This semi-regular column is written (in his own blood) by an automotive sage and noted malcontent, known as The Mechanic. Mercilessly beaten as a child with rolled-up back issues of old car magazines, our free-spoken hero developed a unique "for your own good" take on cars and the auto industry, along with an unfortunate habit of setting himself ablaze. Later, after a distinguished career as an automotive journalist and magazine editor, he cast off the reins of his musty oppressors, carved out his superego with a plastic spork and became The Mechanic.

Before I begin, let me say that the following is not an attack on the people who buy Corvettes. They are good, clean, patriotic car lovers, and I think they should all be applauded for buying American.

I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Every barrel-chested baldy (sorry, retirees) and stripper (sorry, Bambi) who bought a Corvette recently deserves our respect and admiration for spending their hard-earned cash on America's sports car. God bless them all. I hope they enjoy their cars.

This column is not about them. It's about the Corvette itself, which sucks.

Truth is, I'm not really sure when it began to suck. I must have been watching my new Girls Gone Wild DVD and missed it, but it does suck and I think we should all be mortified by its suckiness.

Sure it performs incredibly well, but the Corvette as a relevant performance car has lost its way. Instead of being the everyman, all-American supercar it once was, the Vette has become too expensive, too extreme and too cheesy.

Chevy has blown it by allowing the Corvette's price and performance to get out of hand. And it continues to wrap the Vette in a dated package that is driving America's young car enthusiasts elsewhere. Do you realize that the base price of a new 2010 Corvette is $48,940? That's 50 grand for the cheapest Vette Chevy will sell you. The days of a kid graduating from college, getting a good job, saving up and buying a new Vette are long gone.

This is a problem.

But price is only part of the Corvette's demise. The sports car's image is another issue. Maybe it was all those butt-ugly Indy pace car editions over the years, or maybe it's the chrome wheels on the ZR1, but the Corvette's image is now more hillbilly than Beverly Hills, more Vegas than Victory Lane.

And it might be too late to save it. From where I sit, the Corvette has already been displaced as the attainable dream car for America's youth: displaced by the Infiniti G35 Coupe and the BMW M3 (E46). These two cars (and now their succeeding models, the G37 Coupe and the BMW M3 (E92)) are what the kids desire and aspire to. They've become "the Corvette" for the next generation of enthusiasts that have not yet hit the big four-o.

Sure they're slower than a C6, but they represent a far more modern and upscale interpretation of the everyday performance car. They represent what today's car lover wants: speed, style, quality and a nameplate that says he's successful and he knows what's cool. The Corvette just goes fast.

But these days everything goes fast. Guys realize they don't really need a car any faster than an E46 M3, which runs low 13s in the quarter-mile. Sure the C6 runs 12s but nobody really cares. These days, guys want a more balanced package.

And so the Corvette is being squeezed from the bottom by cars like the Infiniti, and it can't really compete with the upscale stuff (Porsche 911) because of its shoddy interior, questionable fit and finish and 1985 profile.

Unfortunate. The Corvette is one fine driving machine. Especially in Z06 and ZR1 trim. But I wouldn't buy one. Not unless I was the richest guy in Bowling Green. Or I owned a few Chevy dealerships. Or I was a stripper in Bowling Green and my sugar daddy owned a few Chevy dealerships. Otherwise I would ward off the Corvette like a sober night of karaoke, and I would do what every other well-educated cultured gentleman with taste and money does. I'd buy myself a Porsche 911. Make it a GT3.

And now to make matters worse, there's the Corvette Grand Sport, a new model recently reviewed by the great Dan Pund on this very Web site. It's basically a standard Vette that looks like a Z06. Market research must have showed GM's product planners that there's an untapped poser market. A big block of gold chainers clamoring for a slower, cheaper, inauthentic version of the Z06.

Come on, Chevy. Stop going in the wrong direction. Nobody ever asked you to make the Corvette the fastest car you could buy or the fastest car for the money. Nobody needs the Corvette to win Le Mans or pack 600-plus horsepower and cost over $100,000. Of course we want it to perform well, but we also need it to be affordable, insurable and durable. And we want it to be cool.

And today the C6 Corvette just isn't cool.

Come on GM, give us a Corvette we the people want today, not the Corvette you thought we wanted in 1989. -- The Mechanic, Inside Line Contributor