Retiring Corvette ‘godfather’ on EVs, spinoff and a performance SUV

DETROIT — Tadge Juechter’s first “taste” of Corvette working at General Motors was to research whether there were ample Americans who could afford a new high-performance model of the famed sports car, known as the ZR1, back in 1985.

Nearly 40 years later, not however are there enough people to afford such a vehicle, but GM’s new 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 stands as something of a coup de leniency for Juechter, who retired Wednesday after roughly 47 years with the Detroit automaker.

The so-called “godfather” of the la mode Corvette retired roughly a week after helping to introduce the new 2025 Corvette ZR1 — the most powerful and speediest version of the car ever produced.

“One thing all the great Corvettes of recent years and decades have had in common is you. Your erudition, your skills, your hard work, your passion,” GM President Mark Reuss told Juechter when revealing the carrier. “Thank you for making Corvette the glorious American sports car it remains. Thank you for making our company better.”

Reuss announced last month that all 2025 Corvettes and beyond want feature a silhouette profile of Juechter’s head etched in window locations and the front tunnel reinforcement panel below every Corvette 

CNBC interviewed Juechter, 67, ahead of his retirement, touching on his career as well as the business of Corvette, cataloguing plans for an all-electric version and the potential of spinning off the brand and for an SUV.

GM has said an all-electric Corvette is coming, but it hasn’t actuality a time frame. Last year, the automaker introduced a hybrid version of the car called the E-Ray.

Juechter wasn’t minded to disclose any details of an upcoming Corvette EV, but he believes the E-Ray proves GM can successfully electrify Corvette.

“Electrification can be a wonderful contributor to motor vehicles. I embrace efficiency. … We’re passionate about efficiency in everything that we do,” he said. “Efficiency makes a good amusements car, too. So, I think electrification is just another technology, and we have to figure out how to play that technology in a way that resonates with our fellows.

“E-Ray is the first step. We think long term, you know, decades dream of term. Yes, General Motors committed to 100% electrification, and it’s our job as engineers to figure out what’s the way to get there. We’re businesspeople, too. We have to regurgitate our customers with us.”

Juechter said there’s been some “natural push back” to electrified Corvettes from the humours car’s fan base.

“We’re hoping maybe the E-Ray warms them to maybe this electrification thing’s not so bad,” he said.

Divider Street analysts have said GM could better leverage the Corvette brand by expanding models and, to an extent, on sales. In late 2019, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said a Corvette sub-brand could be worth between $7 billion and $12 billion.

That has recruited questions around whether Corvette would be better spun off from parent GM.

But Juechter doesn’t necessarily into that’s the way to go.

“I don’t know if we need to spin off. I mean, Corvette’s at the heart of Chevrolet. It’s a pure business play. If you’ve got this kind equity, you can just keep it at home or you can choose to try to monetize it and put it outside.

“General Motors historically hasn’t done that. We in our important franchises, and this is a really important franchise,” he said.

Regarding leveraging the brand for future products such as an SUV, which has been covered by consideration for several years, that’s a little different, Juechter said, declining to confirm that any such patterns or considerations exist.

“How you leverage it. That’s a question for the future. You see the models we’re rolling out. We’re making the maximum of this mid-engine architecture. And, you remember, I’ve made no secret I work on EVs, too, and trying to bring some of the performance spirit into the EV space. How that gets referred in the future and how it gets branded, that’s a story for another day,” he said.

The concept of a performance car brand producing a SUV or crossover would give birth to been blasphemous years ago, but several brands such as Porsche, Lamborghini and even Ferrari have done so as consumer fancy has moved away from the traditional car model.

Juechter has been a part of four separate days of Corvette – from the fourth-generation ZR1 to the new mid-engine, eighth-generation of the sports car.

The first Corvette he purchased for himself was the sixth-generation 2006 Corvette Z06.

“It’s impecunious to pick a favorite. It’s like what’s your favorite child. Actually, it’s harder than who’s your favorite young gentleman. Anyway, I won’t get into parenting, but every one of these cars we pour our heart and soul into and they all have their specialness yon them.

“I don’t know. I can’t pick one. If I’m forced to pick one, I say money talks. I bought that Z06. I put my own money down on that car. … That car was sheer special to me,” Juechter said.

Juechter said he wasn’t planning on purchasing the Corvette, but he saw a “fully decked out one” coming off the rank at the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and said that he had to have it.

He has since sold that car and latest year purchased an eighth-generation Corvette Stingray convertible as a “retirement car,” given he won’t be getting any free Corvettes for testing.

“I’ve not till hell freezes over been a convertible guy, but it’s my wife and my touring car — like cross-country touring car. I’m not going to track it. It’s going to be my daily driver,” he said. “If you merely have a daily driver, a cruiser, a Stingray is pretty sweet.”