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CORVETTE TODAY #201 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid February 2024
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Jul 12, 2025
CORVETTE TODAY #201 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid February 2024 Fresh off our milestone #200 episode, it's time for our every-other-week News & Headlines show on CORVETTE TODAY! Join your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett and Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger as the guys keep you current and up-to-date on what's going on in the world of Corvette. Here are some of the topics Steve and Keith cover...
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[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
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talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey of the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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current podcast dedicated to Corvette. I'm your host, Steve Garrett. I appreciate you tuning in. Corvette Today
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is brought to you by Wheelcraft. Want to dress up your Corvette with bright chrome or black chrome wheels? Visit
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wheelcraft.com and learn about their advanced PVD chrome finishing. They can refinish your wheels or offer a wheel
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exchange for most models, and it comes with a 5-year warranty. Visit wheelcraft.com today or call them at
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$100 discount. And a shout out to Canadian Corvette Forum and Corvette Forum, welcoming Corvette enthusiasts
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from around the world. Once again, it's time for the latest news and headlines with my pal Keith Cornet from corvette
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blogger.com. Keith's here with me every other week and we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening with
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America Sports Car. Keith, welcome back to the show. This is episode number 20
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after our monumental historic episode number 200 last week. Yeah, congratulations on that milestone,
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Steve. You know, as you look back at these shows, they take a life of their own and they all kind of have their own vibe and you look back and some of the
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stuff that we talked about isn't even relevant today, but it was relevant back then. It's a fun process and it's kind
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of like a time machine in a little bit when you start looking back at 200 shows over four years or so. You've got
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another anniversary coming up here shortly. So, I'm just real happy to be part of it. I know people really enjoy these recaps. I get a lot of notes about
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wanting to hear about the production updates and things like that. So, it's a lot of fun. It really is. And you're right. Coming
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up in midappril, it will be the beginning of season number five for Corvette today. I'm really looking
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forward to that, buddy. Here's to another five years together doing our news and headlines updates. Yeah, let's get it on.
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Let's get it on for sure. Let's get a Bowling Green update on production there at the plant.
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Absolutely. So, production remains very strong as we hit midFebruary. Last time we spoke, the assembly plant was
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utilizing overtime on both shifts, but we're looking at the counts recently. It looks like they probably are back to their regular hours again. You know, we
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saw some really huge numbers they were putting out there, but now we're seeing the 180s and the 190s again. So, feel
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pretty confident that they're just back to their normal production schedule. For the Stingray, we're showing 13,189
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cars for the model year. The Z06 is doing fantastic these days with only one day this month that they produced less
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than 50 cars over those two shifts. And on that day, they did 49. So, we did a count. We counted up 536 new Z06s built
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since February 1st through the 14th. That's a banging number for just two weeks worth of production. So, hopefully
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that trend continues because most of the options we're seeing are now available on this car. We had all the arrow issues
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before and all the stuff was constrained. But now, the only constraint that we had previously was just the interior level two carbon fiber
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package. For the most part, anybody that got a Z06 allocation last week could order basically anything they wanted,
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including Z07 performance package, carbon fiber wheels, all that good stuff. So, if we can keep that going for
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a little bit, that'll actually put out some really decent numbers. I think we're showing right now 3,854
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Z06's built for 2024. And then finally, the -ay continues to plot along. It's just really not going up as fast as we
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were hoping. We were seeing some signs there initially, but then we were looking back at last week. We have the counts for Monday through Wednesday and
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only 11 cars and none on Wednesday. They just had five on Tuesday and the six on the Monday before that.
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I think we're at 89 to 90 cars right now. The other thing, too, is no customers have been shipped yet. Mr. H
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still doesn't have his VIN 001 car down at City Chevrolet yet. Generally, they like to hold back a certain amount of
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new cars that they built. Kind of get a consensus, make sure that the process is going well. They'll do expanded quality
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control hold on those, but then they'll send them out and then we'll start to see regular shipments. Hopefully, that's all going to happen shortly here. But
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again, it is just a little bit longer of a ramp up than we were hoping for. Yeah, that's true. And it's okay. You
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know, we want to get it right, especially with it being a hybrid car. We want to get that right right out of the box.
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Yeah. You know, we look back to where we were with Z06. And of course, the Z06 didn't ramp up for us fast enough
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either. A lot of people crying and stuff like that. And I get it. You know, you're on order, you're waiting for your car. you know, these orders for the
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E-rays, they went in back in September. You know, it's February now, so there's a whole lot of hurry up and wait kind of
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thing. And so, it's going to happen. We just got to be patient. Yeah, that's true. We should all be
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doctors because we should all have a lot of patience. There you go. We have a couple stories from the National Corvette Museum. First,
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president and CEO Sharon Bronner has left the museum. Yeah, this news came on uh Friday,
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February 2nd. It was actually just a few hours after we recorded our last news and headlines podcast. suddenly got this
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email from the NCM stating that the NCM president CEO Sharon Bronner had decided to move on from her role at the Corvette
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Museum. Obviously, that didn't sound right to us based on some of the info that we heard. That decision really came
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from the board of directors to make this change. I personally found her to be very engaging. I found that a lot of the
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things that she had a direct hand with greatly improved the museum such as the presentation, the various events like
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the Hall of Fame was really taken to the next level there. Behind the scenes, we did see an increase of departures from
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longtime employees. The one other rumor I actually heard was that she hadn't moved to Bowling Green when she was
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hired. She was living in Nashville for two and a half years or how longer it's been. She'd been commuting back and
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forth. I think some of the board members might have been questioning her dedication. Some of my commenters on Corvette Blogger and elsewhere said they
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kind of found her to be a little bit aloof, polarizing, maybe not quite fitting in with the membership. Again, I liked her. She was nice to me. Hard to
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say what was going on there. The board of directors, they've had two failed hirings for president the last four years between Sean Preston and Sharon
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Browner. They really need to get this next one right. I know they want to look outside. They want to bring in somebody
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that has all this museum experience, but I think we really need somebody that has some really good organizational skills,
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but really knows and understands the Corvette people, the Corvette hobby, and all the moving parts associated with it.
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We really had that with Wendell. They really need to get this next hiring right. I agree. Also, they have a new exhibit
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based upon the sinkhole because the sinkhole just celebrated an anniversary a few days ago. Yeah, the MCM just recognized the 10th
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anniversary of the sinkhole that swallowed those eight rare corvettes in the Sky Dome. That happened on February 12th, 2014. It's hard to believe it's
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been 10 years, but again, it's like we said, you know, you do these blog posts, you do your shows, they end up covering
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history as it happens, but then you look back, it's just like seems like it was so long ago. Yeah. This is a big year for the museum.
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They've got the 30th anniversary, got the caravans coming in. So, they're actually going to do a special exhibit. They call it ground to sky, the sinkhole
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re-imagined. And that's going to open in June with marks the 10th anniversary of the sinkhole. They're going to show some
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of the recovered corvettes will be displayed. Media coverage that documents the past, present, and future of the museum will be included along with the
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recognition and all those people that really helped get the facility up and running again. I tell people it was devastating, but it was one of the best
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things that ever happened in the Format Museum because the hobby and the people and enthusiasts, we rallied around each
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other. It brought in a ton of media exposure. News stations in Japan were covering this story. I mean, it was just
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everywhere. And of course, attendance skyrocketed in the months following once they were able to get the sky dome back
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open and people could actually see there. And today, they've got the outline of where the sinkhole was in the sky dome. And there's actually that door
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with the window that you can look down in there. And occasionally on some of the anniversaries, they sent some local reporters. You can climb down in there.
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And there's a huge cavern still underneath there that just stretches on and on, they've got it braced with all these micro pilings and things like
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that. But there's a huge cavern down there. And they said that the original sinkhole where it is in the sky dome
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actually stretched out towards one of the parking lots. I think it went like 60 or 80 feet down the way. So just an
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amazing feat that they were able to pull those cars out there. Some of those cars were restored. But 10 years now, it's fun to look back. I told people I still
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got that little vial of sinkhole dirt somewhere around here. Nice. That you bought as a fundraiser for 10 bucks. We had some intern out back
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putting dirt in these little vials of I bought one. I thought that was pretty cool. That's cool. That's awesome. Also, we
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had a recall for the CA Corvettes. We had a lighting issue. What was all that about? Well, the good news is this recall is
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only for Canada. Of course, the bad news for Canadians is it's, you know, they got a recall. This is five GM brands
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affecting over 270,000 cars. GM says in some instances the lower beam headlamps
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on their vehicles don't illuminate as it becomes dark outside if the multi-function switch is in the off position or in the parking position and
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that can also cause the daytime running lamps to go off while the vehicle is moving which is against Canadian
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regulations. What they're going to do is they're going to send out the recall notices. There is a website that you can go to if you search for GM recalls in
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Canada. But what they'll do is they'll look at the cars when they come in. If they are affected with that issue,
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they'll just do an update to the body control module software. So, it looks like it's just a flash update to fix anything. If your car is one of those,
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you'll get a letter saying, "Go visit your dealership. That's all you need to do to take care of it." Doesn't sound like it's too major of an issue, but if
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you notice that your lights aren't working correctly, you might want to see about getting in there and getting that taken care of. That's not too bad. At least it's just a
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flash update. Hopefully, that'll solve the problem and everybody can go on their way. We love our Canadian Corvette owners, of
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course. Obviously, we just want the best for them. We've seen a couple times where cars outside the North American
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market, outside the United States market, have had to have updates to really conform to those local regulations. I think we had a sound
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issue down in Australia. And again, this is happening across all GM lines, not just the Corvette. Yeah, and we do love our friends in the
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great white north. There are brothers, there are Corvette brothers as well. Our final story, Keith, average transaction
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for a C8 Corvette averaged over $106,000 in the fourth quarter of last year. Wow.
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Yeah. You know, this is one of those stories where people kind of said, "Duh," because of the reasons why. But just to see the number is always pretty
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incredible, which is why I just really kind of enjoy these kinds of stories. So, Cox Automotive does these reports
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and they broke down the fourth quarter sales numbers from General Motors and they found that the overall average transaction price for the C8 Corvette
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was $106,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023. But what was amazing was that was
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a jump of 20.9% over the fourth quarter of 2022. Wow. The culprit is obviously the
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Corvette Z06. In fourth quarter 2022, it was just really starting to ramp up. Of course, we were crying. We're not seeing
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the cars coming. Fourth quarter of 2023, there was over 2,700 built during that time period with a starting price of
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$112,000 and the majority of owners, you know, adding the 3LZ, adding the Z07,
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wanting carbon fiber wheels. But it is kind of a no-brainer to see why that average transaction price went up. And
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of course, we're going to continue to see that, especially as more expensive variants are released. Of course, we've got the -ray coming online. We'll start
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to see those numbers added as well. Actually, the Corvette these days is the most expensive Chevrolet model. We did a
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breakdown of the other average transactions. The closest car to it was, I think, $76,000 and it was the Chevy
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Suburban. Okay. Well, that's why they call it a halo car, right, buddy? That's right. There you go. All right, Keith. Time for
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our first break. When we come back, it's Corvette racing and Corvette rumors on deck next on Corvette Today. We all know
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Every other week we keep you current and
16:12
uptodate on what's happening in the world of Corvette. In segment number two, we always go with Corvette racing
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and Corvette rumors. Keith, let's start with the racing segment. First, GM is still evaluating additional GT racing
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series for the GT3R, which I think is pretty cool. The more the merrier, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So, they're looking to
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head with its Z06 GT3R, the customer racing program, and where they might be able to expand into additional racing
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series in 2025. So, we're really looking forward to next year. So far, the new GT3 car already debuted at the Rolex 24
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Daytona with two teams, Corvette Racing by Prattton Miller, and then AWA, the Canadian team. And then we have two more
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programs that are in the works. We have TF Sports over in the WEC racing in the LMGT3 division. And then we have DXDT
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racing in the Finanetic GT World Challenge America races here in the States as well. So, we've already got
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those set up. Now, the program might be looking at several major endurance races. There's the Crowd Strike 24 hours
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of spa and then the Nurburging 24-hour race. We know that last year General Motors sent a factf finding delegation
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to those races to see how they were all put together, all the logistics that would be needed to support customer
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racing teams there. That would be great. Those are two really big races in Europe. And then the other series
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include a GT World Challenge Europe, the Intercontinental GT Challenge, and then the European and Asian Le Man series.
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And those are really interesting because the European and Asian Lemon series might be offering us additional
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opportunities to try to get more race cars into the 24 hours of Lemon. While we've had just the one race so far with
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the Z06 GT3RS, we haven't really seen this car live up to its full potential. We're going to see that this year. We
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got all kinds of racing this year, but they are actively looking at expanding the envelope for the Z063R into these
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additional series. And again, if you can get more cars into Lemons, even better. You know, we've always kind of been limited with just the two cars. If we
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could get a little bit more help there, that would definitely go a long way. Yeah. And you had mentioned TF Sport. I
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know that they're looking at racing in Cotter with their first race, aren't they? Yeah. Previously, the World Endurance Championships the last couple years they
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kicked off in Sebring, but this year they kick off March 2nd with Qar 1812 kmter race. We of course have teamed up
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with British team TF Sport. They've got two Z06 GT3RS in the race and they've got three drivers for each car for some
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of the endurance races. For this one, they just actually had a couple days of being able to shake down the car over in
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Dubai. So, it should be interesting. Of course, the guys are all new to the car. The car is new to them. Had some limited
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examples, some time to really get to know the car. So, it's just going to take some time to ramp up. That's all we
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can do. But, luckily, this is a new class over there. We got some new cars coming in as well. It's going to be interesting to watch. The best thing
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about these customer programs is it's more racing with more Corvettes and more different series on different tracks.
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Yeah. If you enjoy your racing and you subscribe to Motor Trend TV, you get up early in the morning and catch some of these European races. For sure.
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That's nice. And also with racing, we have a different kind of racing. We have an -ray going to Aspen for ice racing.
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That's cool. Yeah, this is really something I was really excited to see and I still haven't had my full enthusiasm tap yet
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for this program because it just came on to us suddenly. I caught an Instagram post from our friend Cody Bokeley,
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Corvette development engineer. Yep. The guy that came up with the cyclone spin for the -ay. He says there was this
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event called the FAT International Ice Race presented by Mobile One held in Aspen. And here's his beautiful red
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mistray with beautiful polished wheels in the snow, you know, and they just wanted to find out more. So, we reached
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out to Trevor at Chevy Communications. He said he got a couple Instagram posts coming. So, they got out two different
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videos of the car at this ice race. It's this whole circuit that's building the ice. There's all kinds of cars there. Couple Porsches, some of these off-road
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sports cars that sit a little bit higher were involved. And then there's some weird stuff. You know, there's some minis, there was a pickup truck, just
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some fun stuff. So, kind of like the cars that you don't really expect to see racing in the snow, like the Corvette,
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but when you have all-wheel drive, you can really make those kinds of events happen. So, pretty cool there. I really
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hope to see a little bit more from that. I've been checking YouTube to see if any spectators captured the -ay. So far,
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I've been disappointed because I wanted to see Cody do a cyclone spin. Yeah. Once again in the snow. So maybe
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he captured that on his own and we can twist some arms up there to get him to release it. Yep. Cody talked about that on Corvette
20:25
today. That was really, really cool. Speaking of the -ay and switching over to the rumor section, we understand that
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dealers are sending salespeople to the motorsports park at the National Corvette Museum for -ay training. Is
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that true? That's what we're hearing. So when Chevrolet first revealed the Corvette, they used this tagline that said, quote,
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"One like none." Yes. And it was to really make the point about the performance hybrid's unique front motor and it's all-wheel drive. First time on
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the Corvette ever. So to help prepare dealers to sell and service that new Corvette model, they're going to host this round of training sessions at the
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National Corvette Museum's NCM Motorsports Park starting in March. They've done trainings like this previously, especially out at Spring
21:01
Mountain. But Spring Mountain, they're pretty busy out there. They got all kinds of classes. So I think they offloaded this to the NCM Motorsports
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Park. The training will consist mostly of some classroom sessions. They'll go over all the product information, the
21:13
delivery process, and then there's going to be driving portions and training on the track, which I think will a lot of
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be start stopping with the E-Ray quick acceleration and that all-wheel drive setup. It's going to be some fun things
21:24
going on there. We know some dealers that are already signed up to go. We're hearing this training isn't all that cheap. It's going to cost a dealership
21:30
like 35 or $3,600 to be able to send a representative to attend. Wow. Hopefully, they'll get some good stuff
21:35
out of it. And we did see that they were tying in some additional Z06 information as well. We have a little bit of a
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snapshot of what the training will entail on the website, so you can go check that out. Good. Good. Also, we have new ZR1
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sightings, don't we? That's exciting. Man, it's been a little while since we've seen it. I think we actually go back to October in the Nurburg Ring was
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the last time we've seen the engineering teams had the ZR1s out on the public roads, but we just captured them last
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week. They were outside of San Diego. They go up in the mountains up there, and apparently they got into some snow.
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There were two groups of photos taken. One of these was staged outside of McDonald's, which we always crack up because if you remember, the Corvette
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team first debuted the C8 by traveling to a McDonald's in Cadillac, Michigan. I think it was 2017 or so. And we've
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captured them at a different McDonald's sense. So, we call that engineering brain food for sure. One of the things we see the pictures of these cars,
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there's some new body work on the ZR1s. They've got these new air vents behind the main air extractor on the rear
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quarter panel. You know, there's one on the side there. There's one up on the top of the rear deck. However, one of those cars that we were looking at only
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had those new vents on the side and not on the top. That was a convertible model, which I thought was kind of interesting. Huh.
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We are seeing a couple different variants among these groups of prototypes. Might one of them be a Grand
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Sport, per se? We're not sure. Just kind of throwing that out there. But right now, we're calling all these ZR1s because that's really the next model
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that we expect to be up. That's cool. And also, we have probably the biggest rumor so far. We found out
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that the first EX VINS for the ZR1s have been produced at the Bowling Green assembly plant.
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Yeah, we got this news from our friends over at the Miden Corvette forum and it seems to confirm one of the reasons why they were shutting down the public
23:10
tours. Of course, the tours ended on February 5th. There's some stuff they're doing. They're renovating the outdoors
23:16
where the workers come in and then where the tour groups come in. That's all being renovated there. We understand that they are moving some equipment
23:22
around inside the facility, but we always thought that one of the biggest reasons why is they needed to build some
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cars. You can't really build some cars when there's people walking around looking at everything. You know, the
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rumor that we heard was they're going to run some prototypes down. Apparently, on February 13th, one of these experimental
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VIN ZR1s was assembled on the main assembly line and then came off on February 13th. Wow.
23:44
It is what we call an EX VIN, an experimental VIN Corvette. It will be destroyed once GM is done testing this
23:50
car. No. Yeah, they'll build it with all the carbon fiber arrow and all kinds of stuff on it and then smash it.
23:56
Drove us crazy with the Z06s. The other thing, too, is they'll make these EX VIN cars for a period and then all of a
24:02
sudden we'll start to hear about captured test fleet cars. These are cars with salailable VINs. So, once GM is
24:08
done with these tests, they can be auctioned off to different dealerships and then those dealerships can sell them as a used car. Once we hit that stage,
24:15
once we know that ZTFs are starting, that's when we'll know we're really getting close to customer production.
24:20
Rumors have the Chevy launching this car sometime in early 2025, but we currently have no clear indications yet on when
24:26
this car will be revealed to the public or when. So, stay tuned to that. You know, we've thrown some ideas out there. I think a fantastic idea. They're
24:33
looking at calendar year 2025 for actually producing this car. Then the 30th anniversary celebration at the NCM
24:39
is perfect. You've got 5,000 enthusiasts coming from all 50 states and abroad. It's a major Corvette show and it would
24:46
be nice to have some product released specifically for Corvette people at a Corvette show. Yeah. Supported with the
24:53
museum. So, I think that would be a great idea. The other thing, too, is so many times they released this car, they made this mistake with the Z06. They
24:59
released it in October of 2021, wasn't it? and it took them a full year to
25:05
actually start the production and then another half a year and several months before cars really got out to customers.
25:12
It's exciting at first all of a sudden just becomes normal to us because we've been looking at it for a year. Really
25:17
would like to see that time period shrink between when they release a car or make it available publicly and then
25:22
when they actually start producing it. I think that would only help them in the long run. Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited for it. I
25:27
bring them on, you know, let's have them let's get them out there for sure. It's going to be the unoptanium of Corvettes
25:33
for a while and probably the quantities. They're going to keep them low probably on purpose. So, if they build 2,000 of
25:39
these cars a year, I think that would be a lot. Yeah, I agree. Well, buddy, let's take our final break. When we come back, it's
25:45
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I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. If you want a deeper dive into any of these
28:55
stories we cover, you can always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final segment, we cover the lighter side of
29:01
Corvette. I don't know if this is really a lighter side story, Keith, but I understand Laguna Secika racetrack has
29:07
been targeted in a lawsuit over noise and traffic complaints. Yeah, you know, this is just a
29:12
continuing theme that I think we've seen. You know, back in the day, these racetracks were all built out in the boonies. You know, you had to travel out
29:18
there on these little country roads and stuff and then you'd get to the track and then, you know, it'd be all the loud stuff happening and then you'd go home,
29:25
right? Yeah. Well, all these years now, all these encroaching developments and put houses right next door to these tracks. These
29:31
neighbors move in knowing there's a track there, but then they end up saying, "Wow, it's really loud. I think we should sue and shut them down."
29:36
That's exactly the kind of lawsuit we have here that's targeting Laguna Secre Raceway in Monterey, California. But
29:42
interestingly, this is one of these things that got a lot of press, but some guy went behind and did a little bit
29:47
more digging and he put a video up, which we also carried as well. He's like, "Well, who are the people behind this?" Cuz it had just innocuous name.
29:54
And as he started digging in, he eventually came across the name of a guy and it turns out that this guy had been
29:59
filing these kinds of lawsuits over the years, but it turns out it's just one guy that's really behind it. He gets his
30:05
unknowing neighbors to join in sometimes. Real strange stuff happening. But we do see these kinds of things. Of
30:10
course, the NCM Motor Sports Park when they opened up, you know, there was a residential development just behind this
30:16
wooded area. They did some complaining. They did some lawsuits as well, and the NCM had to do all this work to mitigate
30:21
that noise. And we're seeing that elsewhere down here in Bradenon Motorsports Park, which is a very popular drag strip down here. Both of
30:28
those have residential developments going right next to them. So, we just know what's going to happen there because people will move in, they'll buy
30:34
these half million dollar homes, and then start complaining about the atmosphere around it. So, you have to kind of understand what you're getting
30:40
into and hope they'll be able to work this out. You know, Laguna has been there for over 50 years. So, you just
30:45
can't pack them up and expect them to move, right? Absolutely. Also, Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, the lead singer, had a
30:52
Grammy charity auction. He has a 65 Corvette that he auctioned off for that charity, which is pretty cool.
30:58
Yeah. So, if you're an Aerosmith fan, you all know the band's hit song Janie's Got a Gun. And apparently lead singer
31:04
Steven Tyler was in rehab back in the 80s and he met several women that were abused and it kind of prompted him to
31:09
write that song. I think it was in the early 90s that song came out. So years later he helped form this nonprofit
31:15
group called Janie's Fund which helps to raise awareness and abuse and they offer services and counseling to girls and
31:21
young women who have been affected by such abuse. So to raise money, he hosts these special Grammy afterparties with
31:27
an auction. And this 65 Corvette was one of these auction items. It was a car that was actually built by Phantom
31:33
Works. Really nice resto mod. 65 black coupe. It had an LS3 in it. Just a very
31:39
nice build. We didn't get the price of the car once it sold, but they said that the total auction for Janie's fund,
31:45
which also included a pair of Taylor Swift earrings. I know you'd be all over that, Steve. The total all the stuff
31:50
raised $2.8 million this year. Wow. That's some big money going to help abused girls and women affected by that.
31:57
And it's nice to see stars like Steven Tyler being able to give back, especially that song. When you listen to the lyrics and stuff, you know, there's
32:03
a lot of pain behind it. Yeah, that's really cool that they raised $2.8 million for that charity. You know, it was the Taylor Swift
32:09
earrings that put him over them. I'm sure it was. Speaking of Taylor Swift, my Kansas City
32:15
Chiefs are once again Super Bowl champions. And our wide receiver, our rookie star wide receiver Rasheed Rice
32:22
is, believe it or not, a Z06 owner. Yeah, it was funny when I caught this video the first time. I I called you
32:28
right away. I said, "Hey, did you know this?" So, during the week leading up to the Super Bowl, there was this social media post came out from wide receiver
32:35
Rashi Rice. He wears number four. He was leaving his neighborhood to catch the team playing to Las Vegas for the Super
32:41
Bowl. And all his neighbors came out. They had signs and the kids were cheering and gave a nice send off. We
32:46
saw him in the car as he was waving to his neighbors. And then one of those neighbors actually also posted photos
32:51
showing Rashi leaving and he was in a black Z06. Yep. So, pretty cool that this Speedy Receiver drives a Speedy
32:58
car. Looks like a great car. I think from the interior, we saw that it had natural interior with the black exterior. Pretty cool to see one of our
33:05
guys driving the Z06 out there. Always fun. Absolutely. Yeah, that's one of our boys and he's going to be a big star in the
33:11
NFL, I think. So, yeah, this was his rookie year and I think he had a chance to get the record for rookie receiving yards in
33:18
the playoffs. He fell a little short on that, but still he played some pivotal games there to get the Chiefs into the
33:23
Super Bowl. Definitely. Also, we talked about Jeff Hayes, a custom Corvette builder in our last news and headline show. One of his
33:30
Corvettes sold for $1.1 million at Barrett Jackson. Wow. Yeah. So, we
33:35
talked about this car previously, but now there's a video up, so you can go watch the sale. And anytime you can see a Corvette sell for a million dollars,
33:41
that's worth taking 2 minutes or four minutes of your time and going to watch. This Corvette's unbelievable. His cars
33:47
over the years have always been good, but it's like there's a new appreciation for his craftsmanship. We said last time, you know, a lot of his cars would
33:53
be in like that 300, 350, $400,000. And then all of a sudden in 21 and 2022, his
33:59
cars were selling for like $700,000. Wow. And what he does is he basically just builds one car a year and then he
34:05
sells it for big profits at Baron Jackson. So, he's doing well there. But this car, you really got to see it.
34:10
Supposedly set a record as a custom non-original 67 restood, but it's like a
34:15
champagne exterior. It's got this linen interior and one of the most beautiful interiors I've seen because it's this
34:21
linen. You know, you think of carbon fiber weave as dark or black and it's all done in this linen color, this light
34:26
beige. When you're looking at the gauge cluster or the glove box store on this midyear, it's all in that beautiful
34:32
carbon fiber. You would flip over it, Steve. Oh, I'm sure. Really nice. Great to see this guy. You know, he's dedicated to building these
34:38
Corvettes anyways. And fact is that he's really being recognized for his work is pretty cool. Congratulations, Jeeoff. Good job. Keep
34:44
up the good work. That's right. Also, our final story, Keith, this is pretty cool. There is a company called Resvani. They are making
34:51
a hypercar called the Beast. It's $485,000.
34:56
It's coachu built and it's built on a C8 platform. Yeah, this is really a mid-enine C8 on
35:02
steroids. And as my writer Mitch wrote, sometimes that's all not good. But there
35:07
are some really cool things that make this a great car. Got sculpted lines on the doors. You got a see-through window
35:12
where you can see the engine. And this is a convertible that we were looking at. It's got instead of the exhaust tips
35:17
being side by side, they're stacked on top of each other. Other parts, you know, it's got a rounded rear end. Kind of reminds us a little bit of a Toyota
35:24
Supra, but inside the car, they've got a yolk steering wheel. It looks like the C8 interior, but there's no great wall
35:29
of buttons. So, it kind of makes you wonder, huh, you know, if GM was getting rid of their Great Wall of buttons for 2025, is this might what it might look
35:36
like? What really generated a lot of noise about this car was the list of some of the special option packages. The
35:43
car is already at $485,000, but if you want to throw another $55,000, you can get a bulletproof package.
35:49
Wow. If you feel the need for bulletproof glass and body panels and other things like that, that's good. The point is
35:54
that people want protection, and if you can pay for it, you might as well go ahead and grab it. The other thing that this thing has is for $45,000 you can
36:02
get the 007 package that adds strobe lights, sirens, horns, intercom, first aid, hypothermia kit, run flat tires,
36:09
gas mask, and a thermal night vision. And I even think I saw something about a
36:14
pepper spray launcher. I don't know what the local rules and regulations are against that, but if you're feeling a
36:20
little James Bondish, you know, you might want to go for that. But it's a cool car. We were talking that with the Corvette now being in its fifth year,
36:28
we're seeing more of these companies. We talked about Delorean, the daughter of John Delorean, actually looking at using the C8 Corvette as a starting point for
36:34
a new Delorean motor car. There's some people out there that are really looking at the C8 and saying, "hm, mass-produced
36:40
sports car might make a really good basis for us to do something bespoke." Yeah, that's what we're seeing here. Yeah.
36:46
Well, it shows that the chassis for the C8 Corvette is so darn good, everybody's looking at it and trying to use it. It's
36:51
a great starting point for anybody that wants to build a $485,000 supercar. Definitely. Thanks for thanks for being
36:59
back on Corvette today. Take it easy, stay warm, and we'll see you in two weeks. Glad to be here, Steve. Everybody,
37:05
spring's coming. Just bear with us a little bit longer. We've got a little bit more weather coming, it looks like, but we're almost there. I don't know if
37:11
the groundhog actually saw his Corvette when he checked his shadow, but let's hope that spring is here sooner rather
37:16
than later. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your family, friends, and other
37:22
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