Tailights don't make the car...
Apparently they do. All of these superficial design elements are quoted by many well recognized auto designers as either making or breaking winning modern designs. Even the popularity of aftermarket clear lenses bears this out, as would be seen on the AP2 S2000 and RX8.
I recall an interview awhile back with the designer of the Escalade on TV as stating that had they made the Caddy emblem even an inch smaller, sales would have suffered dramatically given their sales demographic. Same with the C6, apparently the greatest business decision is quoted as being the fixed headlight design.
It is sad to say, but the majority of customers purchase vehicles for far different reasons than performance purists.
Thus, don't be surprised if the entire tail end the engineers came up with in aero computer simulation gets re-designed simply because a college intern in there design studio thinks the tail lights need to be more pronounced. Ultimately, all production car designs are a balance between all of these marketing aspects given the resources invested.
As with most on this thread, I too certainly hope the product far exceeds all the crappy sketches we've seen. The last three-five years of offerings have been kind of a let down for me. I have no doubt that somewhere some manager is being kept awake at night wondering if his team are making the right decisions, or even being up to the challenge to again design something truely revolutionary enough to meet or eclipse the first generation Honda NSX.
Complaining is easy, stepping up and doing is the hard part.
