We’re always excited when a car magazine picks a Corvette to join its long-term test fleet.
We were doubly excited when car shopping website Edmunds.com broke from tradition and added a 49-year-old 1966 Corvette Sting Ray to its long-term test fleet.
As Edmunds says: “We’re on-board with the revolution. We like fuel-efficient V8s, turbocharged four-cylinders, EVs and high-performance hybrids. They’re the future and we’re headed there one way or another. But like all car people, we’re nostalgic. So we bought an icon.”
While Edmunds seems to be most impressed with the Corvette because it allowed photographer Scott Jacobs to show off his admirable photography skills in recapturing the vintage feel of the Corvette’s brochure and magazine ads, we’re just as impressed because it’s nice to read about what life is really like on a daily basis with one of these classic American icons nearly half a century after it was originally assembled in St. Louis.
The vast majority of Edmunds.com’s 800,000-plus pages of web content aim to help shoppers pick out the best new vehicle for them, or once the purchase is made, to help owners keep said vehicles well maintained and safe on the road.
But this test is really just for fun, especially noteworthy since both this Corvette and Edmunds were conceived in the same year!
As Scott Oldham, vice president of editor for Edmunds, writes: “While we do focus the majority of our content on meeting the needs of car shoppers and enthusiasts, we believe that content can—and should—pave a path to sales that starts with engagement.”
In other words, if you have fun on the Edmunds site reading about this classic Corvette, then you might try out some of the other content they have to offer. Sort of a win-win situation, in our opinion.
Adds Oldham: “Takahashi and team selected Edmunds employees as the models and interviewed lead photographer Scott Jacobs and other colleagues on camera for the behind-the-scenes video. These are real people who make the magic happen at Edmunds. By adding in a glimpse at the team members behind the operation, we were able to go beyond the car and deliver a human interest story that people can connect with and will remember long after they’ve left the site.”
We especially liked Edmunds’ explanation of why they chose the Corvette: “Forty-nine years later we’ve decided to travel back in time and experience an automotive icon from Edmunds’ very first year.
We, of course, wanted a car that not only defined that era, but is still in production today. It had to be a nameplate that has navigated, evolved and thrived over the same five decades as our company, through nine presidencies, three wars, two oil embargos and of course the transition from an analog to a digital world.”
Hence the natural choice, a 1966 Corvette.
As Oldham notes, using a classic Corvette allows Edmunds to showcase its depth of history and well-established reputation that has been built over its nearly 50 years of innovation on behalf of car shoppers.
“Coverage of the 1966 car on the popular long-term blog re-introduces and helps to cement that point, which serves as a differentiator in the competitive marketplace,” Oldham says. “We want to emphasize our differentiators at every appropriate opportunity, and this one is subtle but memorable.”
If you love Corvettes of any age, you’ll enjoy reading this blog. Check it out at Edmunds: 1966 Corvette Long Term Test Drive.
Source:
Edmunds.com via digitalcontentnext.org
Related:
[VIDEO] Edmunds Takes Their Long Term C7 Corvette Stingray to the Track
[VIDEO] 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray: 48 Hours with the C7 in Detroit
Edmunds.com Editor Recounts Harrowing Tale of Driving a 2014 Corvette Stingray in a Blizzard
-
