‘pizza you won’t believa’ was the adver-
tising slogan, and so it proved. Meanwhile,
nobody (except me) thinks it’s weird that
Caterpillar sells shoes and phones and watches
and sunglasses and umbrellas and suitcases
and children pyjamas. That’s Caterpillar the excavator company. If it
launched a new line of ‘Cat pizza’ would anyone hesitate?
While we understand these things in our guts, it’s hard to define exactly
what it is about brands that allows – or prevents – such elasticity. Peugeot,
for example: it’s proved perfectly capable of selling small to medium-sized
French cars, yet for some reason it can’t even stretch a teensy bit into the
top-end luxury market. Remember the 604 of the mid-1970s? Boxy but
cool Pininfarina design, classy V6, supple ride – I always had a soft spot for
that car. The latest 508 might be a handsome mid-market offering, but it’s
nowhere near as ambitious as the assertive and ultimately doomed 604.
Meanwhile, I think I’d buy pretty much anything with a Volvo badge.
Traditionally seen as the brand of rectangular estate cars driven by antique
dealers, Volvo moved effortlessly into the SUV market in the 2000s. It sells
hatchbacks and executive saloons and in the past it’s done coupes and soft-
tops. Back in 2013 it produced the stunningly sexy Concept Coupe, which
I’m convinced could have led to a mid-engined Volvo V12 supercar one day,
if it had continued down that road. (Instead, Volvo decided to launch the
coupe under the meaningless Polestar brand.) Volvo also builds trucks,
buses, there’s a marine division, and they build excavators.
Maybe it’s something to do with excavators?
Anyway, the brand I’ve been most surprised by recently is Corvette –
yes, it’s a model not a marque, but Corvette is a sub-brand in its own
right, and a surprisingly narrow one it turns out. When I saw the new
mid-engined Corvette C8, my reaction was an overwhelming case of what
psychologists call MPR – McDonald’s Pizza Rejection: ‘No, no! Not doing
this! La la la! Can’t hear you!’
All Chevrolet did was move the engine a few feet towards the rear bump-
er... But look, straight away the C8’s styling is all wrong. Those vents, those
angles, that cab-forward stance – it’s all too European. You could counter
that with the mid-engined Ford GT, but then I would counter your counter
S
Illustration by Peter Strain
‘It doesn’t matter
how good the new
Corvette is. Like
Zippo perfume
for women, it’s
just wrong’
