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CORVETTE TODAY #179 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid September 2023
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May 8, 2025
It's the beginning of year #4 for Corvette News & Headlines! Car Show Season is winding down and Fall is right around the corner. The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer. However, as we get closer and closer to the new season, there is no shortage of Corvette news! Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, teams up with Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger once again to keep you up to date on what's happening in the world of Corvette. Here are a few of the topics Steve and Keith bring you next week: 1. 2023 Corvette production hits a new milestone 2. The C8 Z06 hits Japan 3. Corvette ranks highest in JD Power's Multi Media Study 4. Is the C8's "Great Wall of Buttons" really going away in 2025? 5. This year's Corvette Hall Of Fame inductees 6. A Batmobile based on a 1992 Corvette sells on Bring A Trailer Count on CORVETTE TODAY to bring you the latest news in the world of Corvette every other week with your host, Steve Garrett and Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger. Listen to the podcast, watch the YouTube video, join the Facebook group, sign up for email notifications and shop in the Merchandise Store at:
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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
0:13
in the country Corvette Fun Fest 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 current
0:34
podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your host Steve Garrett I appreciate you tuning in Corva today is brought to you
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by wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright Chrome or black chrome wheels learn about their Advanced
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shout out to Corvette forum and canadiancorpetforum.com welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the
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world it's time to bring you the latest Corvette news and headlines with my buddy Keith Cornett from corvettebblogger.com as you know Keith
2:52
is here twice per month he's here every other week we both keep you up to date and current on what's happening with
2:57
America's Sports Car Keith welcome back to the show buddy I didn't realize this this episode of Corvette today marks the
3:04
beginning of year number four for our news and headline shows how about that I just find that stat amazing Steve part
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of it is you know you think wow this has been that long and then I'm like yeah I've been working with Steve it has been that long
3:16
I'm just kidding I really do enjoy this for me A lot of times you know we write a story and then it hits the archives
3:23
and we move on it's always a good way to kind of look back at the last two weeks and say you know what's really been impacting sometimes stories stick around
3:30
for a few days and they grow and change it's just a good way to really look back at the news and say you know how is this
3:36
impacting the Corbett Nation what do enthusiasts think about this and it helps us actually you know as we're looking at stories in the future I know
3:42
all people will like to hear about that on the Corvette Today podcast and it's just been a great thing for us a great
3:47
experience for us and I'm very happy to be part of it Steve likewise buddy it's been a great experience for me too it's
3:53
an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show every other week well thank you very much let's start our new segment
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Keith like we always do with an update of production at the Bowling Green assembly plant well Steve you know
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that's an interesting question and because we're at the very very end of a model year it is very hard to exactly say where we are right now we're
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recording this on Friday morning and it's our belief and I say believe because we just don't know if the Corvette assembly plant is building 2023
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Corvettes today or did they end the 2023s on Thursday evening as we thought they might with this whole strike thing
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going on too there's just this question that we just don't know yet as we've mentioned though we get our latest Counts from Roger Keel on Facebook and
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his spreadsheet actually had the 2023s being produced through Thursday's second shift now Friday morning we just haven't
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been able to confirm yet if the plan has switched over to the 2024s this morning or will they run the 2023s to the end of
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the week everybody's kind of been Coy about it we know we didn't get any official numbers from Harlan Charles at
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the NCM anniversary as far as those totals he did tell us that they have 53
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448 Corvettes made during the 2023 model year but it doesn't sound like that's a
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final number yet so we don't know if there's some play there but that is a record for Bowling Green production and
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it's just a few hundred numbers off the 1979 production record of 53 807. the
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question again goes back to when exactly does the 2023 model year end and if there are any additional production counts that can be added to that number
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I mean it'd be fantastic to pick up that record overall even if it does you know involve you know yeah you're adding a
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couple dates here and there and you know this model year started just a little bit earlier than usual but it's still a record if you're responding to Market
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demands you're making that many cars it'd be nice to go out on top but again I think we're gonna have to do a cleanup
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on aisle 2 for this news and headlines podcast in two weeks just to kind of wrap up and say this is exactly where we
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ended up for the 2023 model year I mean it's been an exciting year for sure with all the numbers coming out and some
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great cars and of course the introduction of the Z06 so we definitely want to pay attention and find out exactly what that is it's going to be an
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exciting final finish that's for sure Keith now like Keith said we were recording this on Friday September 15th
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what is going on with the UAW strike which started technically last night at midnight yeah so you know we've been
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anticipating that the United Auto Workers would be striking against the big and again they didn't disappoint did they we didn't really know exactly how
6:09
they were going to do it GM had made we understand four different offers with their final one being around a 20 wage
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hike over four years ten percent of that happening within the first year and then there's up to five weeks of paid vacations other considerations including
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payments for retirees and then exactly a couple of years does it take to become a fully invested member of the work Force
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what we didn't know is exactly how the UAW would plan to strike were they going to do all three at once we heard about a
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targeted strike and it turns out that UAW Champaign is called what he calls a stand-up strike against one major
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facility from each of the three automakers it's really unprecedented for them to go after all three automakers At
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Once by targeting just these three plans it looks like they have around nine percent of the UAW workers on strike the
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GM plant that's being striked against first is the Wentzville Assembly Plant near St Louis which builds the Colorados
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and the GMC Canyon pickup trucks as well as the Chevrolet Express and the Savannah vans kind of interesting it
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wasn't one of those that was on our Target we thought for sure that they were going to go after the Romulus plant
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which builds the Sierra and the Silverado you know the two major vehicles in the GM lineup how long is
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the strike going to last well the Corvette assembly plants see any kinds of slowdowns or part supply issues kind of remains to be seen we did write a
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story about how if there was a strike at the Bowling Green assembly plant there would be no further deliveries of
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Corvettes from the plant to the dealers until that was all wrapped up and settled right now with this targeted
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strike against one facility and we don't know how the Ripple effects were gonna go with that it's just kind of like
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we'll have to wait and see yeah and a lot of people have asked me about this too people have tpws of September 25th
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and how does that affect my tpw we just don't know yet and we don't know how it's going to affect the Bowling Green
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assembly plant so in our next news and headline show we'll have a much clearer picture probably of what's going on on
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some positive news Keith the 2024 Corvette e-ray is a semi-finalist for the North American Car of the Year award
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I like that yeah this is exciting last time North American Cartier last time Corvette was up was in 2020 and of
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course we won that award the e-ray was first announced last month that it was in consideration for this prestigious award and one of the reasons why we like
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this award is because it's actually voted on by 50 Automotive journalists that make up the North American car
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truck of the year jury what these guys do is they check out the cars they drive them they review them themselves you
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know and then they turn in their findings and they're all tabulated at the opening of the Detroit Auto Show last week the best of the 2024 was
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announced these are all the semifinals so the Corvettes going up against nine other vehicles including the BMW 5
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series the BMW I5 a Ford Mustang the Honda Accord the Hyundai iconic six the
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Subaru Impreza Toyota Crown the Toyota gr Corolla and the Toyota Prius and
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Prime Prius the next step in this voting will come on November 16th at the LA Auto Show and then that'll narrow it
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down to the top three finalists in each category so that the cars the trucks and then the sport utility vehicles will all
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have the final three and then the winning vehicle from each segment will be announced on January 4th of 2024. we
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won this award in 2020 it'd be fantastic to win it again in 2024 with the Corvette e-ray that'd be cool fingers
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crossed buddy fingers crossed also the C8 Z06 now is in Japan yeah so the
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Chevrolet Japan released a promo video for the upcoming Corvette Z06 that we offered in the country we've written
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about this before it's of course a right hand drive model it's going to export exhaust with a quarter mounted exhaust
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and if you remember all the Z06 is offered in Japan would all be black with
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the adrenaline red interior it's our belief that they're getting about 15 cars or so in that first batch and we're
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certain that they sold out of that pretty quickly Japan also is offering a limited edition stingray that's pre-configured as well I think they've
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sold out one or two of those different configurations already seeing what happens when you offer a right-hand
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Drive model in these kind countries was definitely a winning strategy we're not talking about a lot of cars over there obviously pricing is a lot higher there
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than it is here but like we like to say you know as part of that world domination tour that Corvette's on right now and anytime you can get any impact
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into these markets that previously didn't do well it's just another feather in the cap not exactly sure exactly when
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the z06s are hitting the market because they do build them in batches and of course building 15 of these cars you
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could do that over the course of a morning shift obviously at the Bowling Green so it's not taking up too many resources so you can find out exactly
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when these cars get in countries but it looks like they're previewing it because they got a really cool video of this black car driving around the countryside
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and some of the different areas in Japan it's a very picturesque nice I like that I still think this world domination
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thing is awesome also Keith Corvette is ranking highest in segment in the JD Power multimedia study and this is for
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the navigation screen stuff isn't it yeah this is a customer response survey too so these are Satisfaction by the
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owners that are saying that they like what they see here and I guess they like what they hear as well because we are talking multimedia the Corvette ranked
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at the top of the mid-size large premium segment and JD Power says about the study that quote consumers are looking
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for intuitive systems that are simple and not too distracting from the road the challenge to oems and suppliers is
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translating those customers experiences into design and functionality by meeting customer needs both quality and
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satisfaction will increase you came to talk about they want it simple and easy But the irony is that there's all this
11:27
talk about Chevrolet and General Motors taking away like apple carplay and the Android auto we are getting a new
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google-based system and one of the reasons why people like the carplay and Android auto is just because they're simple to use and it's kind of seamless
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with their phones so they're not being distracted from the road right the other point about this study too is that when you put 14 premium Bose speakers at a
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small space like the equivalence cabin you're going to be happy with the sound and I think that goes a long way to being satisfied with the multimedia
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setup in the Corvette you like how it sounds it's loud it's crisp it's clear yeah you're satisfied yeah absolutely
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right and we have one sad note Keith Corvette Central's founder Jerry Cohn passed away at 79 years old yeah this is
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another loss in the Corvette Community obviously we had Reeves Callaway passed away earlier this year we're losing some of these Old Guard enthusiasts you know
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these are the guys that turned their passion for the Corvette into successful businesses Jerry Cohn got his start
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because in the 1958 Corvette that he owned needed new grill teeth and it was easier for him to make reproduction
12:26
versions better than he could find quality used versions at Swap marks that idea actually turned into Corvette
12:32
Central which he ran with his son Scott and daughter Sarah for over 40 years in 2012 Jerry was inducted into the
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Bloomington Gold's Great Hall as one of the 50 Corvette Enthusiast innovators and Pioneers and listen to this he held
12:43
membership number 11 at the National Corvette Museum wow and Scott Cohn is number 12 and I think they got those in
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1991 which if you know the Corvette museum didn't officially open until 1994. so they were in on that ground
12:57
floor of Planning and Building the community around putting together a National Corvette Museum said you know
13:02
Corvette Central was just sold to Legendary companies last year I always feel bad for these people that just
13:07
retire they're looking forward to retirement and then they pass away right afterwards so our condolences go off to
13:13
the family and friends of Jerry Cohn anybody that's ever shopped at Corvette Central you can thank Jerry for that because it's a great company to work
13:19
with and we're going to miss them absolutely right well buddy it's time for our first break when we come back it's Corvette racing and Corvette rumors
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on Corvette Corvette today with your host Steve Garrett hey thanks for checking out Corvette
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is Keith Cornett from corvettebblogger.com in the second
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segment we always cover Corvette racing and Corvette rumors first of all Keith talk to me about Corvette racing at Fuji
16:42
wow that was a fun race there but it happened like overnight because of the time change right to be honest with you
16:48
I missed it you know I couldn't do it so the number 33 Corvette c8r with drivers
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Nikki katzberg Ben Keating and Nico Veron they finished on the podium once again they are originally in third place but then they actually moved up to
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second place after a 10 second time penalty was assessed to the number 57 Ferrari after the race for some
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post-race infraction so they actually were able to move up a little bit again there's a little bit of controversy here
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in the race Ben Keating was involved in a little side to side contact with that winning Ferrari the crew had to replace
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the door on the c8r but heating unfortunately was blamed by race and stewards for causing the crash and then
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he had to do a 30 second stop and go penalty as well so that knocked us back just far enough that we couldn't make a
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run back for the lead before the end of the race so it's amazing that we finished at third and then second overall for the GTD class there but
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pretty exciting stuff of course Fuji's a neat Speedway to watch you can catch a replay on the Motor Trend Channel if you
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did want to watch that the WC Corvette racing team will be back in Action they got one more race the final race happens
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November 4th at the eight hours of Bahrain so one more race there for the WCS and then they'll be all wrapped up
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that sounds good and speaking of Ben Keating this is a class move Ben bought Rolex watches for his co-drivers to
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celebrate their win at Le Mans earlier this year yeah this was a great story we call on social media apparently only the
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winning overall drivers receive a Rolex watch for winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans Ben Keating describes that as
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unacceptable so he took matters into his own hands he's from Texas so he went to a texas-based jewelry store bought three
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matching watches Rolexes I don't know what style or Rolex is but he bought three of them on the back of the watches
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he had inscribed the 100th Le Mans logo and then it says winner 2023 GTE class
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man talked about a Class Act there that's a pretty cool gift and it just shows the kind of class this team has it's been fun to have them together for
18:34
another year or two just to see what they could really do because they've seen to have developed extremely well it's kind of a shame to see them going
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different ways here at the end of the season yeah and Ben Keating has been on Corvette today look up that episode Ben's a cool guy he owns a lot of
18:47
dealerships in Texas it's a fun listen or a fun watch for sure also in racing
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Keith Corvette racing visited Indianapolis yeah the number three Corvette c8r from mimsa they're in
18:58
action over the weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the battle of the bricks that was on Saturday we're recording this on Friday so we don't
19:04
have those results here yet but we know the team needs to win to keep their hopes of the GT Pro Championship alive
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they were as of Before the Race they were 140 points behind the leader with two final races to go so we're keeping
19:15
our fingers crossed we'll have that discussion for you on the next news and headlines but you know what I liked about this this is the Indianapolis
19:20
Motor Speedway they race in Reverse so if you always think they always go I guess to the left in this race they run
19:27
the road course but they start by going to the right so it's always opposite so it's a little bit neat there again it's the road course at historic IMS so it's
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one that we're definitely going to be watching that'll be fun let's get to rumors Keith and this is a big rumor this is a huge rumor are we gonna lose
19:41
the ch's Great Wall of buttons starting in 2025. and this has been one of those rumors that just doesn't appear to be
19:47
going away and it turns out that really a lot of owners took offense of this story they love their Great Wall of
19:53
buttons and how dare you talk about changing it but we've been hearing this rumor since at least 2021 kind of didn't
19:59
make sense that early in Corvette production but we're headed towards 2025 five next year will be the six year
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production a small change like that could actually breathe a little bit of new life you do a little mid-cycle update on the car you might have some of
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those earlier adopters the 2020 2021 Corvette owners trading in their cars for new one and some of the other
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options that might be there it's pretty interesting concept and you know what we did was we teamed up I called John over
20:23
the Middleton Corvette forum or maybe he called me I don't really remember how that went down but we started throwing
20:29
around these ideas and so we got one of the guys that does some renderings for us and he put together a C8 interior
20:35
that had a revised Great Wall of buttons it was actually flattened a little bit and then it included the same kind of
20:41
style of a C7 grab bar that a lot of people Miss I think that that's one of the things as I've been a passenger in
20:47
the C8 Corvette there's really nowhere to grab on for any kind of high spirited driving or anything like that right it'd
20:52
be neat to see that grab bar back from the C7 Corvette but the rest of it looks pretty good the rendering so check it out again I'm thinking that this one
20:59
might actually start to have legs to it 2025 is a great year here for this to occur like I said six years in the
21:05
production there have already been some other rumors coming out and maybe a return of the Grand Sport obviously ZR1
21:11
in 2025 as well so there's some big things happening and we're just gonna again we always say stay tuned but that's all we can do when it comes to
21:17
rumors like this I did like the renderings they looked really good I do like my Great Wall of buttons I don't
21:23
think there's a problem with it I do miss the grab handle we'll just have to wait and see what happens buddy also
21:29
Keith in the rumor section the automotive media is in Colorado this week driving the e-ray aren't they yes
21:35
we got some new pics and video started popping up on social media and it turned out these Automotive journalists were driving a 2024 Corvette eBay in Colorado
21:42
it looks like the drive included both a stop at the Pikes Peak International Speedway for some track accelerations we
21:48
saw a picture of a black car making a lovely drive through the mountains they were also at like a municipal airport
21:53
with some airplanes in the background that people could shoot up against so pretty cool there we don't know how many
21:58
people we heard it was going to be somewhat limited probably the same size as the Z06 right Drive yeah the Embargo
22:05
for these stories are going to end on Friday October 13th so that should be a really fun day for e-rate buyers to be
22:11
able to wake up that morning and check out all these new reviews and driving opinions on the new Corvette e-rag and
22:16
all the other stuff that comes out with the launch of this new sports car and then of course ordering is supposedly we don't know what the strike but it's
22:22
supposedly going to happen just a couple weeks after that people will be all primed and ready after reading all those reviews to go order that car and it's
22:28
gonna be an exciting time period I can't wait buddy well let's take our final break when we come back Keith it's the lighter sided Corvette on Deck a
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you're listening to the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett
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hey thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette Corvette
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today is brought to you by wheelcraft you want your Corvette looking its best well dress it up with bright Chrome or
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wheels or do a wheel exchange and you get a five year warranty visit wheelcraft.com or call them at
25:33
833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me every other week is Keith Cornett from Corvette blogger.com if you
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want a deeper dive into any of the stories that Keith and I cover you can always go to corvettebblogger.com in our
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final segment we always talk about the lighter-sided Corvette Keith I'd love this story because this was the car I
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grew up with there was a Corvette Batmobile from 1992 that was on sale
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from bring a trailer and this was the original Batmobile which I thought was awesome so we know that the original
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Batmobile was built by George Barris and he used a Lincoln Futura as the basis for the car and you know that car had
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the wings on the back the exaggerated front those cars are kind of demanded they didn't make a whole lot of them from what I understand but there are
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some Builders out there that are using the C4 Corvette to build these replicas of the original 1960s Batmobile and it
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works out really well I mean it's a longer car the one that we saw on bring a trailer had the whole interior done
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correctly there was even some fat symbols on the engine compartment I mean it looked really well so I'm gonna put
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Steve on the spot here Steve how much do you think this Batmobile sold for oh gosh I meant to go back and look at that buddy I bet it sold for six figures yeah
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you were correct if you would have guessed 269 999. wow yeah almost 270 000 you'd be
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correct I mean this Batmobile had a working flamethrower out the rear it had the bat phone and the imaginal bat turns
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and some of the other gadgets inside there it was really well done so congratulations to the Builder of this you know they build C4s too there's
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another comic book car The Mach 5 from Speed Racer also is a great car on the C4 platform we're keeping these dreams
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alive for little kids like you Steve that's awesome buddy you know what I'm a kid at heart and like I said that was my
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original Batmobile when I was growing up in the 60s I was so excited to see that I can't believe it sold for 270 thousand
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dollars yeah that was well done for sure wow amazing Keith let's talk about the inductees for the Corvette Hall of Fame
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this year at the National Corvette Museum's anniversary celebration absolutely well the National Corvette Museum now has three new members to the
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Corvette Hall of Fame two weekends ago in downtown Bowling Green the NCM held their induction ceremony for the class
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of 2023 which includes John M Gort Dan Banks and David Whitcomb these inductees
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are nominated and voted on by a slate of 100 jurors in the Corvette Hobby and they are generally from three different categories they're from GM Chevrolet
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Corvette racing and then Corvette enthusiasts John amward he was a founding member of the National Corvette
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resource society and they ran the Corvette restore magazine for the organization for 25 years again one of
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these Old Guard guys that we're talking about we have Dan Banks retired crew chief equipment racing over 100
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Victories were earned with Dan banks at the helm there just amazing man now today he's retired and he's restoring
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old race cars he's Building engines for people I guess he's got a c7r in his garage nice the final inductee was David
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Whitman he was the retired CM vehicle performance manager out at the Milford Proving Grounds he was like the lead
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development engineer for Corvettes on the C5 Z06 the C6 and the C7 it was just
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responsible for you know some of the stuff that Jim marrow does and what we see some of the new guys do today and
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the driving dynamics of the car how it reacts on the track and then how they can make it better for the street glad to see all three of these individuals
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now being the newest members in the Corvette Hall of Fame there's only 82 I think in the Corvette Hall of Fame so it's a really big deal
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it's an exclusive club and Dan Binks has been on Corvette today go back and check out that episode for sure also Keith we
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now have a new top 10 on Corvette dealerships through August of this year don't we yeah another update from our
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sources Chevrolet provided us with the calendar year to date sales for the top ten no real changes mcmulkin Chevrolet
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continues to lead the pack there they've got a 29.7 market share of the top tens they're dominating they have 1056
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deliveries compared to second place ciocco with just 744 deliveries third on the list is our Fred Mike Furman
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Criswell Chevrolet with 375. and again the list didn't change all that much so it's probably fairly solid through the
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end of the year but you can see the entire list at Corvette blogger.com that sounds good also we had a 2019 C7 ZR1
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hit 161 miles an hour now you think okay I can do that on my regular Corvette but this was on a half mile Runway not a
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full Mile right yeah you think they're like two quarter miles back to back this video comes from the Johnny bomber
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Proving Grounds and they run on the three mile space space shuttle Runway at Kennedy Space Center they're basically
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at sea level they do have to contend with some offshore breezes but they always list what kind of conditions they
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had this was a 219 Corvette ZR1 it had the low wing on it and an automatic transmission from a standing stop it ran
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up to 161 miles an hour and it was still pulling really hard when you crossed that Finish Line in the article that we
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wrote we know that there's a video of the same ZR1 that ran the full 2.7 miles on the runway to get a top speed of 207
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miles an hour so that car is really moving of course at the end of there you know the speed is just incremental it's
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moving but not as fast as it was in those 130s and 160s the fastest time we've seen from a Corvette zero one on
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the space shuttle Runway was actually one that hit 214 miles an hour which is part of the average speed I think of the
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top speed of the 2019 Corvette ZR1 I think the overall speed is 212 but they always do a mile one way and a mile back
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way to determine that speed really cool stuff again Johnny bomber Proving Grounds on YouTube you can see all kinds
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of cars racing there but of course we we love seeing the Corvettes push to their limits that sounds good and Keith for
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our final story I have to give you a little bit of a background in a former life I used to work for a company called Intertech publishing being a radio disc
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jockey I was the publisher of a publication that was worldwide called Radio Magazine Intertech publishing
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owned a company also called Ward's Auto World and Wards is still around they have named the C8 Z06 the lt6 engine as
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one of the top 10 engines for 2023. yeah that's correct so every year they put together their list of the top 10
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engines now they have to include propulsion systems because it's not just ice engines and internal combustion
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engines and the last time we highlighted this list was in 2020 because of the introduction of the ca Corvette Stingray
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and the 6.2 liter lt2 V8 engine it was also selected that year as one of the top 10 engines so kind of exciting this
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year to see the introduction of the 2023 Corvette Z06 of course we know it's got the brand new 5.5 liter lt6 V8 and once
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again Chevrolet cracked Awards Auto top 10 as being a ice engine and also being a V8 engine again very rare there's only
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two total V8s on there it was the Corvette and then the dark horse Mustang I think maybe the rest are all hybrids
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are battery electric so it's a big win there for Corvette to be included on this list absolutely right well that's
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very cool buddy well thanks for being on Corvette today congratulations on your number four for our news and headline
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show here's to many many more buddy absolutely Steve we got some busy stuff happening in the next two weeks so this
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is a great time to tune into the blog and find out what's going on there and we'll have an update in two weeks and hopefully we like I said we can do that
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cleanup on aisle too with all this stuff that's kind of outstanding because this is all stuff that impacts the Corvette experience and we know with especially
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the people expecting to get their new cars they're waiting for the tpws and how that's all gonna shake out with the
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strike you know again we'll just be staying tuned we'll be watching those stories and posting away on Corvette blogger every day so come back see us
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and then we'll be here in two weeks to talk about it again thanks for listening to Corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other
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thanks again for listening to Corvette today [Music]
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