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CORVETTE TODAY #207 - Corvette News & Headlines, Early April 2024
Wow...the month of March flew by! But we still have the most current and up-to-date news in the world of Corvette every other week on CORVETTE TODAY.
Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger.com (http://corvetteblogger.com/) returns with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett to cover these stories and more...
1. Motortrend magazine names Corvette as the most iconic car in the last 75 years!
2. Mobil 1 The Grid profiles the new C8 Corvette GT3.R Z06
3. The NCM Motorsports Park adds 2 new E-Rays to their fleet
4. GM shuts down the program that shares customer driving data with insurance agencies
5. GM issues a TechLink article about leaky C8 convertible tops
Congratulations...you're one of the "cool people" - you listen and watch the CORVETTE TODAY News & Headlines show every 2 weeks, which makes you "smarter than the average bear" (thank you Yogi Bear!).
Listen to the podcast, watch the YouTube video, join the Facebook group, sign up for weekly email notifications, follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X (Twitter) and Threads. Plus shop in the CORVETTE TODAY Merchandise Store at:
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[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
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talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. All right, my friends. It's time to bring you the latest Corvette news
3:50
and headlines with my pal Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Keith is here with me every other week and we keep you
3:57
current and uptodate on what's happening with America's sports car. Keith, welcome back to the show. What's going on, buddy? Wow, it's April 1st and I
4:04
have not yet fallen for any good pranks yet. So, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I've been on guard all day. I
4:10
went to bed last night, put a post-it note on my computer, so when I booted up first thing this morning, I said, "Don't
4:15
fall for any jokes." Good idea. I should have done that myself, but I'm okay. We got nothing going on here in Kansas City, so it's
4:21
all good. Excellent. Well, and I can't believe it's April either. I mean, that's the crazy thing, man. March just flew by, buddy. And
4:27
that's all right. Yeah, we got lots of news coming up here, don't we? Yes, we do. Let's get to it. Yes, let's do it. Let's start with a production
4:33
update at Bowling Green assembly plant. Yeah, thanks D. So, as of Wednesday of last week, we are seeing the 2024 model
4:39
year production standing at 23,06 units combined. That's all three models, but
4:44
23,000 already. That's a good healthy number for the model year, and we still got some months to go out. Looking at
4:49
the Stingrays, we started the month of March at VIN number 15,126.
4:55
Wow. And as of Wednesday of last week, we ended at 17,888. During March, they built a total of
5:01
2,762 Stingrays. They're just cranking out these cars right now. For Z06, we
5:07
started the month of March at then number 4,112. And then last week, we hit 4,906. So,
5:13
they built 794 Z06s in March. There might be a couple extra coming in. I think on Friday they were off for a Good
5:20
Friday. So, I think they worked up till Thursday. There's going to be 5,000 Z06s built for the model year sometime during
5:26
this week. And that's a great milestone. And it just shows that between last year's production totals and this year's production totals, we're well over
5:32
12,000 cars or so, maybe 11,000 cars. For a Z06, we think is, you know, very low production. That's quite a bit of
5:38
cars that are out there for that. Yeah, that really is. And then finally, the -ray. You know, we're still in the ramp up phase, and I
5:44
know everybody's tired of it. We're kind of twiddling our thumbs and ready to go. Give you the March production totals.
5:49
You know, we started at number 134 and we ended at 212. So that's only 78 cars
5:54
built for the month. Some insiders are saying that, you know, everything's under control. Don't worry, nothing to panic here. But what we can really need
6:01
from the E-rays is to just take some of that production numbers away from the Stingrays. They've been building like 185 Stingrays, for example. If we could
6:08
get that -ay to cut into that because dealership lists for the Stingrays, they're mostly exhausted, right? We're
6:13
hearing that some smaller dealers now are rejecting additional allocations because they have cars on the lot. And
6:18
meanwhile, dealer stock inventory are really growing. We saw some numbers. I think Les Stanford had close to 40ome
6:25
cars on the lot ready to go that are brand new 2024 Corvette Stingrays. There's some great opportunities for
6:30
buying out there. 23,000 cars for the model year and everyone seems to be doing good. We just need that to start
6:36
popping up, but I think it's going to happen pretty soon. Yeah, I think so, too. Also, Keith, we had a big story. There's a lot of
6:42
controversy on this. Jim started a program where they were sharing customer driving data with insurance agencies,
6:48
but that got XNADE and everything is off the line now, isn't it? Yeah. And it's amazing how fast this
6:54
came into the public's eye and then how quickly GM reacted to it. Probably one of the biggest stories we've had for the
7:00
year. It all started with multiple articles coming from the New York Times of all places. GM's OnStar was being
7:05
used to track the driving habits of owners and many owners didn't realize their cars were spying on them. We know
7:10
that the cars have black boxes. We know police use them to determine like how fast somebody was going before a crash. We know that GM uses them to determine
7:17
were you doing something you shouldn't have to void your warranty. So, we know that they do stuff like that, but we didn't think that they would really sell
7:24
out their customers for additional revenue. This is a program that supposedly netted them. They won't give us a figure. They just say it's in the
7:30
low millions. But the program was called Smart Driver and it required consent, but many people don't ever remember
7:36
giving consent. We know that a lot of times when you get a new car, they want you to punch that OnStar button to activate the service. It just kind of
7:42
snowballed from there. So, the New York Times shared a story from first the Chevy Bolt owner whose insurance
7:48
coverage went up dramatically as did quotes from other companies when he started looking around. Finally, he had an insurance agent say, "Hey, you got a
7:54
Lexus Nexus data report on you." And when he requested a copy of it, he was shocked to find 258 pages that covered
8:01
daily driving habits over the last 6 months. Wow. And that underlying data was provided to Lexus Nexus by General
8:07
Motors. So what they do is they create a risk score and then provided that data to insurance companies who use it for
8:13
determining insurance coverage. When we first heard the story, we're like, "Hey man, you better go check your My Chevrolet app and see if it's in there."
8:20
And of course, sure enough, people were saying, "Yeah, I was signed up for it." And you had to jump through all these hoops. There's like three different
8:25
areas you had to opt out to make sure that you weren't signed up for it. But right after that first article came out,
8:32
then another one came out that said a Cadillac owner was suing GM after his driving habits led to his insurance, I
8:38
think, being cancelled. And then he couldn't get it for like seven different companies because his Lexus Nexus report
8:45
showed speeding, hard braking, acceleration, you know, all the things that make driving a performance car fun.
8:50
Once that lawsuit hit the news, GM came out with a statement just a couple days later saying they are ending the data
8:55
sharing program because they want to quote protect their customers information and customers were coming
9:00
with torches and pitchforks. I think GM made the right decision there. I understand also for those concerned that
9:06
these driving reports might be out there at Lexus Nexus, there is a process that you can go to them and request your file
9:13
and then request them to not share it. It's some more hoops to jump through, but if it's something you're concerned about, like if you were on your My
9:19
Chevrolet app and you saw that you were signed up for this program, you might want to go directly to Lexus Nexus and
9:24
see if you can get them to suppress that information from being shared out there, which I think I did see some people on
9:29
Facebook saying that they were able to do it, but it took calling. It took some emails to get it done. You know, when we
9:34
buy a car, we're giving them our hard-earned money, right? And we expect that they treat us fairly. I'm glad that
9:40
GM reverse course on it. Me, too. That's a good thing. It was a sticky situation. And it looks like it all has a happy ending. That's for sure.
9:46
Yeah. Speaking of GM, they issued a Techlink article. If you have a hard top convertible C8 with a leaky roof,
9:53
they've got something to fix it, don't they? Yeah. Now, this is not like a recall or anything like that. This is just, you
9:58
know, as cars come in, they start to see trends. And one of the trends they've seen on the 2020 through 2024 Corvette
10:05
convertibles is that occasionally there might be some water leaks on the side glass windows. The leak, they say it's
10:10
about the middle to the rear of the side glass. And a lot of times it can be noticed with water like getting inside
10:15
the car when it's exposed like a high pressure car wash. They say that the side glass leak might leak due to a
10:21
variations in the ceiling between the roof panel seal. So what they'll do is they'll put like a special piece of foam
10:26
in there and make sure it's all kind of sealed up better. And the Techlink article is for service technical people to know how to fix it. No real idea how
10:34
many cars may be suffering from this, but hard top convertible sales are around 48% of all Corvettes. So, it
10:39
could be a high number, but again, it's just how you care for your car. Those people that are handwashing their cars probably will never have this issue. But
10:45
it sounds like if you're using some high pressure water, that's where it might be getting up into the seal itself and then
10:51
underneath it. Again, something to consider if you are using a pressure washer to wash your car, going to the car washes, take some care around any of
10:57
the rubber seals anyways because you don't want to force that back and let that water in there. Glad to see that they're being proactive on this.
11:04
Definitely. Our final story in the news section, Keith, that MCM Motorsports Park has added to their fleet its two
11:10
new. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And you know, a couple of the people from the motorsports park, they actually drove up to Detroit and then
11:16
drove these cars back and they stopped at a couple different shows along the way and made it a nice little event for them. The good news is that if you're
11:22
interested in -ay, you can go now book some track time at the motorsports park in Bowling Green. They'll give you some
11:28
lead follow touring laps and then you can also ride with a professional driver who does like the heavy accelerated launches and hot laps in the car. One of
11:35
the interesting things is the reasons why, you know, with only a couple hundred Corvette - built. One of the reasons why they got them is because
11:41
there's actually doing training right now at the motorsports park where sales reps are coming in from all across the
11:46
country. They're being trained on the -ay and Z06. So, it's a combination of like classroom instruction. They'll do
11:52
some on track activities. And the dealers are paying like $3,600 to send one rep to Bowling Green for this. I
11:59
actually talked to a rep that was there this week. He said it was a great time. They learned a whole lot about the cars.
12:04
They did classroom instruction, you know, learning about the features and that kind of thing. And then also just being in the car and and being to
12:10
experience it for that first time is pretty eye opening with the Uray. That's cool. That's really cool. Well, buddy, it's time for our first break.
12:17
Coming up next is Corvette racing and Corvette rumors here on Corvette Today.
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I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Every other week we keep you current and
14:56
uptodate on what's happening with America's sports car. In segment number two, we always cover Corvette racing and
15:02
Corvette rumors. Let's start with racing first, Keith, and review the 12 hours at Sebring. Yeah, you know, we're still kind of
15:09
doing some teething issues with these new race cars, but there's some good stuff that's happening. It's kind of a mixed bag for both. One of the things
15:15
that started right away is, you know, we ran some good qualifying laps at Sebring. But then, you know, at the
15:20
beginning of the race, all four Corvettes were moved to the very back of the pack because they were found to have some non-moligated parts on them. The
15:28
team still trying to figure this out and do some things, but whimps is watching, I guess. For Corvette racing, we'll start there first. It was really a mixed
15:34
result and it was a what could have been moment. You know, the number three Corvette Z06 was right there. It had the pace. It was in contention for a podium
15:41
finish. Probably would have finished third within the last 5 minutes. And then all of a sudden they were knocked off the course by that green number 77
15:47
Porsche 911 known as Rexi. That contact pushed the car right off the track. They ended up finishing 10th in class. The
15:54
Porsche was given a drive-through penalty. So it did affect them as well. They ended up finishing ninth in class.
15:59
But the point I'm trying to make is that we were there. We were there at the end. The problem is at the very end of Sebring, everybody's throwing elbows and
16:05
doing whatever they can and it's dark and there's not a lot of camera angles on some of those dark corners at night
16:10
time and I think some people are taking some advantage of that. The number four Corvette again developed an issue with its electronics. They started trying to
16:17
mess with it and by the sixth hour of the race, halfway through, they just said, "You know what? We need to bring it in." They replaced what they called a
16:23
main relay. And then from there, it just turned into more of a testing and diagnostic session for them while also
16:28
seeing if they could help out the sister car. Not all was good with the number three car. They lost their AC compressor in the middle of the race and that was a
16:34
hot day. So, those cars were running without air conditioning in the cockpit where temperatures were like 120°. The
16:40
number three car persevered. in GTD, the AWA racing number 13. This this is the
16:45
yellow and black car. It actually finished ninth in class. It was on the lead lap and mostly ran a trouble-free
16:50
race. So, that is very good news. We're glad to hear that. However, the second Corvette for AWA once again had
16:56
electrical issues and it retired very early in the race. I want to say it was out within the first one or two hours of
17:01
the race. Unfortunately for them, they didn't get a chance. That's the green one or the teal car with the red stripe on it. Our next conversation is also
17:07
about that car. But the next race for the Insta Corvettes, Long Beach on April 19th and 20th. And then also that
17:13
weekend, that's gonna be a great race weekend because we'll also have the World Endurance Championship over in Italy on April 21st. Lots of racing
17:20
happening in April that weekend. That's I guess the weekend before the Bash. I'm glad that it won't be the weekend of the
17:25
Bash. Yeah, that's definitely true. Yeah. And I was going to ask you about AWA Racing. They're down to one Corvette now, aren't
17:31
they? What happened there? Yeah. So just to take you back a little bit, AWA Racing was handpicked by GM Racing to field the two new Corvette
17:37
Z06s in the GTD class in IMSA. At Daytona, both cars failed to finish. And then at Sebring, obviously the number 13
17:44
car did well, but it was the 17 car that dropped out very early. What had happened, I guess, behind the scenes is
17:49
this led to a division of the AWA team as one of the team's members, Anthony Mantella, has quote elected to step away
17:56
from the GT program at this time. That was the statement that AWA Racing put out. In GTD class, you generally have a
18:02
gentleman driver who's a bronze rated driver, and then you have your higher rated drivers and your professional drivers that are also paired with them.
18:08
But generally, it's the gentleman driver that's paying the bills, so to speak. Anthony Mantella is the owner of the
18:14
number 17 Z06 race car. And after Sebring, he says he's putting the car up for sale, and I guess he's walking away,
18:20
according to the statement. Yikes. On Instagram, he says, "Muspect GTD Corvette race car for sale. used very
18:27
infrequently, hasn't finished a race, perfect for the collector who wants the latest iron from Prattton Miller
18:32
Corvette Racing. Not a perfect race car, but unobtanium to the public. All the racing websites jumped on this and were
18:39
saying, "What's going on here?" Thankfully, the fans, they really kind of lit him up for basically taking his
18:44
race car and going home. Yeah, it reminds me the old joke, Steve. You know, if you want to make a little money in racing, you better start with a lot.
18:51
We'll really keep an eye on the situation, but it looks like AWA Racing is just going to be have the one car now for the rest of the season. And that
18:57
really kind of threw a crimp into GM Racing's background of wanting to put two cars in GTD, two cars in the GTD Pro
19:04
class over here, now only down to one. What happens now is that car doesn't get developed anymore. You know, if it's
19:09
just sitting there, it's not getting the updates and upgrades that the other cars are getting when they're finding out, oh, this needs to be changed because we
19:16
found this or that. Again, a bad situation. not good for AWA racing or GM racing. We'll just have to see what
19:22
happens with this car. But, you know, if you have $750,000 laying around, that's reportedly what these race cars were
19:27
selling for, meaning the teams had to put that money up. But, there's also all the equipment, the training, and all the
19:33
other expenses that were incurred. So, he might want a little bit more for it. Who knows? Steve, my question though is if he sells
19:38
the car, will the next owner of it lose the warranty? I mean, it's been within 6 months,
19:45
right? That's right. Yeah. He just raced the car once and he's going home. There you go. We'll have to see what happens with
19:51
that. That'll be a developing story. Yes, it will be. Let's turn to rumors. Keith, we saw that maybe the new C8 ZR1 might have some
19:58
carbon fiber wheels like the Z06, didn't we? You know, we don't really have any real specs yet on the ZR1. We've been
20:03
watching the cars whenever they're out in public. They were at the Nurburg Ring last October for 2 weeks, and during that time, they were only wearing their
20:10
alloy wheels. They were not wearing carbon fiber wheels at all when they were over there unlike the Z06s and even the E-Rays had the carbon fiber wheels.
20:16
That led us to wonder really is the ZR1 going to a larger wheel size or different design. But then there was a
20:21
press release that came out from Carbon Revolution touting the -ay which is also being able to order with the visible
20:28
carbon fiber wheels, the same wheels as the Z06. And the quote from the president of the company said the following. General Motors Corvette Z06
20:34
and ZR1 have been some of Urban Revolution's most successful high volume programs. We expect that given the
20:40
recent performance awards for the -ray, this program will continue the trend to success. We're thinking that his
20:45
mentioning of the ZR1, the statement means that yeah, the car will have carbon fiber wheels. It was a Freudian slip. He was talking about Z06 and -ay,
20:53
but he did say ZR1 and this is something that we watch because these are breadcrumbs that are dropped. Right.
20:58
Sure. Sure. We don't know if they're going to be the same wheels of the Z06 and the E-Ray, if they're different. However, after we
21:04
shared the rumor, the press release was suddenly updated to remove ZR1 from that statement. People sort of laughed at us,
21:10
but it's these minor details that a lot of times give us the glimpse behind the curtain of what's happening. We're waiting to see what happens, but we have
21:16
no word at all when the ZR1 will be revealed to the public. Although, we still really kind of feel it might be a
21:21
2025 model that'll come in the middle of the model year and not launched at the beginning of the model year.
21:26
Boy, I'd love to see that car, especially if it was at the bash. That'd be nice. Mhm. Also, Keith, we saw the first 2025
21:33
Z06. It was spotted in the Bowling Green assembly plant parking lot, and it didn't look like we had any changes to
21:39
the Great Wall of Buttons either. Yeah, that was something we've talked about several times here. The interior change for 2025 appears to be dead.
21:46
There were signs that were kind of pointing that way. A lot of conversations behind the scenes, but yeah, we just got our first glimpse of a
21:52
2025 Corvette Z06. It's a captured test fleet car. So, this is a salailable vin, meaning that after GM is done testing
21:58
it, they can then sell it off to one of their dealers as a pre-owned car. The funny thing about this rumor is that when you talk to C8 owners, they really
22:05
tend to like the Great Wall of buttons. And I think that most people actually still prefer having physical buttons over the use of touchcreens. But that's
22:12
where the industry is going. And in fact, there was a GM authority article that talked about a couple future other GM vehicles that were moving physical
22:18
buttons and putting them on touchcreens only. And of course, Tesla does that, right? A lot of the EVs seem to be all
22:24
touchscreeny as opposed to having the physical buttons. This is a rumor I don't think is going to go away. Maybe
22:30
it jumped the gun a little bit early. So, we could be off by a year or two. Maybe it's something that when they come out, if they end up doing a midcycle
22:36
refresh, you know, we've seen that over the years where like C6 for example, 2008, they come out with the LS3, more
22:43
power. In 2012, they came out with a new interior seats even though it was 2 years before the end of the model year.
22:49
They aren't not going to make changes that they don't think they need to. It's something that might still be error, but again, not for 2025, unfortunately, or
22:57
fortunately, depending on how you feel about it. I like the gray wall of buttons. I don't have any problem with it whatsoever. Yeah, mostly people are saying, "Oh,
23:03
yeah, you can't hold hands with your significant other." But there's times for that elsewhere. Our final rumor, Keith, -ay owners, make
23:10
sure you check your high battery system coolant reservoir caps. What is all that about? So, a new E-Ray owner was
23:16
checking under the hood and he was looking at all the different fluids and stuff on his car. He had the HTC. So, he
23:22
pulled back the rubber flap and found that the cap for the high voltage battery system coolant reservoir. He
23:28
found that that cap was loose and vibrating. He was able just to pick it up off the car. So, probably that rubber
23:33
flap was keeping it on, but he said, "Check your fluids with the car running." He said it was just vibrating and doing its thing. So, he tightened it
23:39
down and then he's like, "Oh, man. I forgot to even look and see if there was any coolant in there." then he couldn't get it off because if you check the
23:45
owner's manual, this is not something that's designed to be filled or checked or anything by you and me. This is a
23:52
dealership thing. There is a trick to do it. You use a screwdriver. There's a little tab and you just got to put it down in there and spin it and then it'll
23:57
eventually come off. But he actually then called another owner and said, "Hey man, my cap was loose. Will you check
24:03
yours?" And the other guy checked his and his cap was loose as well. We actually checked with another owner.
24:09
Their cap was fine. No issues there. Again, just one of those things. We don't know if this is something that happened at the plant, if it's something
24:15
that happened at the dealership during PDI. When you get a new car, it's always good to give your own once over, you
24:20
know, check your own fluids, make sure caps are sealed, and that kind of thing. For sure. Very interesting. All right, buddy. Well, let's take our final break.
24:26
When we come back, the lighter side of Corvette is on deck next here at Corvette Today.
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26:20
This is the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett. Hey, thanks once again for listening and
26:26
watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette. Corvette Today is brought to you by
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Wheelcraft. You want your Corvette looking its best? Dress it up with bright chrome or black chrome wheels.
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wheel exchange and you get a 5-year warranty. So, visit wheelcraft.com today
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or give them a call 833-639-4231. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is
26:55
Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. If you want a deeper dive into any of the stories Keith and I cover, you can
27:01
always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final segment, we always talk about the lighter side of Corvette. Keith,
27:07
this story isn't lighter. This is really, really groundbreaking. Motor Trend magazine named the Corvette as the
27:13
most iconic car in the past 75 years. Wow. Yeah. Was there really any doubt in my
27:19
opinion? I don't think so. This was something that was pretty cool. So, Motor Trend readers, largely American, they love Jeeps, Mustangs, and Ford
27:25
F-150s, but the Corvette has been America's sports car for nearly as long as Motor Trend has been a publication.
27:30
This was actually an online readers vote according to Motor Trend. The results were overwhelming. Pretty cool stuff. I
27:36
saw Haron Charles put up a thing on his Facebook page about this, and I know a lot of other Corvette websites were all
27:41
touting this great honor. You think of the Motor Trend car of the year, that's one of the biggest honors an automaker
27:47
can receive. How about Motor Trends car of the last 75 years? That supersedes all the other ones, doesn't it? They're
27:53
not looking at just one model. They're looking at the whole evolution of the car from the 1953 model all the way up
27:59
through last year's model. Right. Really great honor. Again, the Corvette is America's favorite sports car and
28:04
we're glad to be driving it. Absolutely. Also, there is a video, a tire comparison video between the C8 Z06
28:11
tires and the -ray tires. Yeah, this is a new owner. He has a YouTube channel. He had a Stingray
28:17
previously. He already owns a Z06 and then he said he took delivery of a 2024 E-Ray for his wife. He already had the
28:24
car up on jacks and was replacing the muffler he's putting on a Hooker Blackheart exhaust system. I believe he
28:29
said he had all three widebody tires lined up in his garage. He had the Michelin cup 2RS from his Z06. He had
28:36
the Pilot Sport 4S's from the Z06 and then the Pilot Sport All Seasons from the E-Ray. With all of them lined up,
28:43
they're all the same size. Corvettes had the 275s up front, the 345s in the rear. But that's really about where the
28:48
similarities end. Each tire has its own purpose. And it's still surprising when you see there's basically no tread at
28:54
all on the Cup 2 RS. Even the Pilot Sport 4S's, they're really light. But
28:59
then you see the tread pattern from the allseason tires. You're thinking, "Wow, man." You know, the grip, the idea that
29:05
you can drive those in the rain and the snow is pretty cool. Of the allseason tire, he says he's driven with them on.
29:10
He says they're really good. Michelin tells us that on the skid pad, the difference between the allseasons and the 4S tires are just 0.1g and any
29:18
casual driver is not going to notice that. That's why with the -ray, you know, you can upgrade to the Zur package
29:24
and get the 4S tires, but the allseasons are just so good. I don't know why you wouldn't just continue to stick with
29:29
them unless you really actually doing some track events or things like that. Yeah, this wasn't really a performance test.
29:34
It was just lining them up all three, looking at the similarities and differences of it. They're actually really quite different, so it was pretty
29:40
cool. Nice little video to see. And this same owner, he did another video where he was just driving around putting miles on the car. He had a little over 200
29:46
breakin miles so far and was just talking about some of his impressions of it, but apparently he likes it. We need
29:52
to get these cars out there broken in and then get them on the tracks and do some fun things with them and see how they really do compare.
29:58
Someone give me a -ay. I'll get some miles on it for him. That's for sure. I know there's a couple at the NCM
30:03
Motorsports Park. Yes, there is. And we also had an oops moment, buddy. There was a 2024 Z06 that
30:11
actually got Stingray door sills instead of the Z06 door sills. Yeah, it was actually just one. It was
30:16
on the passenger side. So imagine you got your car, you're out there working on, you're doing some things, you open up the door and you're like, hm, what
30:22
happened here? I always find these mix-ups to be a little bit fun over the years. It's just a little bit of levity in the process. Generally, it's easily
30:29
correctable. Some of the things we've seen in the year, we had a guy get a two-tone boomerang early in C8
30:34
production. We know a guy that got two different styles of seats. And then there was a guy, I think just last year,
30:40
he picked up a Z06 and it had a Stingray emblem on the rear deck of the car. And the funny thing is, he's doing the
30:46
delivery of the car. He's got to pull the white transport wrapper off. They're walking around it. Never even did pick
30:51
it up until afterwards he gets home and starts seeing reports of, man, my car is looking a little unique here.
30:57
Yeah. You know, one of the things we like to ask is, is this a factory error that you would correct? You know, with the door
31:02
cell, you'd never see it. We ran a poll on it. Our readers say it's a Z06 and the sill plates need to say Z06. So kind
31:08
of overwhelmingly 60/40. People say change the plate. Yeah. Something fun that happens. This
31:13
doesn't happen all the time. In fact, it's pretty rare that we find errors like this. So when it does come up, like I said, it's kind of a fun moment for
31:20
everybody. And maybe that's why this story is in the lighter side of Corvette today. There you go. Yes. Also, Corvette was named as one of
31:26
the top 20 vehicles that's better to buy new rather than buy used. So, this is a
31:32
study comes from Icy Cars. They've done these studies over the years. They've always got a monthly study out, but this
31:37
one they look at the prices of 1.6 million new and lightly used cars, and then they break it all down and
31:43
determine whether you're better off to buy new or used with that car. With the Corvette, they found that pre-owned
31:49
Corvettes, these are 2022s and 2023s, they only show a price difference of around 8.4% off of the new cars from
31:57
2023 and 2024. So, you're talking about maybe $7,000 difference buying used over
32:02
new. With the average price of the Corvette being 76,000, it does appear to make a lot of sense to just go ahead and
32:08
buy the new car versus the used car because the savings still aren't all that great, right? We ranked out of the top 20. We were, I
32:15
believe, number 17 there. Okay. Everybody would love to have a new car, but some people are like, I'm just going to take the pre-owned, and you already
32:22
remove some of that depreciation from your bottom line already. So, for some people, it does make sense to buy used
32:27
regardless. Again, it's just interesting to see the study done and those numbers presented to you. Yeah, definitely. Our final story,
32:33
Keith, and this is so timely because last week's episode on Corvette Today was celebrating the 50 years of
32:38
Linganfelter Performance Engineering. Well, we found out that Lingfelter is supercharging an E-Ray now.
32:44
Yeah. So, I think about a week ago, two weeks ago, we had video of the first on the dyno. It was kind of shocking
32:51
because it ran up to 573 wheel horsepower, but the torque levels were off the charts. 630 foot-lbs of torque
32:57
on there seems to be higher than what we'd be estimating. You know, you take that 15% loss of power at the wheels.
33:04
Paragon Performance actually did the dyno. They had a special dyno hooked up where they could measure both the front and the rear wheels. So, that's how they
33:11
got those numbers. But, as soon as they were done with that car, they did some other things on it, you know, some dress up parts and things like that. But then
33:16
they shipped the car up to Lincolnfelder Performance Engineering who then put one of their Magnus superchargers on it.
33:22
from Lincolnfelter following on their Instagram. We see they took the engine out, they were doing some work on it,
33:28
engine goes back in, and then we get the test drive. And during that test drive, you can actually hear the supercharger
33:33
whine behind you. While on the front wheels, you kind of hear that electronic motor wine unique to the E-Ray. It's
33:39
really a sound that sounds one like none to use the Corvette jeans terms, one like none. We have no details yet on any
33:46
power gains. I'm expecting it to be fairly significant. But the good news is as they were doing the test drive, the
33:52
guy from Lincolnfelder were saying the front wheels and the rear wheels, they're independently controlled, but they're playing very nicely together
33:58
with the additional power from the supercharger. Very anxious to see what kind of power a supercharger will add to
34:04
this and where that will end up at. But pretty cool and congratulations to this new owner who's got a very unique car.
34:11
Yeah, absolutely right. We'll have to get Ken Ling and Felter back on the show and find out what the final performance
34:16
numbers are and the horsepower and torque. That'd be really interesting to find out. It would be. If something tells me you've got his phone number on speed
34:22
dial, so let's get that going. I think I do, buddy. That's right. Well, Keith, thanks for being back on
34:29
Corvette today, buddy. Our next show in two weeks will start year number five for Corvette today.
34:34
Amazing. Amazing stats, Steve. Thanks for having me here. Uh, great times. Everybody, if you're out there, keep waving to each other and we'll see you
34:41
in two weeks. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your family, friends, and other
34:46
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