video transcript

The Power Player of the day is GM North America president Mark Reuss. His unit produced what may be the most talked about car at the start of the Detroit Auto Show: the Corvette Stingray. It's the first new Chevy Corvette in nine years, the seventh generation of the muscular iconic American sports car that symbolizes GM. Reuss hopes the overhaul will attract young buyers. SOUNDBITE: MARK REUSS, PRESIDENT OF GENERAL MOTORS NORTH AMERICA, (ENGLISH) SPEAKING: "The Corvette is somewhat unknown to some of the generations in the U.S. And North America. And so I think the design, and the performance, and the value have to be the right equation to open that back up to what that car really is. I think you'll see in the design it's very sophisticated, very technical, and very progressive. And I think it's more than an evolution of what the c6 was. It's really very progressive, and we took some risk." Risky, given it was the first car GM designed from ground up since getting out of bankruptcy and only racked up sales of 14,000 units last year. That's a huge investment for a car that makes up just a fraction Chevrolet sales. The Corvette has personal meaning for Reuss and many baby boomers. He drove a Corvette in his 20s and used it on the first date with his future wife. Now, he's betting that the halo effect of the car he helped produce will draw a new generation of buyers to showrooms.