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CORVETTE TODAY #153 - Corvette News & Headlines, Late March 2023
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Jul 11, 2025
Driving Season and Car Show Season is almost here! And CORVETTE TODAY has all your news & headlines to keep you up-to-date and current on what's happening in the world of Corvette. Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger is back with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to deliver the goods! Here are a few of the topics that Steve and Keith will discuss next week... 1. Chevrolet crossed over 101,000 C8 Corvettes built to date! 2. The deadline for customer-sold orders for the C8 Z06 is April 5th 3. GM files a patent application for a Lidar Vision System 4. The 1953 C1 Corvette, VIN #100, to the Spring Carlisle Auction 5. The C8 Corvette wins the Kelly Blue Book Best Resale Value Award
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the podcast
0:06
that talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, MC and DJ at one of the largest Corvette weekends
0:12
in the country, Corvette Funfest, president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at
0:19
the number one radio station in Kansas City for over 40 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
0:28
Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
0:34
current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Visit
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mid-enginecv forum.com. And a shout out to Corvette Forum and Canadian Corvette forum.com, welcoming Corvette
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enthusiasts from around the world. It's time to bring you the latest Corvette news and headlines with my pal Keith
2:33
Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Keith's here every other week. We keep you current and uptodate on what's
2:39
happening with America's sports car. Keith, welcome back to the show. We are finally here, Keith. The long-awaited
2:45
springtime is finally officially here, buddy. Well, fantastic. It's also the kickoff of the spring cruising season, so people
2:51
are getting out their cars. They're excited. The weather's changing. It's time to hit the roads. And it's also time to talk about the last two weeks of
2:58
Corvette news. Okay, absolutely right. Let's start off like we always do with Corvette news and get
3:03
the production update from the Bowling Green assembly plant. Well, you know, just as the old adage goes, when the plant has parts, they can
3:09
build record quantities of Corvettes. We find that Stingray production has pushed past the 28,000 mark on Friday, as well
3:16
as over 3,000 70th anniversary editions have been built. So, we're looking at now 31,000 Stingrays produced for the
3:23
2023 model year. It's just a fantastic number. And of course, we've got several months to go. It looks like the 2023
3:30
Corvette Stingrays will be the highest production quantities for the C8s for the last four years. So, that's
3:35
fantastic news there. The Z06 production is still all over the place. We just see days where we have great numbers, days
3:41
that it's okay. And then, of course, we've got plant closures and other things that are affecting production. Here's what we're really seeing. And
3:47
thanks to our friends over at the mid-enine Corvette forum for kind of fariting this out based on people going through some tours and stuff, but
3:53
they're seeing like nearly one out of every five cars last week on the assembly line was a Z06. And in fact, on
3:59
last Friday, one of the reported quantity totals was 38 built for the day. Wow.
4:04
Which is a new record. That's 34 regular cars and four anniversary edition. The numbers that we were looking at, we're
4:09
thinking that it's about 1,092 regular Z06s and 164 70th anniversary editions
4:16
have been produced. And that's a total of 1,256 Z06s. And with a couple months still to
4:21
go, we could hit that 2,000, that 2500 mark if they really buckle down. 3,000 might still be possible. I don't know.
4:28
They want to build the cars, but yet we do have these issues like the supply chain coming up. And in fact, leading
4:33
into that next point this week, the Corvette assembly plant is closed again for an unnamed part shortage. GM tells
4:39
us that they are expected to reopen the plant with both shifts reporting back on March 27th. It's just the supply chain.
4:45
It comes and goes. I know there's another GM plant that's closed as well that's reopening this week. It just happens. And what also goes on during
4:51
these plant closures is other parts of the team still are working. So there might be some quality control going on. There's shipping cars if they're ready
4:58
to go. And of course they can do any maintenance or updates on the plant. One other thing I kind of breaking from my notes here is one of the other things
5:04
that we're heard about too about production is a number of going down the line. I don't believe they would be CTF
5:10
cars because it's not the 2024 model yet. It would be a pre-production car. Supposedly that quantity of -rays
5:16
currently built stands at around 66 as the number that I've heard. Wow. They are building cars. They are
5:21
building these prototypes. They're getting ready for next year. But they are putting out a record amount of Stingrays. And the Z06s are being
5:27
produced in numbers. More and more. We've seen more customers taking advantage of that. We see them picking them up at the museum. You know, it's
5:34
not as quick and as fast as we wanted. Not the quantities we were hoping for at the beginning of the whole kickoff, but
5:39
they're building them and that's all we can be thankful for. Exactly. And we did have some other big news about the Z06. We have a deadline
5:45
now for customer sold orders and that's coming up pretty soon. It's April 5th. Yeah. So Rick Kiy was going through some
5:51
of his recent constraints on one of his last videos and he was reading from the dealer memos that they get from GM. And
5:57
here's the statement that was out there. It says, "Due to overwhelming sold order response for Z06, sold order entries
6:04
will end on April 5th. All sold order entries for CO6 have to be done by 11:59
6:10
p.m. on April 4th. So, a sold order is basically it's a customer. I go in, the sales rep writes me up my contract,
6:16
there's a customer order. That's different from a dealer stock order where the dealer gets to choose all their own colors and all the options and
6:22
then they're basically buying it themselves to resell it. We really think what this is going on is we are starting
6:27
to get closer to the end of the 2023 model year and GM, we have these plant shutdowns and part supply issues.
6:34
They're just being cautious about overpromising and underd delivering. They certainly don't want to get into a situation like in 2020 where accepted
6:41
customer orders were required to be rolled over to the new model year and then GM was forced to offer price
6:46
protection. We remember what a hassle that was with some customers and dealers trying to work that out together. We
6:52
think it's just they're just being cautious there. The other thing too is that KI was reading off the model
6:58
changeover dates for every Chevrolet vehicle. Oh, every Chevrolet vehicle had a model changeover date except the Corvette,
7:05
which just showed to be determined. So, currently we do not have an end date yet for the 2023 model year or the start of
7:11
the 2024. We've been saying July 4th. That's always kind of been the traditional time period. It could certainly be August if they have a
7:18
number of shutdowns still that they want to continue to push forward and make up those after July. We just don't know
7:23
yet. We're kind of speculating there, but looks like we are still going to be producing some 2023 models for the
7:29
considerable future. That's cool. I like that. Also, we did have some good news about the CA Corvette. They won the Kelly Blue Book
7:36
best resale value award, which is really, really cool. Yeah. You know, this is just one of those things where the Corvette shines.
7:42
Of course, people love their cars. We know that the prices have been up on them. We know that dealers are selling them for more than MSRP. I think that's
7:48
somewhat of a factor. But they won both the best resale value award for sports cars. That was their segment, but then
7:55
they were also named to Kelly Blue Book's listing of top 10 cars for the 2023 model year. So, the best overall
8:01
resale value. They won that one, too. This is actually the fourth consecutive year that Corvette was a KBB resale
8:08
value award winner. What they say about that top 10 list is that in that top 10, those vehicles retain their value better
8:14
than 95% of all other vehicles produced. And the Corvette had a resale value of
8:19
65.3% of its original sticker price over 60 months. That's compared to the industry average of around 45. So yeah,
8:27
these cars that are in that top 10, you know, they just do well. The customers love them. If they can find one used, they're picking them up. They just hold
8:33
their value well. Another feather in the cap for Chevys. They're trying to produce these cars. Man, that's awesome. That's really cool.
8:39
Also, we had a little bit of interesting news. GM is recalling some of the C8 Corvettes from 2020 and 2021 because of
8:46
a transmission control module issue. What's the backstory on that? Well, supposedly when you're turning the
8:52
key off, the ones that are faulty, they're clearing diagnostic trouble codes incorrectly. And so when you
8:57
restart the car, the codes aren't available and so it could cause trouble with the transmission. And the
9:03
transmission has been somewhat of an issue ever since the car came out. There's always been that story that's
9:08
kind of in the background. It was real big for a little while, then it kind of faded away. But every now and again, you'll hear somebody pop up saying, "I'm
9:14
having trouble with the transmission. Had to take it to GM and they replace the unit." There's still a little bit of something there. I personally don't
9:19
think it's anything for people to be worried about. If it happens, it happens. It's all under warranty and you'll be covered anyways. They're still
9:26
kind of working through some stuff. And that's what it sounds like. Unfortunately, we don't have any numbers on how many cars are affected, but if
9:33
your Corvette is one of the affected vehicles, you'll be contacted by GM. you'll get either a letter or an email
9:38
and then also you can go on to my Chevy and it might show you there as well. There's also sometimes a little bit of a
9:44
delay between the reporting of a recall and then your car being part of that recall. So just know that if they think
9:50
that your car is one of those, you'll be contacted. And the good thing is you are covered under warranty. So there's not really a
9:56
big worry. Yeah, exactly. Good. And finally, GM is celebrating a one team approach with the launch of the
10:01
-ay. Tell us what the one team approach actually is. I pulled this from one of GM's websites. That one team approach is
10:09
really everything involved in the building of a car. It's just not like the people at Bowling Green building a car, but it's the design. It's
10:15
engineering. You have supplier quality and supply chain teams. You have manufacturing and component plants. To
10:22
borrow the old phrase, I hate to use it, but the quote is it takes a village to successfully launch a new product. So,
10:28
back in January, we knew that they had some sort of open house with the -ay. It was held the same week the -ray was
10:34
revealed. What they did was it was basically an open meeting within the assembly plant where workers could find out more about the car that they would
10:40
be producing. It was just a great way to build rapport there and get them excited about it. We also had some pictures from
10:45
a couple of the members of the board of the National Corvette Museum who were also invited over and they had this red
10:51
mistray with this blue background. A neat thing again being excited about the car. We got some quotes from people from
10:57
some of the workers within the plant. They're just real excited about it. the Ray for those that embrace the time.
11:02
It's the next step of Corvette's evolution. Of course, it's going to be the quickest Corvette ever with the e all-wheel drive. So, it's pretty
11:08
exciting stuff. Absolutely right. Well, buddy, let's take our first break. When we come back, we'll talk about Corvette racing and
11:14
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I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me every other week is Keith Cornet. We keep you current and up to date on what's happening with the world of
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Corvette. In segment number two, we always talk Corvette racing and Corvette rumors. Keith, let's start with Corvette
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racing. Corvette racing last weekend was at Sebring. Huge win for Corvette racing in the WC,
14:24
the World Endurance Championship. Of course, they run the thousand miles in Sebring on Friday. Nikki Katsburg, Ben
14:31
Keading, and Nico Veron, they drive the number 33 Corvette C8. Amazing finish. finished two laps ahead of the
14:37
competition in the new GT amateur class. What a huge statement to start the season for the WC and Corvette and it
14:43
was amazing. You know, I missed this race. I was at a family event up in Savannah. This is the kind of Corvette
14:48
racing that you want to see. We had a strategy where we had three drivers doing triple stints and then the success
14:55
in the pits once again was huge with the team having like a 6second advantage over the next fastest team in class. You
15:01
can move up a lot of positions and you can hold your position better in those six seconds. Again, amazing stat there.
15:07
It started off the race, Ben Keading drove the first two hours and 40 minutes, followed by Nico Veron, who
15:12
then triple stinted the car. He actually moved the Corvette into the lead after a Porsche suffered damage. So, when he
15:18
finished his stint, Corvette had a 92 lead and then Nikki Katsburgh came in and took the car straight to the winner
15:24
circle. Fantastic finish. I I got goosebumps just talking about it. Pretty exciting stuff there. Great way to start
15:29
the season for the WC. Again, it just shows what Corvette racing is allowed to do once they get out there and can do
15:35
their thing. Boy, that's for sure. And talking about Sebring, Antonio Garcia put Corvette
15:40
racing on the pole position for the 12 hours of Sebring. I wonder if there's something in the water down there going on or, you know,
15:46
they just had a lot of time to think about things. Pretty exciting stuff. Of course, we'll have more about the results. We were actually recording this
15:52
on Saturday before Sebring. So, we'll have more conversation on this when we talk again. Very exciting stuff here
15:57
from the team and it just shows that you can't keep us down for long. We're gonna come back. We're gonna bite you and
16:02
we're going to continue to bite you. There's just no stop in Corvette racing. We never give up. It's always fun. It's always exciting at the beginning of the
16:08
season. Very exciting stuff. Absolutely right. It's a great way to start the season. That's for sure. Also
16:13
in Corvette racing, we saw that Jordan Taylor is going to make his NASCAR Cup debut with Hendrick's Motorsport at the
16:19
Circuit of the Americas. Yeah, this is kind of exciting stuff. Again, Jordan Taylor, we know, was working with Hendrickk Motorsports as a
16:25
coach for the Garage 56 NASCAR team. Of course, they're taking a NASCAR racing machine over to Lemons this summer as
16:32
like an exhibition car. So, when Chase Elliot, who drives the number nine Chevy Camaro for Hendrickk, he suffered a
16:37
broken leg in a snowboarding accident. Oh boy. They called up Jordan said, "Hey, how would you like to drive the number nine
16:43
Chevy at the road course at Circuit of Americas. This will be his first NASCAR Cup outing. That race is going to be
16:48
next Sunday, March 26th." Jordan, of course, has four starts and two wins at Kota. He just is another Corvette racing
16:55
driver to take the reigns of a NASCAR Cup Series racer as a road course ringer just like Ron Fellows used to do. I can
17:01
tell you that's going to be one NASCAR race I'm going to be tuning into. Yeah, absolutely. That should be really
17:07
interesting. You know, Jordan Taylor crossing over into NASCAR. This could be fun, folks. This could be really cool.
17:12
You know, when you unleash Randy Sandstorm on NASCAR, anything can happen. Bingo. Absolutely right. In the rumors
17:19
category, Keith, GM has filed a new Chevrolet trademark for NFTts. That didn't work the first time. It looks
17:25
like they're going to give it a second go. Yeah, you know, the nonfgeible tokens, the fancy way of saying collectible
17:31
digital artwork. We saw Chevy do this last summer. They tried to do a NFT. It was a graphic of a mint green Z06, which
17:38
was paired with a one-off version of that car in real life. Of course, it got zero bids. It went nowhere. A lot of
17:45
people were kind of laughing at GM. They're back again. However, you know, if you read it, it's not like they've
17:50
got we're back together again. This is our plan and we're ready to go with this. It's just like, oh, well, we just basically added the NFT component to the
17:57
trademark of the Chevrolet brand name. It sounds like they might be thinking about it. We don't know if there's anything coming up. We almost wish they
18:03
would stay in their lane. You know, just produce cars, sell cars, and race cars. But this whole collectible thing and
18:09
speculation, all that kind of stuff, leave that for the crypto bros. Absolutely right. I love the color of
18:14
the green car, but you know, I agree with you. It's like, let's just do what we do best, right? Exactly. Yeah. If you build a one-off
18:21
car, you know, do it for charity, sell it at Bear Jackson or Mikum or something like that. But this whole thing with tying in the the digital artwork and
18:27
things like that. Yeah. Exciting. Kind of new. We've seen the NFT market kind of crash. That board ape collection has
18:33
really crashed. We don't know if this is going to be something that has any longevity to it. Yeah. Our final rumor, Keith, GM has
18:40
filed a patent application to develop a lidar vision system. explain to us what a lidar vision system is.
18:47
Yeah, sure thing. I had to put my engineering hat on and, you know, do some Google searches, but LAR is a
18:52
technology that uses light waves. It's kind of like a radar system, but it uses light waves projected from a sensor. And
18:57
as they're bounced off nearby objects and returned, that reflected light gives like a way to shape objects and
19:03
determine how far away things are. and automakers believe that using LAR in a combination with camera and other radar
19:10
systems is the best way to create a self-driving car. GM has already said LAR will be used in their 2024 Cadillac
19:17
Castic. We always joke about do we really want a self-driving Corvette? I think most of us would say no, of course
19:22
we don't want a self-driving Corvette. However, Steve, being on a road trip this week, there are those moments when
19:28
you're trying to grab a burger on the road and steering with your knees isn't the safest thing. So maybe there could
19:33
be some limited uses for the technology. I don't know. Yeah, it kind of defeats the purpose of
19:38
having a Corvette. You know, you want to rake those gears. You want to feel at one with the car, but if you're eating a
19:43
burger, that might come in handy. That's for sure. Right on, buddy. Let's take our final break. When
19:49
we come back, we'll talk about the lighter side of Corvette up next on Corvette Today.
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Don't forget if you want a deeper dive
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into any of the stories Keith and I talk about on this show. You can always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final
23:28
segment, we always talk about the lighter side of Corvette. Keith, this was really interesting looking at the pictures of this. The National Corvette
23:35
Museum hosted an event called Vet City Con 2023. It looked like Planet
23:40
Comic-Con for Corvette. Yeah. Basically, we transformed the NCM into the bar scene of Star Wars Cantina,
23:47
right? Yes. And in fact, our picture featured R2-D2. So, a con is what it's called, a conference. It's basically a celebration
23:54
of comic books, movies, video games. This was the sixth annual Vet City Con to be held at the NCM. They just seem to
24:01
be getting bigger and bigger each year. This year there are special guests like Jason Viz from the Friday the 13th
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movies who's there and signing autographs and maybe taking a few heads with them. But really fun stuff there.
24:11
And then there's also these enthusiasts that come and they cosplay which is, you know, dressing up as their favorite characters from movies and comics. I
24:18
said on Facebook if I was going to cosplay at the NCM, I'd go dressed as a chain smoking Belgium Russian automotive
24:23
engineer. Any idea who I'm talking about? No. Who's that?
24:29
Zora. There you go. Zora. That would be fun. These are neat events, you know, and what it does also is when the NCM hosts
24:35
these events not typically related to Corvette, it just brings these new people, new faces into the museum. Not
24:41
only that, you know, they pay admission, they go around and see all the exhibits and maybe they walk away as a Corvette fan and a comic book fan.
24:46
Serving double duty, that's for sure. Also, Keith, a guy named Jesse Auji has the fastest eighth mile in his C8 Z06.
24:54
Not the quarter mile, but an eighth mile, right? Yeah. Well, you know, he's been hitting both tracks. People say, "Oh, an eighth
24:59
mile is not a real track." Well, you go where the track is between Texas and California. And he's been hitting a number of different tracks. Once again,
25:06
he was on an eighth mile drag strip at Irwindale. From that trip, he recorded a eighth mile time of 6.69 seconds at 109
25:14
mph. His only modifications being drag radials on the back of the car. That 109
25:19
is the fastest in the eighth mile that he's seen. And just for reference, you know, his best quarter mile time is
25:24
10.44 seconds at 134 mph. Again, both times exceed what the factory says the
25:30
car will do. He's really been working trying to figure out the launch control system. It's a lot more complex on the Z06 than the Stingray because it's
25:37
variable. You can tie in your RPMs, your transmission slip. He says it's it's not something that once you learn one track,
25:44
it's the same at another track. You really got to go out there and feel things. And so, he's really trying to figure that out. He's just one of the
25:50
guys that's out there, him and Speed Phenom, that are really taking to the tracks and seeing what the new Corvette can do.
25:55
That's cool. Speaking of the Z06, we had a Z06 on Bring a Trailer selling for
26:00
$99,000 over MSRP. Wow. Yeah. Huge number. You know, this goes
26:06
on the back. So, there was some big news that we made a couple weeks ago where we were looking at two Z06s at auction that
26:11
failed to close without a deal. One of those for sale was a 70th anniversary Z06 offered by a dealer with a warranty
26:17
and that was on Bring a Trailer and that reached a high bid of 222,000 which was 75,000 over MSRP. That one didn't sell.
26:25
And then there was a Z06 offered by its original buyer at Cars and Bids. And that car was being sold without a
26:31
warranty. That one reached 178,000 which was 47,000 over its MSRP and it failed
26:37
to sell. So then we had this car that did come up on Bring a Trailer again. It was a black Z06 convertible 2LZ. Had an
26:44
MSRP of 128. So not a lot of options on there, you know, but you know, the guy opted for the convertible. opted for the
26:50
2LZ and then he just picked up I think uh brake calipers and GT2 seats I think were the only other options on it.
26:56
What's amazing though is that this car was being sold without a warranty. It was offered by the original owner. It
27:01
sold for nearly $99,000 over MSRP. An amazing car there. Obviously, the other
27:07
thing too is that beginning later this month, the first Corvettes manufactured will have reached their six-month
27:12
ownership term, in which case, you know, obviously GM's anti- flipping policy will no longer be a factor. We'll have
27:17
to see what these cars start doing for the market as we go into late March and April into May. We'll see more and more
27:23
of these cars hitting the secondary market sold by their original owners that will have the transferable
27:28
warranties. I'd stay tuned to that. I think a lot of buyers are probably waiting for that moment to go. Good point. This will be interesting to
27:34
see how that all pans out. Let's circle back to the National Corvette Museum. They have opened up an exhibit on Carl
27:40
Casper. Explain who Carl Casper is. I kind of put him in the same vein as
27:46
George Bars in terms of just the number of cars that he's built over the years that you would know. 18 General Lee. He
27:52
also included the Batmobile from the Batman Returns movie. Oh, he's just done all these great cars.
27:57
What they've done is they've got this new exhibit called Custom Charisma, the legendary creations of Carl Casper
28:04
that's open now and will be included with your museum admission through December 31st. Several of his most
28:09
legendary creations will be on display, including the Batman Returns Batmobile. You have a Turbo Shark Corvette, which
28:15
looks really cool. And then, of course, one that I can't wait to see called the Cosmic Invader, which looks kind of like
28:20
a Corvette, but kind of like a spaceship at the same time. I mean, looks crazy. Carl Casper used to put on these
28:26
traveling custom car shows all across the country. M so many people grew up if their dads and moms were into that kind
28:32
of thing, you know, being dragged down to the convention center and seeing all these custom cars and people doing crazy
28:37
stuff. Should be interesting. And of course, we're looking forward to checking out that exhibit at the MCM Bash next month. That's right. Also, our final story,
28:44
Keith, this is really cool. The 1953 C1 Corvette that was VIN number 100 is
28:50
going up for auction at Carile for their spring show. Yeah, you know, people like milestone cars. Oh, I got to have the first one or
28:57
got to have the last one. This one is the 100th Corvette ever built. The very first 100th Corvette. It's going to be
29:03
at Spring Carile auction in Pennsylvania. That auction is April 21st. Interesting history on this car.
29:08
The car was delivered to Cyrus Smith, who was the founder of American Airlines. Before that, he also worked as
29:14
the air travel coordinator for FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. There was that story about with the 53s, you know, you
29:20
couldn't buy one. They were all the orders were kind of doled out to celebrities and other high-profile people. And of course, being a friend of
29:27
the president and the founder of American Airlines certainly qualifies you as that. Amazing about this Corvette
29:32
is that it's considered a driver. It's driver quality. It's never been body off restored. It had a repaint a few years
29:38
back, but it's generally a survivor just about every other way. And in fact, the current owner put on about 5,000 miles
29:44
over 20 years or so. Wow. He drove it occasionally, but he drove it. And that's what Corvettes are made to do. This auction will just be one of
29:50
the things going on at Spring Carile. Spring Carile will be April 19th through the 23rd. I'll be looking forward to
29:56
seeing what that goes off for. It' be interesting. Yeah, you know, we actually saw the car down at Mikum CMI.
30:01
That's where we found out that it was owned by the American Airlines guy. Cool car. Of course, you know, there's not too many of these still floating around
30:07
and in fact, not too many that would be considered a survivor. Very interesting car. We'll be anxious to see what it goes for
30:12
for sure. Well, buddy, thanks for being back on Corvette today. All this information can be had at corvette
30:18
blogger.com. Take care of yourself, Keith, and we'll talk to you in two weeks. Absolutely. I hope everybody gets out
30:23
there, enjoy that springtime weather, and keep waving if we see another Corvette. Thanks for listening to Corvette Today,
30:28
and please be sure to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today podcast. And
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31:14
You've been listening to Corvette Today with Steve Garrett. If you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the
31:19
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31:27
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31:34
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