I'm writing a paper for my tech writing class about new engine development at GM, but I've been having trouble finding any legit sources for the typical costs and amount of time required to develop and produce new engines, either at GM or elsewhere. I spend a lot of time reading this forum and the 5th gen forum, so I figured I'd see if any of you know of any sources I can use for my paper. Any help is appreciated, and sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

thanks,
Josh

 

I can't help you on cost but the LS1 timeline is mentioned in All Corvettes are Red. If the engine had not been done in time for the launch there was consideration made about using the Northstar V8, engineers didn't want it but Dave Hill did initially. There is also a small discussion of cold weather testing as well as hot weather testing situations in the book. Not a lot of help but all I got.

 

No such thing as "typical" costs and time in developing a new car, Josh. A new car can typically take from 18 months to nearly 10 years to create.

The big factor is how much does the maker want to spend on it, and how fast do they want the thing to come out. Also a big factor is how much of the new car is going to be based on existing chassis or parts. Going into a little more detail (but still just scratching the surface) is plant availability and the life cycle of existing models, how much manpower and resources are available, how much of the work is outsourced, problems or issues that need to be solved, or changes that need to be made.

The Buick Lecrosse was delayed about 2 years when Bob Lutz sent the finished design back for more work. The new 2005 Chrysler 300 is an evolution of a design Chrysler did back around 2000 in a concept called the Nassau. The new Camaro would have languished inside GM's pipeline for a decade, but the Cobalt was done in about 18 months. The C5 Corvette that came out in 1997 had it's initial start no later than 1990.


As for costs, that also can vary wildly. The Solstice was done for less money than a good advertizing campaign. The original Dodge Viper was essentially created in a corner of a garage and a good computer program. On the other end, the Ford MN12-FN10 program (Thunderbird/Cougar- Lincoln Mark VIII) and later the Ford Mondeo/Contour/Mercury Mystique were the most expensive car programs in automotive history when the finished vehicles came out.



Finally, different makers have different systems in bringing new cars out.

General Motors has a system in place that tends to kill new projects or forces them to take a mindnumbingly long time to get to market. There is a seemingly endless number of levels and hoops a car has to jump through in order to get final approval, and often gets sent back down, or sidelined to disappear. GM is apparently better now, but that's a very recent development.


Ford, on the other hand, seems to have a small cabal that makes decisions on new products. Seems if the marketing chief & the product development chief get together with the design chief, and the financial chief can make the numbers work while the manufacturing chief has a place to make the vehicle, if they get the CEO on board it's a done deal and it makes it to market soon after.

Want an excellent example? Ford's GT and Pontiac's Solstice both debuted at the same car show, both with no plans for production. Soon after, due to public reaction, both cars were decided by their respective automakers to be "fast-tracked" to production as as a showcase of what GM and Ford were capable of.

Ford's GT made it to showrooms in less than a year and a half. Solstice came out last fall nearly 4 years after it's concept's debut. My guess is that both had similar development budgets & both companies will clear similar amounts of money over the life of these cars (the GT's 3 years vs GM's 5 years on the current Kappa). The big difference between the 2 was how approval was given.

Or you can look in a different direction. Ford found a way to make the Ford GT work, but GM's car that had similar public praise, projected price (in constant dollars) and mission (the Cadillac Cien) was ripped apart & devoured by GM's approval process, and hasn't been heard from since.



Finally, Chrysler was traditionally a near dictatorship run by the CEO and the President. Bring an idea to them, and if there was money, it got made. Look at the original Viper, the Prowler, the original Kenworth look-alike Ram, the initial Camaro-ish Intrepid, and the then cartoonish Neon. Chrysler went through a period after Daimler bought them out where everything they had in the pipeline was cancelled, and their cash chest was plundered, but the success of the Chrysler 300 and the fact that Chrysler's former CEO now heads DaimlerChrysler, seems Chrysler is back to it's amazingly short digestation period, but seems to be more like Ford in it's approval process now (that Daimler finally seems to be leaving Chrysler alone).

There's people here that can go into even greater detail, but I just wanted to point out that there's no such thing as a typical amount of time or money in developing a new car.