Originally Posted by Jon Oso

I disagree. GM ABSOLUTELY has the ability to make a quality car. They made tons of them in the 60's.

It's what people are willing to pay for now. Americans won't shell out 120k for a new Chevy sedan like they will an S class Merc.

Mercedes is a company that ONLY makes luxury cars. Even the bottom range Mercs are on par with the more(most?) expensive GM models that are even remotely comparable.

This thread, while entertaining is comparing two completely different classes of cars. One is a "luxury" almost-super car made by a company that sells $9,000 cars brand new, and the other is a "luxury" almost super car made by a company that sells cars you can't touch brand new for less than ~40k.

Think of it this way, Ferrari wouldn't be able to charge what they do if they had rolled out an economy line right out of the gates. You build cars priced so that only certain people can buy them new, and you will be able to continue to charge high prices catering to a small(er) number of people. Same way that Merc does, although they definitely have a broader customer base than say Ferrari or Lamborghini, but not nearly as broad as GM.



As for the initial question? It's more than just 100k. It's also all the R&D to create the vehicle that will "compete." Power and performance wise, you can stick the new ZR1 up against just about anything that costs less than 250k. If you're looking at "extras" though, there's a lot it's missing.

If you wanted to take a new CTS-V and put the balance of the price of a new Merc whatever into it, I'm sure you could make it just as fancy, but it would just be a one-off or limited production run like Shelby or Saleen does.