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CORVETTE TODAY #215 - CORVETTE NEWS & HEADLINES, LATE MAY 2024
Next week is Memorial Day week and CORVETTE TODAY keeps bringing you all the latest news and headlines in the world of Corvette!
Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger is back with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett to bring you these updates and more...
1. The National Corvette Museum was named a 2024 Blue Star Museum
2. Chevrolet launches an update to it's "Build & Buy" configurator
3. ZR1 prototypes are spotted back in Colorado
4. Ken Griffey Jr. will drive the Corvette E-Ray pace car at the Indianapolis 500
5. Special Vehicle Engineering announces a special run of 1,000 horsepower Yenko/Twin Turbo C8 Corvettes
As we look forward to our holiday weekend, we can also look forward to next week's CORVETTE TODAY News & Headlines show! This show launches at midnight Eastern Time on Monday, May 27th.
Listen to the podcast, watch the YouTube video, join the Facebook group, sign up for weekly email notifications, follow the show on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X (Twitter) and Threads. Plus shop in the CORVETTE TODAY Merchandise Store at:
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[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
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talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
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? Visit
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Corvette enthusiasts from around the world. All right, everybody. Here we go. It's time for the latest Corvette news
3:23
and headlines with my buddy Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Keith is here every other week. We keep you current
3:30
and uptodate on what's happening with America Sports Car. Keith, welcome back to the show. It's the week of Memorial
3:36
Day. It's the unofficial start of summer, buddy. Yeah. And finally, it's here. Although, it's been feeling like summer's been
3:41
here for a little while now with our heat in Florida. But we are all good with it. And yeah, it's start of summer
3:46
and it's like everything gets real serious now. Got good shows coming up. We got road trips, of course, later on
3:51
in the summer. We've got the caravans coming up. So, lots of good things happening. It's going to be a busy summer, that's
3:57
for sure, buddy. Absolutely. Let's start off like we always do with a Corvette production update from the Bowling Green assembly plant.
4:03
Yep. We always got a lot to share, including these latest production numbers. Last week, the Stingray surpassed 23,000 for the model year, and
4:10
the Z06 just zoomed by 6,800. And of course, we could be at 7,000 Z06's by
4:15
the end of this week. Huh. They are just really cranking them out right now. That's all good news. Constraints have
4:20
really dropped down to really nothing in the last couple order cycles. Couple things here and there, but nothing at
4:26
all for the Z06. Speaking of Rays, we are seeing some getting built. In fact,
4:31
last Wednesday, it looks like it was the best day yet for the E-Rays with 16 produced in just one day.
4:37
Wow. So, we're currently looking at still just about 375 or so. Of course, these are numbers from last week, but when you
4:43
add everything up, we're at 30,200 Corvettes for all three 2024 models. And
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of course, with three more months to go in production, you know, those numbers are going to really climb. That's all good news there. You know, speaking
4:54
again of the -ays, it also looks like there was an only allocation last Thursday that went out. I didn't really
5:01
do a lot of confirmation with a lot of dealers, but several dealers reached out to me and said, "Hey, we got E- Rays, but only E- Rays." My thinking is maybe
5:07
Chevy's now finally ready to start building these cars more and more. Yeah. And in fact, looking at that additional
5:13
3 months of production time and where we're at now, I'm going to kind of make a prediction that we might see close to
5:18
a thousand E-Rays produced for 2024 model year, if not even more. All of a sudden, we saw this at the Z06es in
5:24
their very first inaugural year where they were slow, slow, slow, and then all of a sudden it just took off there at
5:29
the end. Yeah, I'm anticipating that we might be getting out of this ramp up phase and they'll actually start building some
5:35
cars to get us to that thousand car milestone. That's just my guess, but I think that's going to happen. It feels like we're ready to break out
5:41
for sure, buddy. Also, we got the buildout dates for some of those cancel colors for 2023 into 2024, didn't we?
5:48
Yeah. Yes. So, last time we spoke, Steve, we were pretty excited because it appeared we had some dates for the end of the 2024s and the start of the 2025s,
5:54
which we were told could start on July 15th. This actually came as part of a GM communications letter to a dealer. But
6:01
now, we're learning that Chevy has this list of buildout dates for the cancel colors, which basically gives us the
6:08
last dates that you can order these cars before they go away. Those colors go away forever. They go on through August.
6:14
So that's why again our feeling is another 3 months or so of production. We'll give you some of these dates here.
6:19
We've got Amplify Orange that final date is 627. Accelerate yellow is 7-Eleven.
6:25
Silver Flare 7-Eleven. Cacti July 25th. Carbon flash on August 1st. Ceramic
6:31
Matrix Gray August 1st. And then the final one, hypersonic gray on August 8th. So, you know, if you take an order
6:37
on August 8th and then 4 to 6 weeks to build, we're looking at early midepptember time of when the 2025s
6:43
might start. We're thinking again, you know, and that's again when they started last year. The Stingray started in midepptember as well. It's still a full
6:49
year of production and it's going to be a lot of cars made, I think. Yeah, definitely, buddy. That sounds good. It's a pretty healthy year, that's
6:55
for sure. Also, we saw that Chevrolet launched an update for the build and buy configurator, didn't they? What are the
7:01
updates that they put in there? Yeah. So on May 15th, I go on to chevrolet.com to build an E-Ray. It's what I do when I'm
7:07
bored, Steve. It's the same damn car every time. It ended up being the same car. So nothing changing there. But as
7:13
soon as I got on to it on May 15th, I saw that the interface was much different. Just the way they move things around. The headers were different, the
7:20
menu bar was different, and also they they changed the name. This used to be just called the build and price configurator and now they're calling it
7:26
the build and buy because when you're all done with your build it actually at the very end it shows you available cars
7:31
offered to dealers close to you. Wow. So it might not be perfect but it'll actually show you like this one has only three differences compared to the one
7:38
that you just built and then it shows you the price and then if you want to contact that dealer. So that part's a lot different. And then the other really
7:44
big change I think is why it looks good on the desktop. This looks really good on my iPhone. And I'm assuming Android
7:50
probably the same reason because the way they have it structured as you're building this car on your phone. You got the car on the top and then the menus
7:57
actually slide underneath the photo as you're scrolling scrolling. So, and that's the key here because before you
8:02
had like exterior, you had wheels and now the wheels are now under the exterior option. So, when you're in any
8:08
of these tabs, you just keep scrolling down and they're just all stacked on each other now. So, like the exterior is
8:13
like the paints and then you have your stripes. Convertible. You can pick your roof, whether the nay cells are carbon
8:19
flash or not. And then it just keeps going on down the list. And then you get your wheels and then your brakes. So everything on the exterior is all in
8:24
that one tab now. And then also with the options, everything's really stacked up there. Like you know, first your
8:30
specific packages like Z-51 or the Z07. Those are then followed by your regular
8:35
options like do you want the body color vents? Do you want the chrome emblems or the black emblem? So just keep going
8:41
through those. But it looks really good on the phone. So, if you haven't really done any of this on the phone or you're looking to buy a car, try it on the
8:47
phone because it's a good upgrade and I think you'll like it. Boy, thanks a lot, buddy. Now, I'm going to have to go out and build another car.
8:53
Well, you know, it's time to start looking around. You've had that car for a couple years. Yeah, I need a ZR1, don't I?
9:00
We could all use a ZR1. Exactly. Hey, you know, I just realized this, buddy. With the Malibu that was
9:06
being cancelled, the Corvette is really the only quote unquote car left in the Chevrolet lineup. Steve, it's a car
9:13
company that no longer makes cars. Actually, yeah, this is crazy. It just kind of occurred to me. We heard that
9:19
the Malibu is going to go away later this year, which is kind of sad for me. I have a little bit of a personal connection with the Malibu. My oldest
9:25
son got a 2009 Malibu when he graduated from college, and then actually that car is still going strong today. Over the
9:32
years, we've seen these sedans is going. First, it was the Impala. Of course, the Camaro ends in 2024, and now the Malibu,
9:38
and of course, that leaves Corvette as technically the only car in the lineup. The rest are all trucks, SUVs, vans, and
9:44
crossovers. This is our fault, I guess, because people are choosing SUVs and trucks more and more these days. But
9:50
also kind of the regulations. You go back 20 or 30 years and automakers, they had a fuel economy penalty on sedans,
9:56
but that wasn't there for trucks. And so then you had all these SUVs that are being marketed as trucks to get around
10:02
these fuel economy numbers. And so that's why they became more popular. And eventually people just like all the storage you have, you know, sitting up a
10:09
little bit higher. They feel like they're a little bit safer than being down lower with a car. So, we've just seen these major habits of automotive
10:16
buying change over the last 20 or 30 years. And no one's making sedans these days. Wow. That's kind of crazy, isn't it?
10:22
Think about that. Corvette is the only quote unquote car left in the whole Chevrolet lineup.
10:27
I never would have seen that coming, you know, 20 years ago. That's amazing. And also, buddy, we have the top choices for both the Stingray
10:34
and the Z06 for 2024 now that the model year is almost over. During the NCM batch, the Corvette team shared some of
10:40
the production information for the current 2024 model year. When they gather up this info, they showed as of
10:46
April 1st, there were 30,196 Corvettes. These cars have been produced
10:51
already or on the order books and are scheduled for production. The way they break that down, currently 76% of those
10:57
cars, 22,948 are Stingrays. 22% are Z06s, which is 6,644.
11:04
And then just 2% -ay at 604. Stingray owners. We're going to cover some of the
11:10
options and how they're outfitting their cars. Right now, the coups are leading the convertibles by 58 to 42%. And the
11:16
top selling Stingray overall is now the 2LT coupe. We've seen 5,550 of those
11:21
produced. And in fact, the 2LT trim package is the sweet spot among Corvette buyers for the Stingray. When these body
11:27
styles are combined, the 2LTs accounted for 9,735 units, followed by 6,93LTS
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and 6311LTS. That's the number I think to watch is the 1LTS. Yeah, we actually have seen
11:41
them on constraint. I think Chevy's trying to limit because a lot of dealers now are ordering for dealer stock and
11:46
what they do is they get in some cheap 1LTS so they can say, "See, we've got Stingray starting at 73 or 72 or 67. I
11:52
saw one dealer out of Miami bombed in Chevrolet does a lot of 1LTs. They're selling them for like 63."
11:58
Wow. You know, $7,000 off of MSRP. But it's that price number they get. So that's why we see a bunch of those 1LTs. Moving
12:05
on to top colors for the stingrays. Arctic white 15%, torch red 14%, black
12:10
at 11%, red mist at 11%, and then hypersonic gray, which is going away. That was the fifth color and that came
12:16
in at 8%. The bottom three colors all ended up at 3% of production. They're cacti green,
12:22
the silver flare, and the accelerate yellow. Of course, all three of those colors are set to be replaced next year anyways as well, right? And then finally
12:29
for Stingray, 50% of buyers are getting the standard wheel and either silver or the carbon flash wheel. And those gloss
12:35
black Q9i we always talk about the Bing Constraint. They're the third popular wheel at 21%. Again, we see why they
12:42
keep just running out of those. They keep just selling more than they actually thought they would, I think. So, we did see some price changes on a
12:48
couple of the other gloss black wheels that hopefully offer up those, but people like those gloss back wheels, so they're selling pretty well there.
12:53
Yep. That's pretty cool. How about the Z06s? Again, we mentioned 22% of all 2024s are Z06s. That number again, 6,644
13:02
is what we see on the books. These cars are selling at 50/50. Exactly. Coups and convertibles. Now, I'm sure one of
13:08
them's a little bit ahead of the other, but we don't know what that is. You know, 2023, actually, the convertibles were the most popular model for the Z06,
13:16
and they actually sold the coups by about 200 cars. Now, I I think a lot of that was the 70th anniversary package.
13:22
Majority of the cars for the Z06 70th anniversary package were convertible. So
13:28
I think that's why it got the bump. But yeah, it's 50/50 right now, which again is just kind of amazing to me because the Z06 is supposed to be the track car.
13:34
It's the track weapon. Yet people love the convertible version of it. We do see buyers still ordering the Z06s with the
13:40
higher trim levels. Most are overwhelmingly choosing 3LZ. The coups are at 68% and the convertibles are at a
13:46
whopping 82%. So people are buying loaded convertibles is what we're seeing here. Five top colors again, black 13%,
13:53
torch red and arctic white. All those three are actually at 13%. We have red mist fourth at 10% and then again
14:00
hypersonic gray fifth at 8%. And again that color is going away. The three bottom colors, cacti green only 2%,
14:07
silver flare 3% and then ceramic matrix gray at 4%. Kind of give you some numbers. The black cars at the top
14:13
that's about 860 or so and then at the bottom 133 or so cacti. Uh nice little
14:18
spread there. A lot of cars in that middle. You know those rapid blue, riptide blue, they're all kind of there in the middle. Doing great. No problems
14:25
there. Going into some of the packages, 23% of buyers are ordering the Z07 performance package.
14:30
Nice. You know, those come with the carbon ceramic wheels. So the nonZ7 buyers, there's 19% of those are actually
14:36
upgrading their brakes for the J57 CCBs. Interesting to see. People do like those
14:42
brakes for sure. Yeah. As for wheels, the overwhelming majority are going with the aluminums. Just 13%
14:48
are ordering the carbon fiber wheels. Of course, you have to start at like $13,000. It's a pretty big upgrade. The best
14:54
selling wheel is that black spider wheel at 47% while the best selling carbon fiber wheel is the visible carbon fiber
15:00
wheel at just 7%. Huh. Finally, we have a bunch more stats for both the Stingray and the Z06. So, if
15:05
you want to look those up, it'll tell you what front lift is and you know, the nays and a whole bunch of other stuff there, caliper colors. We're also going
15:11
to be doing a breakout on the -ay stats. Even though we were talking about, you know, early on that close to 400 have
15:16
been built, Chevy has over 600 on their ordered books or have been produced. That'll give us a good indication of
15:21
what people are going with. And the colors are a lot different on the -ay versus the other ones. Wow. We're going to be paying attention
15:26
to that as well. Again, three more months of ordering for 2024s and production of 2024s. These numbers will
15:32
grow and change slightly, but we're seeing with 30,000 cars out there, we're seeing a really good snapshot of what
15:37
buyers are ordering. That's really cool. I love looking at these stats and seeing what everybody's ordering. It's pretty cool stuff.
15:43
Yes, it is. Buddy, let's take our first break. When we come back, we're going to talk a lot about Corvette racing. We have Corvette
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We come for the Corvette. We stay for the friendships made along the way. When you want to buy a Corvette or any
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You're listening and watching Corvette Today with Steve Garrett. Thanks for checking out Corvette Today
18:39
on podcast and YouTube. It's the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette. Corvette Today is brought to you by
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19:04
833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
19:10
my buddy Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. Every other week we keep you current and uptodate on what's
19:15
happening with America's sports car. In segment number two, we always cover Corvette racing and Corvette rumors.
19:21
Keith, we have a lot to talk about about Corvette racing. Let's start with Spa. Yeah. So a couple weeks ago, we were
19:27
here together. We're talking about, you know, this was a weekend filled with Corvette races coming up and we had another race the following weekend. So
19:33
now we all get to talk about it. So first up, 6 hours of spa. This was TF Sport in the World Endurance
19:38
Championship. They raced at the 6 hours of spa in Belgium and it was kind of a mixed result. The number 82 Corvette
19:43
completed the full 6 hours. Unfortunately, they finished 12th in the standings, which means no points there.
19:48
Unfortunately, their sister car, number 81, had a gearbox issue, and that car was retired about 3 hours into the race
19:53
or so. The next race for TF Sport in the Corvette Z06 GTR is the 24 hours of
19:59
Lemons on June 15th and 16th. Think about that, Steve. That's what, 3 weeks away now. Yeah, that's a race that Corvette racing has
20:05
won nine times in class. Sure would be nice to do it in the new Z06 GT3R. Boy, it' be nice to get double digit
20:11
wins at Lama. That's for sure. Getting 10 would be awesome. Yep. Keith, how do we do at Laguna Seca with Corvette Racing?
20:17
Well, we did even better. Corvette Racing got a podium finish at Laguna Secika. was the first one for the IMSA
20:23
GTD Pro Z06 GT3R racers. Nikki Catsburg and Tommy Milner in the number four car
20:28
actually finished third at Laguna Secikka. If you read their comments, the duo really believed that had things worked out just a little bit
20:33
differently, they would have won that class. They felt they had a very strong car and I think that they got tied up in
20:38
a yellow flag situation where they were all set to go into the pits. They went one lap more and then caution came out
20:45
so they got stuck. Had they jumped into that pits first right before the yellow, they probably would have won that race.
20:50
That was good news. Number three Corvette with Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims. They finished fifth in class. And then finally, AWA Racing's
20:57
number 13 Corvette in the GTD amateur class. They finished 11th, but they also won the award for the highest finishing
21:03
GTD entry with a bronze driver. I actually didn't know they gave away those awards, but they won it. So, good
21:08
for them there. Yeah. The next IMSA WeatherTech sports car race is the Chevrolet Detroit Sports
21:14
Car Classic. That's on the streets of downtown Detroit, and that runs Saturday, June 1st. So, all this week
21:20
leading up to that, you're going to see stuff coming out of Detroit, you know, the drivers and some of the things happening in Detroit. So, we'll try to
21:25
pick up any of that stuff and share it on Corvette Blogger as it comes up. That's good. And finally, how do we do it? The Circuit of the Americas in
21:31
Austin. Well, this was the big news for Corvette Racing. This is the GT World Challenge America. The team there, DXDT Racing,
21:39
has two Corvette Z06 race cars. And of course, last time we talked, we mentioned that factory driver Tommy
21:44
Milner is going to be one of the drivers of their new cars. In this format, they race two races over the weekend. They
21:50
hold a race on Saturday and one on Sunday. The number 63 Corvette driven by Tommy Milner and Alex Udell. They won
21:56
both races each day. These races are shown live on YouTube and you can go back and actually watch them if you want
22:01
to see some good Corvette racing there. DXDT Racing's next event for the Corvette Z06's will be the GT World
22:07
Challenge America at Virginia International Raceway on July 19th through the 21st. This could be actually
22:13
a team we could get around. These are all GT cars racing. So there's no prototypes or anything like there that
22:18
get the distraction of, you know, you never see your car because they're always talking about the prototypes, right? Well, we are the leading class in
22:25
that series. So if you want to watch some good GT racing, that might be the place to go. Nice. I like that. In the rumor section,
22:31
Keith, we saw more ZR1 prototypes back in Colorado, didn't we? Yeah. The Corvette engineering team was
22:36
working out in the mountains of Colorado. We had a group of six or so Corvette ZR1 prototypes all wearing that
22:42
vinyl camouflage. Some of the cars look familiar. They had some markings that we saw the same cars that we saw over in
22:48
the Nurburg Ring back in October. And we also saw a nice mix of both convertibles and the coups with the two different
22:53
wings. One of the wings is the Z06 style. We always call that the bird wing, the way it's kind of shaped. The
22:58
Z06 wing, the really high wing that we saw on the Nurburgg cars, that huge massive rear wing. So, they're testing
23:05
those different cars and seeing how they're doing up. The high altitude we assume is what they're out there for. We had some video showing the cars. We got
23:11
some really good pictures of the rear wing and stuff. There's some exciting things happening there. Of course, they're going to reveal this car sometime this summer. Hopefully, we'll
23:18
see Taj there, his last harrah before he sails off into the sunset. Looking good for the ZR1's.
23:23
I can't wait, buddy. I can't wait. All right, Keith. Time for our final break. When we come back, it's the lighter side
23:28
of Corvette on deck next here on Corvette Today.
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your Corvette today. This is the Corvette Today podcast with
26:00
Steve Garrett. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything
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Corvette. Corvette Today is brought to you by Wheelcraft. You want your Corvette looking its best? will dress it
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I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is my partner in crime Keith Cornet from corvetteblogger.com.
26:36
Don't forget if you want a deeper dive into any of the stories Keith and I cover, you can always go to corvette
26:42
blogger.com. All right, Keith, time for our third segment, the lighter side of Corvette. Boost District. I don't know
26:48
who that is, but they have 1,000 horsepower on the dyno with a twin turbo
26:53
-ay. Wow. Yeah, they're a fairly new tuning shop. We first heard about them, I guess it was within the last eight or
26:59
nine months or so. They took a supercharged Stingray to the drag strip and did really well with it. He calls it the world's fastest supercharged thing,
27:06
which is not even close to what we saw the twin turbos doing back in the day. But what he's done here is, yeah, he got
27:12
himself an E-Ray. Instead of doing a supercharger build on it, he did twin turbos. We saw his one of his first
27:17
videos, he took that car to the track and it ran 9.741 seconds at 152 mph.
27:22
Nice. Now, what he did was he put the turbos on, went to the track, and now he's actually doing the dyno to see what kind
27:28
of power he's making. Okay. He does actually he takes it to two different dyno facilities. The first one is for rear wheels only. He wants to see
27:35
how it compares to the 6.2 L 495 horsepower LT2 engine. You can get the power figures for that and then he can
27:41
compare that to what he did with the supercharge. He can also show like a procharger car, what it might be running. So again, just helping him
27:48
figure that out. When he was on that dyno, he ran 831 wheel horsepower and
27:53
814 footlbs of torque. That really added some serious performance to that car. He added that 160 horsepower with that
27:59
front electric motor. And now Boost Dish has that magical 1,00 horsepower rating on the car. But it's the second trip to
28:06
the other dyno which has the all-wheel drive dyno. What he does there is he actually does four consecutive pulls
28:12
that put him over the 1000 horsepower milestone. Wow. His best run was actually,33 horsepower
28:18
and he estimates with the twin turbo setup he's gained 484 horsepower and almost 500 footlbs of torque.
28:24
Wow. Now that he's got those numbers and he's kind of dialed it in a little bit more, he's going back to the track. That
28:29
should be hopefully our next video to see what kind of power that's making. Again, that 9.741 seconds that he did, I
28:36
feel like that can really be turned up a little bit. We'll see how that works out. That's a video I want to see, buddy.
28:41
That's for sure. Also, Keith, speaking of a 1000 horsepower, Special Vehicles Engineering announced that they have a
28:46
special run of a 1000 horsepower Yanko SC twin turbo Stingrays coming out for
28:51
the C8, don't they? Yeah. So, if you know your Corvette history, Don Yenko was one of these legendary drivers back in the day,
28:58
driving Corvettes and SECA and stuff. And then he eventually became a Chevrolet dealer in Pennsylvania, but
29:04
always keeping those racing roots right there with him. The Yanko name became synonymous with performance. And it was
29:09
one of the places to go like if you had a Camaro and you do a Copo order, you do a ZL1 engine in it. That was always one
29:15
of the places to go there. Today, Special Vehicle Engineering owns the rights to the Yanko name, and they're
29:20
carrying on that history with a 1000 horsepower Yenko C8 Corvette. Wow. They're using twin turbos for their
29:26
power. The engine mockup they have looks really well done. I mean, you look at it, you'd say, "Wow, this looks
29:31
something like you'd see an OEM or really high-end manufacturer do." So, it looks really good. The other thing, too,
29:37
is this package also comes with choice of stripes on the side of the car. And that's one of the hallmarks of the Yanko is the side stripes on the car. It lets
29:44
you know that this is a Yanko car. And then there's also a bunch of other choices of optional equipment like wheels that can be added. However, this
29:50
package isn't for the faint of heart. It starts at $99,000 and that doesn't include the car. You got to have the car and then the
29:57
99,000, right? You got to have the car and then you can get the upgrade done on it. And again, you can go crazy with it, but I'd really
30:04
like to see some dyno numbers on this thing. They've had a history. They started doing Yanko Corvettes. I think the 2017 Grand Sport was one of their
30:10
first and they offered end up like two different packages. cuz they think their first package they had like a 700 or 800 horsepower package, but then their
30:17
second package went over a,000 horsepower with that car as well. So, looks like they're back. They're doing a limited build 10 this year and
30:23
supposedly 50 next year for those people that can come up with a $99,000 package price. Buddy, I bet that'll sell out anyway,
30:29
you know. Probably will. Yeah, probably. Also, Keith, we know that the -ray was the pace car for the
30:35
Indy500. We also knew who the driver was as well. Yeah. Baseball Hall of Famer Ken Griffy
30:41
Jr. gets the driving honors. Of course, we're recording this prior to the race, so hopefully you all got to see it. I
30:46
know that I've got my time set for being on the couch from about Sunday 12:00 noon or so, maybe a little bit earlier,
30:52
so we can see some of the runup. Pretty exciting. Baseball Hall of Famer is going to drive the car, so hopefully get to join it. We also had another video
30:58
prior to the 500 that shows two Chevy drivers, and I'm going to butcher their names here. Augustine Kandumpino and
31:04
Roma Grashi. He's a French guy. Roman Grojan. Grojan. Thank you very much, Steve. So,
31:09
they drive the new E-Ray in one of the Stingray Festival Corvettes around the track. And I've always liked these videos. I've been carrying them for
31:15
about three years now. The reason why they're great is because you tend to get unfiltered comments from professional
31:20
race car drivers. And many of them, it's the first time they've ever been in a Corvette. So, like their eyes are wide open. They can't believe the power out
31:27
of the car and how it handles. So, it's usually a lot of fun. And this one was good, too. Augustine Canopino, did I say
31:33
that right? He goes wide open throttle in the -ray and you can just look at his face and he knows that he's having a
31:38
good time. He says, "Wow, this is impressive." And at the end of the drive, he claims that his only problem is now that he wants one. As you know,
31:45
the winner of the 500 does get to keep one of the pace cars as part of their winning. So, that is one way to get a free Corvette.
31:50
Yeah, he just has to drive fast on Sunday, doesn't he? Just got to drive fast. Yeah, that's right. Somebody's winning a free Corvette,
31:56
that's for sure. We have a couple stories about the National Corvette Museum, too, Keith. The NCM finished
32:02
second in USA Today's best car museum. Yeah, this is a fun thing and allows people to vote for it. It was the best
32:09
attraction for car lovers. It was the USA Today Reader Choice Awards. So, a panel of experts, they first pick out
32:15
like 20 nominees and then the public votes on it for their top 10 and then that's what we get. So, actually winning
32:20
the top honor was a relatively new museum called the Savoy Auto Museum off of I75 in Barto County, Georgia. And
32:27
then of course in second place was the National Corvette Museum. I got to thinking, you know, with summer road trips coming up, of course, you got the
32:33
caravans and some other things that you might be getting ready for. One of these or several of these museums might be on
32:38
the way or something definitely worth checking out. You know, with what we always call that one tank of gas trip. You can see the full list at corvette
32:44
blogger.com. I know there's a couple museums on there that I've been to and a couple that I really like to go to, including the Simone Museum up in
32:50
Philadelphia. One of the grand sports is up there. Some good stuff there. So, check it all out. That's cool. Also, our second story is
32:56
the National Corvette Museum was named a 2024 Blueest Star Museum. I've not heard of that before. What's a Blueest Star
33:03
Museum? Yeah, this is I think something new. Blueest star museums are those who are offering free admission to currently
33:08
serving US military personnel and their families over the summer. It's a program National Endowment for the Arts, the
33:13
Defense Department, and a couple other groups have started this blue star museum initiative. So, participating museums like the NCM, they're offering
33:20
free admission beginning May 18th, which was Armed Forces Day, and it runs all the way through midepptember. So, if you
33:25
are a currently serving US military personnel and family, with your military ID, you can get into a whole bunch of
33:31
museums for free this summer. Thank you for your service and go check out some cool stuff. That's absolutely fantastic. Well,
33:37
buddy, thanks for being back on Corvette today. Have a great Memorial Day week and we'll talk in two weeks,
33:42
Steve. My pleasure. Always fun to be here and spend these days with you. Lots of fun here. Again, all the stories we
33:47
talk about are on the website corvetteblogger.com and we will see you in two weeks. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure
33:54
to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show. And thanks to our sponsors,
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