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Originally Posted by drob23
The Corvette also sells for a base 60k and is certainly a higher volume car than the R8.
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Yep, and the six figure one still gets power from a relative of the truck engine.
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I guess my point was that they kept the Corvette in the pipeline at a time when the company was on the verge of financial implosion, the business case they made had to involve more than just projected sales. But this is just my opinion, and I'm just a guy 
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It costs money to kill a product too, remember. Potentially a lot of money since you always have the investment way out ahead of its return.
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As an interesting side note, I work in active safety, and a big boss from the other side of the pond had a meeting with us lowly research engineers (I work at an OEM) and said that Audi/BMW/Merc can pretty much spend huge amounts of money on research with, as he said, "little concern for business cases" with the main goal of "being the best". I admit this is sort of different, since research can generate other revenue streams (such as licensing IP), but it does highlight that sometimes these German luxury brands are willing to take a slight hit on a niche product (relative to mass production 101) if it means that they can be the "best" in consumers eyes.
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People talk. It's just that - words. Successful businesses don't throw away money. R&D is still budgeted just like every other expenditure, but no, you don't need a business case to justify setting that money aside. That's just the price of innovation. When it comes time to plan a product, that's where you drive revenue, because consumers aren't going to pay you for thinking and tinkering.