That's pressure enough. Then factor in the cultlike following of both nameplates, with fan bases spawning online forums that can generate hundreds of comments on, say, the 2014 Stingray's controversial squared-off taillights.
"The Camaro-ish lights are absolutely awful and have no business on the back of the Corvette," fumed one commenter on a Motor Trend story.
Aside from the back-end brouhaha, the European-tinged Stingray design that Peters' team penned has received wide praise for injecting some needed swagger to appeal to younger buyers.
The reception for the Silverado's exterior design has been less generous. Many car critics and dealers have derided the truck's look as too conservative, especially given the edgier styling of the recent entries from rivals Ford and Ram.
Lanky and affable, Peters is eager to explain the endless hours of customer clinics and clay-model tweaks that precipitated key design decisions. He's as quick to defend his team's work as he is to embrace the barbs as worthy feedback.
"I listen to it. Perception is reality, whether you agree or whether it's even accurate," Peters said. "You've got to have thick skin."
Silverado owners queried by his team "didn't like a lot of frivolous stuff, added chrome bits, fine detail lines," Peters said. "They didn't want it outrageous or over the top. They wanted tremendous functionality and a high level of refinement."
He has become adept at fending off flack from purists about the Stingray's tail.
Even in San Antonio, on a dusty ranch where Chevy held its Silverado test drive this month for the automotive press, Peters gravitated to the topic without being prompted.
"We even tried round taillamps on the thing. It looked old on the car," he said. The angular lights, he insisted, "say Corvette in a new, modern, unexpected way."
The dust-up is nothing new for Peters. In a 30-year GM career, the New Mexico native has worked on a broad range of projects with varied levels of success, including the acclaimed Cadillac Sixteen concept and the universally panned Pontiac Aztek, which landed atop more than a few lists of the ugliest vehicles ever. Peters said the Aztek design got away from him amid creative differences with Wayne Cherry, then GM's design chief.
When Chevy unveiled the sixth-generation C6 Corvette in 2004, also a design overseen by Peters, many enthusiasts concluded that the styling wasn't a big enough departure from that of the previous generation. The most noticeable change was also a controversial one: ditching the hideaway headlamps that had adorned every Vette since 1963. Car and Driver dubbed it "the C5 and 11/16ths."
The criticism "didn't feel good, because I felt like the C6 was a good design," Peters said.
If anything, it steeled Peters and his team to go big on the Stingray, which should hit showrooms by September. After the C6, "I said, 'I'm gonna let it loose. Nothing is sacred.'"
That penchant for pushing boundaries is one of Peters' strengths, said his boss, Ken Parkinson, executive director of global Chevy design.
"He's always pushing the team to question, 'Have we gone to the limits?'" Parkinson said. "He doesn't get down and dictate line and surface. But he sets the tone for what he's after, which is always this very passionate expression of what that vehicle is all about."
