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New Corvette Feature Keeps An Eye On Valets

Face it. If you own a luxury or sports car, whenever you hand the keys to a valet, you imagine the car going on a high-speed joyride like the Ferrari in the 1980s cult movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Now, General Motors has an option on the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette that takes those worries away. The latest version of the sports car, due out in September, has a feature that records where the car goes with a camera mounted in the windshield trim. It also captures audio in the cabin as well as speed, engine revolutions per minute, gear position and G-force. That all helps the car tattle on any valet who doesn't take a slow, direct route to a parking space. GM says it's the most extensive attempt by an automaker to thwart valet joyriders, although it's not the first. The automotive website Edmunds.com says Hyundai and Mercedes offer "geofencing," a feature that sets a perimeter and then notifies the owner's smart phone if a car goes beyond it. Chrysler has a valet mode that caps engine speed and horsepower, while Audi lets owners limit engine speed for valets. With the Corvette, once the owner activates the feature with a four-digit code, the touch screen tells the driver it's in Valet Mode. But it doesn't warn the valet that he's being recorded. The feature also locks the glove box and a storage compartment in the dashboard and shuts down the infotainment system. Valet Mode started off as a performance data recorder for those who take their Corvettes on the racetrack. GM engineers quickly figured out that it had more uses. "Think of it as a baby monitor for your car," Corvette Product Manager Harlan Charles said in a statement. "Anyone who has felt apprehension about handing over their keys will appreciate the peace of mind of knowing exactly what happened while their baby was out of sight." Data and video from the valet mode can be viewed instantly by the owner on the car's 8-inch color screen when the car is parked, or it can be downloaded to a computer. The system could go into more mainstream models if feedback is good on the Corvette, GM spokesman Monte Doran said. The feature is paired with a navigation system and costs $1,795. A 2015 Corvette starts at just under $54,000. Chevrolet Technology Gadgets

GM won't pay owners of recalled cars for lost value

Kenneth Feinberg, the man in charge of the General Motors compensation fund dealing with the its widespread ignition switch woes, has issued an informal, two-letter response to the plaintiffs in more than 70 lawsuits seeking redress for lost resale value of their Cobalts: "No." The cases were recently combined into one, but Feinberg told The Detroit News that the fund will deal "only with death and physical injury claims," and that "perceived diminished value" will get no consideration.
ALG, the firm specializing in establishing residual values, determined that Cobalt owners had lost $300 compared to the segment competition and doesn't envision any long-term effects from the recall situation. Feinberg's statement comes in advance of public details on how the compensation fund will work and adheres to GM's long-held position on the matter. The company has already asked a judge to throw out such suits using the pre-bankruptcy defense, even as it stopped using that defense in cases of injury and death.
With plenty of potential gain from the GM suit, however, don't expect the plaintiffs to give up yet. When Toyota was sued for the same reason during the unintended acceleration debacle, it eventually settled the case for between $1 billion and $1.4 billion just to get it over with. Since the 85 law firms involved in the Toyota litigation took home more than $250 million of that total, we shouldn't expect the attorneys to give up on a GM payout, either.

One of the world's largest muscle car museums is auctioning off its cars

Rick Treworgy's Muscle Car City is one of the biggest collections of high-performance American cars in the world. With over 200 cars of mostly GM makes, it's a mecca for fans of the golden age of Detroit iron. Unfortunately, the museum will be shutting its doors for good on Jan. 17 and auctioning off most of its assets with no reserve. The collection is, to put it bluntly, astounding. Advertised as a combined 65,000-plus horsepower, it occupies a 60,000-square-foot retail space in Punta Gorda, Fla., in a former Walmart store. It make sense when you learn that founder Rick Treworgy made his fortune in the commercial real estate business. As a hobby, he began to amass a truly jaw-dropping collection of muscle cars, filling out a collection that often has every year of a particular model represented, or a grouping of the rarest and highest-performance option packages of that year or model. Often, Treworgy bought placeholders while scouring the country for even rarer versions. It helps that Muscle Car City also houses a showroom where unwanted cars are sold, as well as its own speed shop that stocks plenty of parts. There's even a '50s-style diner called Stingray's Bar and Grill. According to a 2014 episode of Car Crazy, Treworgy has 80 Corvettes alone, more than the actual Corvette Museum. Among them are 20 models from 1967, one of Treworgy's favorites. The rest span the decades from 1954 (he once had a '53 but sold it) to a recently acquired 2020 C8, which, according to The Drive, has only 300 miles on the odometer. You like Impalas? There are models of every year from 1958 to 1969. El Caminos? He's got 'em from 1964 to 1972. Novas? Every year from 1963 to 1970 is represented. Most are the more desirable examples of each breed, with four-speed transmissions, the biggest blocks, and unicorn option packages like a factory 1965 Z16 SS396 Chevelle, one of 200 that were ordered off-menu at Chevy dealerships. And don't even get us started on the Camaros, which include not one, but two COPO 1969s. Treworgy even owns the only known surviving example of a 1936 Chevrolet Phaeton, of which only seven were built. On top of it all, many of these cars are concours quality and have won awards at prestigious car shows. While it's sad to see a collection like this broken up, Treworgy told The Drive that he'd been planning to retire next year anyway. However, the COVID-19 pandemic sped up those plans, greatly reducing the number of visitors to his museum.