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CORVETTE TODAY #176 - Meet The Paint & Body Department Manager For Corvette - Chuck Valentini
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Jul 11, 2025
Chuck Valentini is one of the people on the Corvette team that you don't get to see too often. But he plays a key role on Corvette...he is the Manager of the Paint & Body Shop at the Bowling Green Assembly Plant! Chuck spends some quality time with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett to talk about the upgrades to the Paint Shop, the details behind the $439 million expansion to prepare for the C8 Corvette, the revolutionary, new paint process that the plant paints Corvettes and how environmentally friendly the new paint shop is. Chuck truly takes you behind the scenes at the Bowling Green Assembly plant to give you an insiders look at Corvette. This is a "must see" and "must listen to" episode of the ONLY current podcast on Corvette....CORVETTE TODAY!
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0:00
[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the podcast
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that talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, MC and DJ at one of the largest Corvette weekends
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in the country, Corvette Funfest, president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at
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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
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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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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Learn
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about their advanced PVD chrome finishing. They can refinish your wheels or offer a wheel exchange for most
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The official performance exhaust of Corvette today. Also, mid-enginecvet forum.com, the forum that focuses on the
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new mid-engine C8 Corvette. Meet a lot of Corvette enthusiasts like yourself at mid-enine corvette forum.com. And a
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shout out to Corvette Forum and Canadian Corvette Forum.com. Welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. My
2:46
guest on today's show is the plant body systems area manager for the Bowling Green assembly plant. In layman's terms,
2:53
that means he's the man in charge of the paint shop and the body shop for Corvette. You see him at numerous NCM
2:59
bashes before. His name is Chuck Valentini. Chuck, welcome to Corvette today.
3:04
Hi, Steve. Hey, it's great to be here today. I appreciate the invite and for the chance to talk with you and to talk
3:10
to our Corvette customers. It's an honor and a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you. Chuck, first of all, let's talk about
3:16
you personally. Talk about your childhood. Where did you grow up? Talk about your family. And did you grow up in a car family?
3:23
Yes. So for me, Marilyn is home. That's where I was born, raised, and grew up. I definitely came from a car family. In
3:30
fact, my family has 120 years of service to General Motors.
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Wow. My grandfather was an hourly employee in Baltimore, Maryland at the Baltimore
3:41
Assembly plant. My dad worked at that plant and both of them worked for 35 years. My brother worked for General
3:48
Motors and then myself. And here in September is my 29th year with General Motors. So when you add all that all up,
3:54
it's 120 years of service to GM. And so I think that that would qualify as us coming from a car family. And my dad
4:03
used to race cars. Used to race quarter mile for Pontiac and a Pontiac GTO. And
4:09
so it was kind of just something that I'd always been exposed to. I'm happy to have been exposed to that. And so that's
4:16
kind of my background and where I grew up. That's amazing. So, you knew you were a car guy from birth, didn't you?
4:22
Yeah, I kind of did. I'll tell you when I really knew it for sure. My dad had a 76 Corvette. It was white with a
4:29
four-speed, and he had done a lot of work to that car from a performance perspective. And when it would start in
4:35
our garage, it would shake my mom's china closet. That's awesome.
4:41
And that's when I kind of knew, you know, you kind of have that feeling that, hey, I like that. That's cool. How
4:47
did he get to do that? and what made that special. And so that kind of was the beginnings of it for me. And of
4:53
course that was even younger. But even when I was 16, I took my driver's test in a new Camaro Z28. And that wasn't
5:00
necessarily our plan. That wasn't what my parents wanted me to use. But our other family car was this big Osmobile
5:07
98. And that thing was too big for me to park. So, the Camaro it was I had to take the Camaro to the driver's test,
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you know, and we were a little worried that they might be like, "Hey, do we want to give a license to a 16-year-old if he's driving this Camaro Z28, but I
5:21
could park that car well and so that's why we took that and it worked out well and, you know, passed my test of course,
5:27
but it worked out good to always being exposed to cars like that." And it really came from dad, you know, wanting
5:34
to have cars like that in the family. And I think that to have a car like a Corvette, it needs to be built by people
5:40
that are car guys, right? People that have a passion for cars like our customers have. It's a special car,
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right? It's not something that's just designed to give you basic transportation. It's something that makes you feel special when you're
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driving it. Something that makes you want to just drive even if you don't have a destination. And I think in order
5:58
to build something like that, you need car guys on the team building it. Absolutely right. And you know what?
6:03
When you went to get your driver's license, I'm sure you impressed the guy that got in the car and took the test with you, didn't you?
6:09
Well, yeah. I made sure I was very careful with it and uh didn't throw a lot of RPMs in it and was able to park
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it really well and so passed the test with no problems. But there was a little concern with me bringing it just cuz you
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know, you don't want to give a kid a car like that. But it went well and it was a lot of fun. My parents also had when I
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my senior year high school, they had a Buick Grand National. I'm sure all your listeners remember what a phenomenal car
6:34
that Buick Grand National was. And that was actually the car I took to my senior prom. I was really excited about that.
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And so I think, you know, when you look at it, it's fair to say I grew up in a car family. That's a great story. Well, buddy, where
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did you go to school? What did you study in college? So, I went to John's Hopkins University in Baltimore.
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Yep. I have a master's degree from there in applied sciences. When I went to do
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that, you know, Johns Hopkins is I think it's, you know, a really good school, but one of the things that they tell you that they do different is they want to
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teach you how to think. You know, they don't want you to just learn formulas or to give them back how to do something.
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They want you to understand it and understand how to use it and how to develop it. And I think those skills
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that I learned there gave me a good baseline for wanting to drive improvements and innovation in what I
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get to do now. And so I feel really fortunate that I was able to learn things in school that I actually get to
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apply to my day job, right? Cuz there's a lot of folks, you know, that went to school for one thing and then in reality
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they now are in the world making a living doing something else. So I thought it worked out pretty well for me that I was able to learn something in
7:42
school and then apply it to my actual job. I thought it was a really good education there and and prepared me for
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what was going to happen after school. Definitely. Now talk about when you got to General Motors and what was your
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first job once you got there. So for me I started in Baltimore like we had said Marilyn was home and I started
8:00
at the Baltimore assembly plant. I was a process engineer in our body shop. So I
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had responsibility for dimensional control and did mechanical projects in the body shop. And I'll tell you one of
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the things that was special for me when I started there. There was still some folks there, some hourly folks in the
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plant that had worked with my grandfather. Wow. And so they had said to me, "Hey, are
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you Sam Valentini's boy?" I said, "Well, Sam was my grandfather and he had passed away when I was 13. And so it was neat
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to have friends of his that were in that plant. And then to see me come, you
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know, they knew my dad. My dad worked there. And then to see me come in, that was special for me. And so I really
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enjoyed that and made me know I was in the right spot doing the right things. And I did a couple of different engineering jobs in Baltimore. Was there
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for about 5 years and then left there and went to our shreport, Louisiana plant as the reliability engineering
8:57
manager down at that facility. And I was there for about two years and then I got
9:03
promoted to quality operations manager at our Lynon, New Jersey plant. And I did that for about two years and then
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became the paint superintendent at that plant. They wanted to make a change in paint. And so the plant managers at the
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time decided that's where I was going to go. I went there and it was really a good thing for me because paint and body both
9:24
really are a specialty type field and people once you get into those areas with their company that's kind of where
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you stay and you develop through unless you don't like those areas but I really do. I like the challenge in them. And so
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that started my paint career. And when I left Lynen, I went to our Lancing Grand River operations in Lancing, Michigan. I
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was the paint shift leader there. Wow. And we built some Cadillac products including the V series Cadillacs. From
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there, I went to our Lancing Delta Township plant, which is also in Michigan as a paint shift leader there.
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And that's where I was before I came here to Bowling Green in this job as the body and pain area manager. So, you add
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all that up, it was 29 years, six different plants, and a bunch of different assignments within those
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years. Wow, that's amazing, buddy. Well, talk about the transition over to the Bowling Green assembly plant and handing up the
10:13
paint and body shop there. That was actually a really cool day when I got the phone call to say, "Hey, would
10:19
you be interested in coming to the Bowling Green assembly plant for this job?" When they offered
10:25
me to come, I'll tell you, it was not any thought at all for me. I mean, one, in my opinion, if you're going to be in
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the car business, what else do you want to build? Exactly. Working for GM. And so, that was a great
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honor for me to be able to come work on this car, you know, cuz it truly is a special car. And to work on it, I feel
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privileged to do that, to come here and take that on. On a personal note, my brother was also at this assembly plant.
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As I mentioned to you, he worked for GM and he started in Baltimore and then he came here. And in fact, he spent most of
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his General Motors career here in Bowling Green. So to be able to come and kind of be reunited with our family, if
11:04
you will. He had unfortunately been diagnosed with cancer and was going through cancer treatments. And so it
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worked out just so well for me cuz I was able to be here and support him through his final years. And to have that
11:16
important family time during a troublesome time for us, that was important from a family perspective. And
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then the excitement of being able to work at Bowling Green and work on the Corvette program, that was just great.
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And we knew when I came here, which was in 2014, that we were going to build a new paint shop and that was going to be
11:36
one of the projects that I was going to work on. So, it was definitely a lot of excitement during that period of time
11:41
for me when I made the transition to come here. Very cool. And buddy, that was a perfect segue because we're going to take our
11:47
first break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the new paint expansion at the Bowling Green assembly plant. Coming up next on Corvette Today,
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is Chuck Valentini, the Bowling Green assembly plant, paint shop, and body
15:29
shop manager. In segment number two, we're going to talk about the expansion of Bowling Green. Chuck, GM spent $439
15:37
million in upgrades and expansion, and the plant expanded by 450,000 square
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feet for the C8. talk about the paint shop and the body shop before the massive upgrade and then we'll
15:49
transition into what it is now. Sure. Well, frankly, our paint shop that was here was a very old shop. It did not
15:57
have the technology or the means in it to produce the worldass finish that was
16:04
befitting our car and that we knew our customers were looking for. And so as the C8 was being designed, we knew it
16:12
was going to be an exceptional and awesome car. And it was going to be a car that we didn't have to make any excuses for. And so we wanted to make
16:19
sure that we elevated the paint finish to that car to the same level that the rest of the car was going to be. And
16:26
when we assessed the old paint shop that we had here, there was no way we could
16:32
retrofit that to accomplish what we wanted to do. So, General Motors made the decision to make this extremely
16:38
large capital expenditure to build this new paint shop here in Bowling Green. In fact, that price that you quoted, that
16:45
$439 million, that was the price of the paint shop alone.
16:50
Wow. The other expansions that we did cost additional money. Our body shop was
16:56
nice. It had been recently refreshed for the C7, but we did have to replace that
17:01
for the C8. The move to the mid-enine architecture obviously changed
17:07
significantly the whole body structure of the car and that necessitated us building a new body shop as well. So
17:14
there's a brand new body shop here at the plant and then of course the paint shop. Paint shops are the most expensive
17:20
portion of our assembly plants partly from the technology that's in them but also from all of the infrastructure and
17:27
environmental controls that go along with supporting that paint process. So that's how we kind of made the decision
17:34
and then started on the process so that when we launched C8, we knew we needed
17:39
the new body shop, but we also wanted the new paint shop so that we could elevate the finish of the car to be
17:44
befitting the car. That's amazing. That's a lot of money just for a paint shop. $439 million.
17:50
It is. Now, the paint equipment at the Bowling Green assembly plant is also very revolutionary. You don't paint Corvettes
17:57
like a traditional car is painted. talk about that and how the Bowling Green assembly plant is on the cutting edge of
18:03
painting cars. You're right. I mean, you can imagine a company like General Motors when we
18:08
build shops, in this case paint shops, we have a standard bill of process, if
18:14
you will, as to how we should do it. And that's how we build our paint facilities. This one is a oneoff design.
18:22
And it's because here we're painting composite body panels. There are issues
18:27
with composite body panels. They don't like heat, for example. They can't withstand the same heat that a metal
18:34
body vehicle has. There's some paracity in them where they're porous and they'll actually absorb some of the fluid
18:41
package into the panel itself, which is not normal when you deal with an aluminum or a steel body panel. So, one
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of the things that we did when we were designing this shop is it's like, okay, this is our clean sheet approach. What
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do we need? What do we want to do here that will be different that'll overcome
19:02
the challenges of the composite body? So, we use the composits, right? They're great. They're lightweight. They allow
19:08
us to hold really great shapes, some nice angularity shapes, and that's why we use them. It's just a little tougher
19:14
for us to paint. So, how are we going to do that? I'll highlight three of them. One is I'll mention the low bake. So, as
19:19
we talked about not liking heat, so we have to bake at a significantly lower temperature than a normal paint shop
19:25
does. that requires differences in our oven technology, the lengths of our ovens and then even in the paint
19:31
formulation itself so that we get the appropriate cure on the vehicle. And
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then another big change of this shop is we have a robotic wet sand process here.
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So what we do is all of our panels are primed twice. That's not normal. Normal
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paint shops, they're primed once. But for us, the first layer of prime that's added is added by our supplier and it
19:56
has a conductivity additive to it to make our panels conductive. During the painting process, what you do is you
20:02
charge the paint and we ground the body and this aids in paint application so that the paint goes where we want it to
20:09
on the panel. Well, composite panels aren't naturally conductive, so we had to have an additive to it, right? And
20:16
then the other advantage of adding two layers of prime because then we prime them after we receive them. That gives
20:23
us a double layer of prime and then we sand part of the primer off to create a
20:28
smoother surface. I would describe it this way. If you think of a car's primer as the canvas for a painting. So the
20:35
better that canvas is, the better the final product will be. We spent a lot of
20:40
time, energy, and effort to improve the canvas, if you will, before we paint it. And that's why we did that. And then
20:47
I'll tell you the last major difference or one of the other major differences I'll talk about is we added additional
20:53
spray booth capacity in the shop so that we can paint cars slower with multiple
20:58
passes when we paint them. Paint doesn't like you to put it all on at one time. I'm sure everyone's done their Home
21:04
Depot weekend painting project and if you put too much on, you see what happens with that. You'll get some sags
21:10
and things of that nature. So think of it as you want to double coat it. It's the same thing when we paint cars. We
21:17
want to double pass all of them when they're in our spray booths, right? So, when they're painted, you'll watch the
21:22
robots paint them and then you'll see either that robot or one of the adjacent robots, depending on the panel, goes
21:28
back over it and does it again. And that gives us the ability to more precisely control the paint fluids and ultimately
21:34
improve the appearance of the car. All of those things I mentioned were designed to improve appearance and
21:40
reduce orange peel, right? Orange peel is something that's naturally inherent in a paint process and any paint
21:45
process, but we tried to do these things that have significantly reduced the
21:51
amount of orange peel that's there on our cars. Very nice. And that's a big deal in the car industry, especially in the high-end
21:57
cars like Corvette. Orange peel is a big deal and it's great to see that you guys have addressed that and are working to
22:03
almost eliminate that as well. Yes. Corvette customers take their cars, like you say, to the museum, to the
22:09
Bash, to the various other shows. They like show the cars and they want to have a good finish on it. That was clearly
22:15
one of our goals with the new shop is to improve the finish of the car and a lot of that technology that I mentioned we
22:22
did specifically to make the appearance of the car better. And I think the data shows and the feedback that we've gotten
22:28
shows that people can see the difference in the car as a result of that. Definitely. Chuck, talk about the role
22:33
you played in the expansion. Did you have a personal role in the equipment and the facility and the layout and
22:39
everything? Yes. I would say the first thing we did because a lot of the things
22:44
we did in this building, we've not done them before. We tested some of this in our old paint shop.
22:50
Okay. So, the robotic sanding process, for example, we didn't have robots to do that in the old shop. So, we built some
22:57
panels by hand to simulate what the robot would do, then painted them through that shop to see what the
23:04
improvement was. And even with the paint technology that we had over there, the spray applications that we had there,
23:11
even with that older technology, we saw the improvements. And because we were able to do that and validate it and show
23:19
folks that listen, yes, it's going to cost us more money by adding these extra processes, but look at the result and
23:26
look what it's going to be when we do that. That was a big enabler for us. So by being here and being involved and I
23:32
had responsibility for the old shop as well when I got here. So having that as well as working on this one that let me
23:39
use resources right to be able to do things like that testing to show that hey this is absolutely something we need
23:45
to do. Very cool. Now talk about that very first Corvette that was painted in the new paint shop because I know you had to
23:52
be nervous and excited all at the same time. What was it? What generation of Corvette was painted? What was the color
23:58
that first came out of that new paint shop? Yeah. So, the first car that we painted, it was a white C7. It was March 28 of
24:05
2017. Wow. The reason I know that so particularly is because that was so special to me
24:12
that the hood from that car is hanging on the wall right outside my office and there's a sign on it with the date
24:19
telling you that this was the first car painted in this paint shop. It has the date on it there of March 28. and it's
24:25
signed by the members of the paint shop team. For sure, it was nervous and exciting like you said at both times. I
24:31
mean, we spent a couple years working on what this was going to be and making decisions about what it was going to do
24:38
and how we were going to process cars. And when you do that and when you do something that's different than GM's
24:44
standard bill of process for shops, in our case, we knew we were doing the right thing, but it hadn't been done
24:50
before. So, yes, I was very nervous when we painted that car, but I got to tell you, that's one of my best days that
24:56
I've had at working for GM. The rewarding feeling that when we ran that through here and it all worked and it
25:03
turned out and it looked the way we wanted it to, it was like, wow, that was truly a memorable moment. It's one that
25:09
I absolutely won't forget in my career. That's a fantastic memory. Well, buddy, let's take our final break. When we come
25:15
back, we're going to talk more about how you paint Corvettes at the Bowling Green assembly plant. Coming up next on
25:20
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And now back to Corvette Today with your host and my husband, Steve Garrett. Hey,
27:58
thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette, brought
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833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
28:30
Chuck Valentini, the paint shop and body shop manager at the Bowling Green assembly plant. In this third and final
28:36
segment, we're going to talk more about how Bowling Green paints Corvettes. Chuck, your new paint shop added new
28:42
tooling and robots, and everything is state-of-the-art, and it's environmentally safe, too. Why don't we
28:48
talk about that? Because your dry scrub booth technology, and the LED lighting, and all the new robots, the high
28:54
efficiency baking ovens, those are all state-of-the-art. Yes, they are. And so we talked earlier
29:00
about some of the enhancements in the shop that were designed to support quality. Well, you just mentioned some
29:07
of the enhancements in our shop that were designed to support the environment and for us to be good corporate citizens
29:13
in the environment and as well as provide a good environment for our people to be in. So, you mentioned our
29:18
dry scrub technology and and that's one I'm really proud of and we've won a number of awards from the state of
29:25
Kentucky for this technology because in a normal paint shop, the paint that
29:31
doesn't get onto a vehicle when you spray it, it goes down below the spray booth into a paint recovery system that
29:38
is essentially a giant waterfall that captures the paint and then that water
29:44
goes out to a waste treatment plant. the paint gets removed from it and what you're left with is a paint sludge that
29:50
you then have to dispose of. Well, here we don't have that. You know, first our
29:55
transfer efficiency is very high. So, we don't put a lot of paint below the booth into the dry scrub system. But the paint
30:01
that does go down there, it's captured by a crushed limestone. So, there's a
30:06
limestone bed underneath of our booth and the paint falls into it and then as it attaches itself to the limestone,
30:13
it's gently agitated down and because it's heavier, it goes to the bottom and it's evaced out of the boost
30:20
automatically by our equipment. And there's two farm silos on the east side of the paint shop and one has clean new
30:27
limestone in it and one has limestone that's been used. And we get a truck twice a week that brings us fresh
30:34
limestone and then one that takes away the used limestone. And the great thing with it is that limestone then goes out
30:41
and is made into cement. And so we don't have the waist stream of having to deal
30:47
with paint sludge. That's one of the great technologies that's in the shop that helps us from an environmental
30:53
standpoint. You know, we want to be good corporate citizens everywhere that we operate. I mean, we all live here and we
30:59
want to do our part and that's a huge thing that's a part of us doing that. I would say as far as you mentioned some
31:05
of our other enhancements, of course, we have state-of-the-art LED lighting that is designed to allow the operators to
31:12
see the surface of the paint better, but of course use less energy. Our high efficiency baking ovens. And if you
31:18
think of a paint oven, it's nothing like the ovens in our house, right? There's not a door that opens and closes.
31:24
They're giant tubes and the car goes in and it moves through the tubes and it's exposed to a ramp up in temperature,
31:31
then it maintains temperature and then it comes down as the car comes out. But these ovens are designed so precisely
31:37
that we don't need doors on them and you can stand next to them and the heat's not coming out. Right? So if you open
31:43
your oven at home when you're cooking, you're going to feel a lot of heat come out. You can stand at the end of our ovens and you're like, "Wow, I think I
31:50
should feel a lot of heat coming out." But the way we have them balanced, we keep the hot air in there. Pain is such
31:55
a complicated process and there's so many technologies that go into it, it's one of the things that I enjoy about it
32:01
is because there is a lot to it, a lot of things that we can do to make the
32:06
process better for our cars, but also better for the environment and other aspects as well.
32:11
That's fascinating. Chuck, talk about how long it took to actually get from the planning stage of the expansion all
32:18
the way to completion because I've got to imagine there was a lot of years in the planning part of this. And did you
32:24
play a part in putting all the plans together? We did. That's something that's very fortunate because normally when you do a
32:31
project like this, at least with General Motors, we're building the standard bill of process templates and the shop
32:37
basically is designed and then it goes to the field and it gets built and commissioned. But here, because we did
32:43
so many things that were unique and this was a one-off shop, the team here, myself, we were intricately involved in
32:49
designing this shop so that we could have things like the robotic wet sand. We have the blackout process on the
32:56
third floor where we spray the blackout material that's underneath of the rear hatch and then the hood on the front of
33:02
the car, the frunk. That's a process that's not in any of our other shops. And so while GM has subject matter
33:08
experts in many things, they don't have in some of the things that we do, we're
33:13
the subject matter experts in those. And so they pulled us in very early in this design stages so that we could help lead
33:20
the design of what this would be. And that really started as soon as I got here in 2014.
33:26
Wow. And that's when the designing started. We broke ground in 2015. There's a
33:32
shovel on the wall in my office that was used in the groundbreaking and has the date on it there from 2015. And then as
33:38
I mentioned to you, it was March of 2017 that we painted our first car. So really, you know, about three-year
33:45
process of design and then building and then commissioning and launching of the
33:51
shop. It was a long-term commitment for us. It was a lot of long days to get this thing from concept to where it is,
33:58
but rewarding at the same time. And I know this shop so well because we were here when it was dirt and helped in all
34:05
of the stages of the planning and then being on the floor as we were building it and then moving it to launch and now
34:10
to operation. That's fantastic. Let's talk about paint colors for a little bit. Talk about your
34:16
interaction with the GM people that actually pick the paint color. How does all that come together and do you have
34:22
some influence in those paint colors? GM has a color studio in Michigan and they
34:27
actually pick the colors for the car and then they send to us what they would like and we then work on that and work
34:34
on workability and see is that something we can deliver in the way that they want it to look and sometimes the answer is
34:41
just a simple yes we can do that and we run our test and we run the validations and it's a long process to get from that
34:49
to where we are on the final product we've already moved pass the new colors
34:54
that we're launching here for 24 and we're already working on what's coming for 25. Wow. And so we stay several
35:02
years ahead of the process and what's coming. So they pick the colors. Now I will say that there are things that we
35:08
can do to adjust or pivot a shade of a color if we think it would be better one
35:13
way or another. And so we'll do that and we'll say, "Hey, this is what you ask us for, but this really looks better on the
35:20
body of the car." Oh, here's kind of what we did to that. So then we'll show them this is how this
35:25
looks and here's how we think the right way to get that is. And so our goal was to make it look as good as we can for
35:31
the customer. I will say as we've increased there was a time when what you could get eight colors on a Corvette and
35:37
then we went to 10. Then we launched the shop it was 12 and now it's 14. Well we
35:42
know when we do that quantity of colors they all can't be the best sellers,
35:48
right? And so one of the things that's really good is having the ability to paint all of these different colors
35:55
allows us to do more boutique colors, right? Like the cacti that's here for the 24 model year, the new color, right?
36:02
You know, that color is not going to challenge torch red for the top sales spot, right? It's just not
36:08
right. And we know that. But because we have the systems available, we can offer
36:13
colors that appeal to a different segment of the group that says, "Hey, yeah, I do like that and I would like
36:19
one that color." And so we can run that for a couple of years and then bring something else in. And that's one of the things that the shop has allowed us to
36:25
do is by having those additional systems to let us have more boutique colors and allow give the customer more choice,
36:32
right? Because nobody wants the same colors and so this lets us mix that up. We don't want to have Model T's here
36:38
where where they're all the same color. That's really cool. Now, Corvette has obviously in 2023 hit a milestone with
36:45
its 70th anniversary Stingrays and Z06s. As a matter of fact, as you know, I'm a
36:50
proud owner of a white pearl metallic Stingray coupe myself. But that color is very special because it's the first
36:56
triote color ever offered on Corvette and it's only available on the 70th anniversary cars. Let's talk about that
37:04
70th anniversary white pearl metallic and obviously the black metallic color too and the role you played in both of
37:09
those colors. Sure. Well, the program team wanted to do something special for the 70th
37:15
anniversary. Sure. And we totally agreed, right? I mean, it's a special thing to have a name
37:20
plate running this long. And we wanted to make and help them commemorate the cars with something special. And so, the
37:27
idea came up of having a black and white. And as you mentioned, you know, there was always a desire to have a tri
37:32
coat on the Corvette. Yeah. Our old paint shop, it was not capable of producing one. Well, when we built
37:38
this shop, it was capable of doing it, right? And it's an extra process because
37:43
normal cars, you know, there's a primer and then you have base paint and then you have your clear coat. Well, in a tri
37:50
coat, of course, you know, we have the primer. Our cars, the default color is gray. So, when we get the panel in, it's
37:56
kind of almost a black primer that's on it. And then we prime them gray for most
38:01
cars. That's the default color. But we also have a red primer. And obviously, we're using that on the reds and an
38:08
orange. And then we have white. And so we would use white. The white pearl would have that white primer, but then
38:15
instead of just a base coat, we have a ground coat and a mid coat and then the clear coat. Wow.
38:20
And that helps give a porescent look to the car where you kind of see color as you're looking through the layers of the
38:26
car. And that's because the color of the car is partially coming from that white prime, partially the ground, partially
38:32
the mid coat. And that's what kind of gives it that porescent look that the car has. We knew that they always wanted
38:39
that. And what better time to say, "Yeah, okay, we're ready. We can do it now. Let's go do it." Right? Cuz when we
38:45
first launched the shop, we didn't want to do that. It's a lot to launch and get everything going. And we didn't want to
38:50
add in the extra complexity of the tri code. But the time was certainly right. We were ready. And what better car to
38:56
put it on than the 70th anniversary car. I will tell you that for me, it's one of my favorite colors. It's the favorite
39:02
one we're currently painting. I had a Z06 that I was driving. It was a 70th
39:07
anniversary white pearl and that was a car that I ordered and I just loved that car. Thought it was absolutely awesome.
39:13
And we were involved very much in that one. That's a case where they released the color to us and asked for this and
39:20
then as we brought it in and painted it and and we're doing testing to it. We made some changes to the prime shade
39:27
that changed the color and the hue of the car from what its original intent was. And we just really loved how it
39:34
made the car look and we shared it with the program team and like, you know, hey, how do you like this one? And
39:40
they're like, oh yeah, no, we like it like that. We want you to do it like that. And so we were able to do that.
39:47
And when you, you know, that felt really great because, you know, that's a special car. And for us to be able to
39:52
help tint that shade for it, it's not like any other white pearls that are in the GM portfolio. So, if you park it
39:58
next to an escalator, a Denali, you'll see it's not the same. We know that our customer would like that having that
40:04
unique color palette, and we just think it looks so good on the car. I'm really, really happy with the way that color
40:10
turned out that we were able to deliver that one. Buddy, I love the color. I love the car, and I love the uniqueness and the
40:16
specialness of it with that 70th anniversary. You hit a grand slam with that. Not just a home run, but a grand
40:22
slam. That's great. Thank you. Sure. Hey, do you see any room for improvement with this upgraded paint job?
40:27
For sure. I would tell you that myself and my team, we believe in continuous improvement and we work every day, every
40:34
week to make the car better, right? And sometimes it's things we can do within our current processes or equipment. And
40:41
sometimes we need to add systems or technology like we did with adding additional systems so that we could
40:47
increase the number of paint colors. Cuz when we launched the shop, we only had enough to do 12 colors. And then since we launched it, we added three more
40:54
systems so that we could take the color palette up to 15. Now when you have a tri coat, that takes two of those
41:00
systems. So that's why we're at 14. Gotcha. But we fully embrace the technology and
41:05
we're always looking for what's next. We have a recent visit by Mary Bar, our CEO
41:12
of General Motors, as you know, and one of the things that we did was take her
41:17
into our paint shop and show her some of the innovative things that my team here
41:23
has developed. That's such a proud moment for me to be able to show our leadership team what technology it is
41:30
that we're developing here in Bowling Green. That's a great thing to show off the innovation. And so, yeah, I'm always
41:36
looking for what's next. So, I'm sure there'll be additional improvements coming. Wow, that's awesome. Rubbing elbows with
41:42
the CEO. That's pretty damn cool, buddy. Now, the plant tours have
41:47
reopened. What will visitors see when they come through the paint shop at Bowling Green assembly plant?
41:52
When we designed the shop, we actually made a corridor, a tour corridor. You're
41:58
very familiar. You've seen this corridor that we put in. Yes. Our thought was we want to give people a
42:03
window to the world of paint, right? So customers, they can't come in our paint shop due to contamination concerns.
42:09
Right. Right. So all the people in pain have to have the lint-free blue suits. They have to have special hats or hair
42:16
nets. They have to go through a crater testing process. We regulate what personal hygiene products they wear. All
42:23
things to keep contamination from people away from the car. So we couldn't let people in, right? But we want them to
42:30
see. And so what we did, what they'll get to see, and we've added to this even since the tours have opened. So if any
42:36
of your listeners were here a number of months ago and said, "Well, I didn't see that thing." Well, that's because we keep adding to what's over there. We
42:43
have a video that shows the entire process that we show to the visitors when they're there. And then you
42:48
actually get to see in one of our color booths. You're actually looking at color booth 3. And we put glass walls going
42:54
down the side so that you can watch the robots applying base paint to the car. So that's a cool thing that people like
43:01
to be able to enjoy seeing the paint layering process that I explained to you where we have the supplier prime then
43:08
ours then the base paint or in the case of a tri coat the ground and the mid coat and then the clear coat. We have
43:15
panels that show that different layering on the wall so that you can see that and see how those are layered into a panel.
43:23
We recently added samples of all of our colors. So, we have painted little
43:28
models of all of the colors there so that the customer can see them. And I've recently added a new section of upcoming
43:35
colors that shows the new colors that are coming for a given model year. So, once the color is announced that it's
43:41
released, then we'll put it up on the wall over there so that people can see that. And I see a lot of customers
43:47
looking at that and looking at the different colors that are over there. I think that's really a good thing. There's a hood over there that's behind
43:54
the glass that came from the number 24 Henrik Motorsports Exalta Chevrolet that's driven by William Byron. Wow.
44:01
So Exalta is our paint supplier and as you know Rick Henrik is a huge fan of Corvettes and he's here frequently since
44:08
he buys the first VIN of all the cars. He gave us that hood and himself and
44:13
William Byron who was also here signed it and it's a hood that was on the car actually last year in the NASCAR
44:20
playoffs and it's signed and it's over there for people to see. We got a bell applicator off one of our robots over
44:26
there so people can see what's on the end of the robot. And so I think that we put a lot of things over there to help
44:34
show people what's going on in paint, what's actually happening inside of there. And so it was recently voted,
44:41
they did a survey of guests visiting the plant. It was recently awarded the best
44:46
tour stop. So our guest told us that this is the stop that they like the most and got the most value from. So I'm
44:52
proud of that, right? That they get to see a window to the paint world and then that they really enjoyed it. You know, that's important for us.
44:58
I loved watching the robots paint the panels and looking at the colors on the wall. That was fantastic, buddy.
45:03
Yeah. And then there's one more thing over there, too, that I wanted to mention. It's kind of a funny story, you
45:08
know, when you talked about during the construction process, you know, I would be out in the shop and I would walk the
45:15
shop with the construction manager and obviously when I would see something that wasn't right or that I didn't like,
45:21
I would say, "Hey, what's this? What do we got here?" And when we built this, the first piece of steel that we put up
45:27
on the shop was in the northeast corner of the shop, and we signed it before the piece of steel got put into position.
45:33
Wow. And so we're walking the shop and we're over there and I'm looking at the column and I said, "Wait a minute.
45:39
Where's the first piece of steel that we put up? I thought it was this one, but it can't be this one because this
45:44
doesn't have any signatures on it." The construction manager said, "Chuck, the dumb painters." And I said, "What? Dumb
45:51
painters? No, I run the paint shop. You just called the painters dumb." And he said, "Not your painters, the ones that
45:58
painted the columns." He said, "They painted over your signatures." And I was like, "Well, that's terrible." He said,
46:04
"Well, get a pen and resign it." I go, "No, that's not the same thing." And then he said, "Oh, wait." He goes, "I
46:10
have a better idea." He said, "We're getting ready to pour the concrete in the tour area." He said, "We'll put your
46:17
handprints in the concrete over there, and then they'll always be there. They'll never have to worry about them
46:23
getting painted." So over there in the tour area in the cement, you'll see the
46:28
handprints of myself and some of the paint launch team in the cement. And then after we did that and shop opened
46:36
up and we started to bring tours in, it was like, you know, people don't even notice that those are there. So we had
46:41
the idea and said, well, we need to put a sign there so that folks know, looked out and and here's what this is. So they
46:48
asked me, they said, well, what do you want on the sign and we'll make a sign and we'll put it here. Nice. So, if I can, I'll read you what I
46:55
wrote here because I think this is a really good summary of the process here for us. I put in the concrete below you
47:01
will see the handprints and initials of some of the team that turned the dream of this paint shop into reality. Along
47:08
the way, we learned it is harder to build a machine that builds the machines than it is to build the machine itself.
47:14
But through dedication, perseverance, and teamwork, we prevailed. It took over two million man-h hours to design,
47:22
construct, and commission this paint shop. Doing so has been the highlight of our careers. It has been truly a
47:28
rewarding experience to know that we are a small part of the Corvette history as we built the machine that will paint the
47:34
dreams of tomorrow. That's fantastic. That is outstanding. Yeah. You know, so when I'm gone from
47:41
here and off to whatever's next, and I'm not planning to go anywhere, so don't anybody read into that. But eventually
47:46
when I leave here, I can say, "Yeah, you know, my fingerprints are on that literally and figuratively based on
47:53
putting them over there." And so, it's really been that great moment of pride for myself and my team. I got a great
47:58
team here. I'm blessed to have that and they've done a really good job and I think we've done a good job with the
48:04
launch of this shop and with the car. Buddy, that's fantastic. What a great story. Chuck, thank you so much for
48:10
taking time to be on Corvette today. This has been fantastic. Well, that's great, Stephen. Thanks for
48:15
having me on and I hope it was good information for the listeners. Thanks for listening to Corvette Today and please be sure to tell your family,
48:22
friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today podcast. And thanks to our sponsors, Wheelcraft. Want
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to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Visit wheelcraft.com to learn about their
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Soul Performance Products at soulppp.com. The official exhaust of Corvette today.
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in Kansas City at cheviusa.com. You've been listening to Corvette Today
49:09
with Steve Garrett. If you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on Corvette
49:15
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49:21
That's Steve Garrett DJ@gmail.com. Garrett has two Rs and two T's. Or
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Steve Garrett DJ. Thanks again for listening to Corvette today.