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CORVETTE TODAY #219 - Corvette News & Headlines, Late June 2024
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Jul 12, 2025
CORVETTE TODAY #219 - Corvette News & Headlines, Late June 2024 As we await the announcement of the ZR1 release, Corvette news is still coming in fast and furiously! Next week, your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, and Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger bring you all the Corvette news you can handle. Here are a few of the stories Steve and Keith cover next week: 1. A Stop Sale ordered on select 2024 Corvettes due to a seatbelt retractor issue 2. GM names a new Executive Chief Engineer to replace Tadge Juechter 3. A wrap-up of Corvette Racing at Le Mans 4. GM discounts all 7 colors that are going away for 2025
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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.
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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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And a shout out to Canadian Corvette Forum and Corvette Forum, welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the
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world. All right, my friend, it's time to bring you the latest Corvette news and headlines with my pal Keith Cornet
3:51
from corvette blogger.com. As you know, Keith is here every other week, and together we keep you current and
3:56
uptodate on what's happening with America Sports Car. Keith, welcome back to the show. Last week, summer started
4:02
officially on Thursday, but man, it feels like it's been summer already for a month here in Kansas City.
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It's hot everywhere. Of course, we've seen record highs up in the Northeast as well. So, hopefully you guys are driving
4:12
around in your cool Corvettes and keeping cool. And of course, we got a lot of great events this summer. And, you know, here's the crazy thing. The
4:18
days are only going to get shorter now. So, you got to get out there and enjoy your Corvettes. Of course, we got some great events. We just had Bloomington
4:24
Gold and the GM Carile Nationals. We still got Carile for Corvettes coming up. We've got the Caravan and the NCM
4:30
anniversary show coming up. So, yeah, get out there and start driving your cars, guys. Absolutely. Well, I'm ready to go,
4:36
buddy. I have my brand new Corvette Today t-shirt on that I got from the updated Corvette Today merchandise
4:42
store. Nice. Yes, you can go to corvette.com and see the brand new updated merchandise store.
4:48
But let's start off as we always do with an update on production from the Bowling Green assembly plant.
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Sounds good, Steve. Well, you know, certainly things are getting interesting. You know, we're heading into the end of the 2024 model year.
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Dealers are taking their final 2024 orders this week and then all those final orders will be scheduled and will
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run through September 6th, which marks the end of the model year. And that's still like 11 weeks away or so. So,
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we're going to continue to have some really robust production numbers for 2024. Speaking of those numbers, for the
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Stingray, we are at 25,369 units completed. So, we've been averaging around 120 130 stingrays a
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day. Sometimes it'll go up to 150, but that 120 130 appears to be the sweet spot right now. The Z06 is already at
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7,713 units for 2024, and we're probably going to be closer to 8,000 completed by the
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end of this week. Really, again, strong numbers for Z06. The real mover, however, though, in the last week is the
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-ay, which we've seen seven straight days of double-digit production numbers. We are currently at 581 units, and then
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hopefully we'll be in the 600s by this week as well. So, our total numbers add up currently to 33,663
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Corvettes produced so far for the 2024 model year. And again, with another 10 and a half, 11 weeks to go, we're going
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to have some great numbers at the end of the model year. Yeah. And speaking of production, we saw a banner week with -ays last week,
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didn't we? Yeah. You know, we've been watching the -ay numbers daily. We go to Roger K's unofficial production tracker on
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Facebook. We saw a sudden spike of activity the week of June 10th. What was weird was previously leading up to that
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date, we'd seen a high of 18 cars twice and then the weekly total, the highest was 35. So bam, all of a sudden on June
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10th, they come out. They said 66 E-rays were completed. We had another zero on June 11th, but then for the rest of the
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week, we had totals of 16, 22, and 13 to get us 117 cars produced that week. It's
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great to see the -ay being produced in those kind of numbers. And we really need them to be producing those kinds of numbers. Get that number of stingrays
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coming down. We got these stingrays out there. They're being discounted by $5,000 or more. Reduce the number of Stingrays available. Increase the number
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of E- Rays and maybe even some Z06s. There's still a lot of waiting list for that car. But it looks like things are
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really getting out of this ramp up phase. And then for this final push through the end of the 2024, I'm still predicting a thousand units for -ay.
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That would be really cool. I got really excited about this, Keith. I saw that the 2025 order guide is available for
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viewing and downloading already. I always look forward to that. Don't you? Oh, it's one of my favorite things ever.
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You just go through, you find something new. There's always something that GM doesn't tell us in there. And of course, we had a couple surprise options as
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expected. Nothing really big, but again, it is something new. One of those surprise options is called LPO VUP.
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They're engine closeout graphics. Now, we know that the engine closeouts on the coups are those visible carbon fiber
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triangles on each side of your V8 engine, right? Those are called the closeout. So, we're wondering what a closeout graphic is. We have to assume
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that it's some sort of fancier design that would be part of the engine appearance package. Again, these are
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only available for coups, so they are meant to be seen. We have not seen any pictures yet, so there's going to be a
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surprise there at some point coming towards us. And then the other surprise option is called, it's an LPO. The LPO's
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are dealer installed options, by the way. RPO is a regular production option, but these LPOS's, this one's called SLK,
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red strut bracket, and these are dealerinstalled options. The strut brackets are these little triangles
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mounted near the firewall on the coupe and they hold those brackets that lift up the engine hatch when you're working
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underneath there, right? They've always been black, but now that you can order in red. So, if you're getting like a red engine cover in your
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coupe, now you can have another little bit more red in there to match it to. Again, a couple more surprise options. Everything else that was in there that
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was new, we learned at the NCM Bash. You can view and download the 2025 order guide at corvette blogger.com. And
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speaking of 2025s, real quick, dealers were told last week that the first allocations for 2025 ordering will
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happen on Thursday, July 11th. And then the first orders for 2025s will go in on
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Thursday, July 18th. So, put that date on your calendars. It's going to be here before you know it. If you want to order a 2025, there's
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your dates right there. That's pretty cool, Keith. Also, this was interesting because I haven't seen this in a long time, especially with GM and Chevrolet.
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There was a stop sale ordered on 2024 Corvettes because of a seat belt retractor issue. What's going on with
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that? You know, this seems to be a problem that's kind of reared its head before on previous models, but nothing in these
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kinds of numbers. There was a substantial issue with the 2024s and their seat belt retractors in which they
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lock up in their stowed position. So, you can't pull them out. They make them basically inoperable. You can't use them. The first news we heard about this
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was that GM issued a stop sale order on any new 2024s with these seat belt retractors. This means they can't be
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delivered until the new seat belt retractors are added. These are cars at dealerships waiting for delivery. Now
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they can't be delivered until they get that new part. We initially heard that about 600 cars were affected. And the
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good news is that GM knows the bins of these bad seat belt retractor cars. So they're able to notify their owners and
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say, "Hey, hold on. We got to get new ones in." We are hearing there's a little bit of issue with parts. So, we don't know how long this is going to
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take yet. What really happened, the other shoe dropped, and it turns out that there's more than 13,000 2024 Corvettes that
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might have already been delivered that have these bad seat belt retractors in them because they're not bad yet, but they could still go bad. So, GM has
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issued a recall for them. Affected owners will be getting a letter in the US mail, and I believe you can also check your My Chevy app to see if your
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car is listed there as well. Those letters are going to go out sometime in July. parts I think are going to be a little bit of an issue there until they
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ramp that up and get those to dealers so they can make those changes. Gotcha. Also, Keith, we have a successor
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for the retiring Taj Jar who will be retiring at the end of July, don't we? This was good news because we didn't
10:26
really know what was going into. Of course, a lot of us were rooting for Josh and maybe somebody internally, but you know what? Josh is hands-on right
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now. And I have a feeling that the executive position, the executive chief engineer position is a lot of meetings.
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You know, I anticipate a lot of meetings at GM for executive leadership there. So perhaps it's good that Josh remains
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hands-on as the chief engineer of the vehicle while we have Tony Roma now as the executive chief engineer. Now what's
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interesting is it's not just Corvette. This is a newly formed global Corvette and performance cars team and he'll be
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taking that over beginning July 1st. So we're not really exactly sure how that new organization will pan out, but I'm
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going to speculate a second here. Global Corvette and performance cars teams. Maybe we're looking at the first inklings of Corvette being its home
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brand. That would be cool. It's needed that forever. It's been a long time coming. It kind of deserves it, I think, at this point. And
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especially if they're talking about adding, you know, a SUV or the sedan with a Corvette badge on it as well.
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Needs to be under one house and it needs to be led by the Corvette team. So, we'll see if that happens. But, let's get back to Tony real quick because this
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guy, 30 years at GM, and he has spent some time working on Corvettes and numerous Cadillacs, including the D
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series and Blackwing performance cars. Corvette owners will like the fact that Tony owns multiple Corvettes. He's got a
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C4 ZR1, a C6 ZR1, a C8 ZR6, and a CTSB
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wagon. Guy likes his performance cars, and he likes his Corvettes, too. Yeah, he's one of us.
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Really interesting about him is that he carries the highest level of driving certifications at GM. He has over 1500
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laps on the Nurburgg Ring. And in fact, when they were preparing the story about him becoming a successor to Taj, he was
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over in Germany racing in the ADAC 24-hour Nurburging race. Wow. He's got some incredible credentials
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there for driving and racing and performance cars. The other thing is Tony is just 53 years old and so we
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really hope that he finds his home here for the Corvette team for the remainder of his career. We say welcome home to Corvette, Tony.
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Yeah, absolutely right. All right, buddy. Let's take our first break. When we come back, it's Corvette racing and Corvette rumors on deck next here on
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You're listening and watching Corvette Today with Steve Garrett. Thanks for checking out Corvette Today
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on podcast and YouTube. It's the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette. Corvette Today is brought to you by
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833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
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my pal Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. We keep you current and up to date on what's happening with America's
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sports car every other week. In segment two, we always talk about Corvette racing and Corvette rumors. Keith, let's
15:53
talk about what Corvette racing did at Lama. Absolutely. Well, TF Sport completed the 24 hours of LAMAS with their two Z06
16:00
GT3R racers. Of course, they're racing in a World Endurance Championship, which has Lemons as one of its stops there.
16:06
This was a really challenging race due to weather conditions being very bad. We actually had a 4hour safety car period
16:12
at one point as well. The cars weren't competitive at all for challenging a podium finish or even a win. But the
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good news is that both cars actually finished the grueling 24-hour race. There were a couple issues. This was only the second 24-hour race for the Z06
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GT3R car. Good to see that we are actually getting through some of these issues. Although, we did have some issues. The Z06s didn't have that
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overall speed. The number 82 Corvette finished the best for us. They finished in 11th place after starting 18th. The
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number 81 Corvette encountered a power system problem. Again, it seems to be power systems in electrical that are the
16:44
issues with these cars. They did get it rectified. They did lose 10 laps, unfortunately. They also had to replace
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the front nose. The 82 Corvette had a clutch issue and fell back behind three laps, but they were able to get one of
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those laps back. Really hard race. The good news is that they persevered, worked through it. Both cars finished.
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The next race for TF Sport in the FIA World Endurance Championship is the 6 hours of Sao Paulo. Did I say that
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right? In Brazil. Yes, S. Paulo. And that's on Sunday, July 14th. Sounds good. Also, how did Coret Racing
17:12
do at the Glenn? Well, we'll find out because we are actually recording this the day before the actual race. We'll have to talk
17:18
about this next time. You know, we are over halfway of the 2024 racing schedule now in IMSA. After the Glenn, we're
17:24
going to do the Chevrolet Grand Prix at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Canada on July 14th as well. So, we're
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going to have another one of those weekends where we have two Corvettes racing on multiple continents, which is pretty cool. That is really neat. Also, it seems like
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they're kind of getting the homologation thing requirement taken care of on these GT3RS, which is really good, isn't it?
17:43
It is because, you know, there's a little bit of concerns. You know, as GM Racing and Prattton Miller Motorsports began its customer program, the rules
17:49
are they have to have 20 of these cars built within two years to meet their homologation rules. The homologation
17:54
means that you're building these cars. They're not just special one-off cars that are racing. You know, we had a special retainer to be able to do that
18:00
with our previous cars, the C8Rs, to race in GT3, but these are actual GT3 cars. They have to be built by the
18:06
global GT3 specs, and the rules are you have to have 20 of them out there in two years. We know that eight cars have
18:12
already been built and handed out and GM Racing's Christine Bagy told Sports Car 365 that as many as a dozen more
18:18
customer cars could be available for 125. We might also see some of the existing teams pick up another car as a
18:23
spare. We do know that TF Sport had a spare car for Lemons. There are of course still a few other series out
18:28
there that could be targeted for a new Z06 GT3R team. So it looks like it's happening. You know, and what would be
18:34
really cool eventually get to the point where we could start to see some of these cars get sold just a dedicated track machine to some gentleman racers
18:40
out there that can just do their own track days and not be part of a team or anything like that. It looks like we're on track to have those 20 cars by the
18:46
end of 2025. That's all good news. Very nice. Also, on Thursday of last
18:51
week, we got the official release date of the new C8 ZR1. Yeah. You know, all kinds of news again.
18:58
Does it ever stop, Steve? Really? No. No. Chevrolet officially announced that the C8 ZR1 will be revealed on July
19:04
25th, 2024. GM provided no other details. They don't even tell us if the car is going to arrive to customers as a
19:10
2025 or 2026. They specifically said C8 ZR1. No location or time yet. No model
19:16
year. We don't even know if GM is going to offer this as an online event or if only selected media will be invited and
19:21
it'll do their thing. Regardless if this is in person or online, we know there's going to be another huge take over the internet on July 25th. people will be
19:28
tuning in to find out more about the specs of the ZR1. Really exciting stuff there. Glad to see we're getting some
19:33
movement on this. Pretty exciting to have another Corvette model on the horizon, buddy. I don't know why, but I am just so psyched up for this new ZR1. I can't
19:40
wait for this thing. This will be really great. Cuz it's unthinkable, Steve. I'm trying to think what that means.
19:45
I guess we'll find out, won't we, in July? Also, we did see some of the prototypes
19:50
still out, but we saw Taj and Harlon along for the ride, which is pretty cool. They got to be almost ready to go.
19:56
Yeah, we were talking about these group of engineers doing this run around Ohio and West Virginia and Pennsylvania after
20:03
our last show. I think it was over that weekend we found out they're still testing with that Ferrari SF90 Stradali.
20:09
Nice. We had the CA Corvette prototypes with the different wings on them. So, there's like three different wing configurations
20:14
for the coupe, but we did see familiar faces on this ride. Retiring engineer Taj Ducker and Corvette product manager
20:20
Harlon Charles were along for the ride. So, we were thinking for previous launches, the Corvette engineering team likes to take a big trip. This is what
20:27
they call like their final development ride or their final evaluation. As we had Taj and Harland along for this ride
20:33
and knowing that the ZR1 reveal is just a little over a month away now. We have to think that this might have been the final validation drive for the ZR1. Now,
20:40
everything's going in the can. They've got their production specs ready. There might be some further updates to it, but
20:45
95% of it looks like it's probably completed. You know, we'll have the reveal. And then the big news is when will that car be available? Yeah, can't
20:51
wait. Absolutely can't wait. They're probably doing a little tweaks like you said, crossing all the tees and dotting all the eyes and getting it ready to go.
20:58
But end of July, it'll be a big big day, buddy. That's for sure. Yeah, pretty exciting. Let's take our final break, Keith. When
21:04
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today or just give them a call 833-639-4231.
24:09
I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is my buddy Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. Don't forget, if you want a
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deeper dive into any of the stories that Keith and I cover on this show, you can always go to corvette blogger.com. In
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this final segment, we always talk about the lighter side of Corvette. Keith, I was surprised GM has already
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discontinued all seven colors that are going away for next year. Yeah, this is really interesting cuz we had all these dates associated to when
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the buildouts of these seven colors were going to be happening. It's like they put out these dates and then they just arbitrarily go away the next
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announcement. So, they put out these dates. We saw like hypersonic gray through August 8th, I believe. And then
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GM suddenly announced Amplify Orange and Accelerate yellow were going away. And then for this final 2024 order cycle,
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all five colors are unavailable. Any of these seven colors for people that are trying to order a car right now, you
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can't get it. You have to go with the traditional white, red, black, some blues, but you can't get any of the other stuff. I kind of like the fact
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that we have this story in the lighter section, but for the last month, GM has put out these dates that just immediately change it. No way to run a
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car company. Dealers have no idea what their customers are will be allowed to order. Really would like to see some of these communications. Snapoo's worked
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out. I know we've talked about communication with dealers and how that filters down to the customers. It's a really important part of that whole
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customer relationship. Dealers aren't happy about not knowing what dates are happening and customers are up in the
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air because they rely on their dealers for that info. We understand they're getting rid of colors are bringing in new colors. Just let us know and give us
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these dates in advance so we have some way to plan for it. Bring on the new colors. That's for sure. Yeah, we know more than a couple
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people that have a couple orders going in this cycle and the last cycle that have just had to completely change their
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orders because that color is going away. Wow. Also, Keith, this is really cool. The National Corvette Museum has a new
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exhibit called Ground of Sky, and it tells the story of the sinkhole, which is really neat. Yeah. The 10th anniversary of the
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infamous sinkhole this year, but this is a little different. This exhibit, Ground of Sky, sinkhole re-imagined, serves as
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a tribute to the growth and vision of the National Corvette Museum and a reminder to Corvette enthusiasts worldwide how far the NCM has come since
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that morning in 2014 when we found out that the floor collapsed in the sky dome and swallowed in Corvettes. They'll have
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some of the cars that were rescued from the sinkhole. And then there's a really cool timeline that shows everything from
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the sinkhole happening through today of all the record growth and attendance that came afterwards. You know, that
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viral video just went crazy showing the floor buckling and then dropping, right? You know, it was everywhere. There was
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news stations in Japan talking about it. It was pretty cool thing. I maintain that was one of the best things that
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ever happened to the NCM. True. The amount of free publicity and advertising and people knowing that
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there is a Corvette museum just skyrocketed. They called it making lemonade out of lemons. Yes.
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They do have certainly a story to tell. So, I'm anxious to see this new exhibit when we go up there for the anniversary show.
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Me, too. And just a little bit of trivia, Corvette is the only American car brand that has its own museum.
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That's pretty cool. Also, Keith, I was really surprised to see this. Willow Springs International Raceway is up for
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sale. Get out your checkbook. Yeah, the family that's owned the Willow Springs Raceway facility since 1962 has put the
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track up for sale. There's no word on price, but we learned that YouTuber Ameilia Hartford is one of these that
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are spearheading an effort to buy it. Wow. The track has a long history designated as an official California
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point of historical interest in 1996. And of course, many events are held there. And it also serves as a great
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place for movies, TVs, and commercials. You know, one of the recent movies that was filmed there was Ford versus Ferrari, right? And there's a great
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scene at Willow Springs where Kent Miles is racing a Cobra against his Corvette competitors there. Pretty interesting.
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You know, luckily Willow Springs is kind of out there in the wilderness unlike other tracks that were out there and
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then growth from residential is kind of surrounding them. We've seen that with Laguna Secika. We've seen that at tracks
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here in Florida. Most notably, Cletus' Freedom Factory is getting encroached on now. And of course, what will happen is
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people start complaining and tracks get shut down and they've done nothing but do what they've always done for the last 50 years. Hopefully, a responsible
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ownership group will buy Willow Springs and be able to keep some of that great stuff that's been happening out there for the last 50ome, 60ome years. Keep it
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going. Yeah, Amelia, give me a call and let me know how things are going. Also, buddy, I was really sorry to see
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this. Some dealerships are suffering from ransomware attacks with their software and it's really causing
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problems with them getting in contact with some of their buyers. Yeah, it was really crazy. So, Automotive News reported that it was a
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major cyber attack that affects maybe upwards of 15,000 automotive dealerships in the country, right?
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They all rely on a third party called CDK Global and they make this dealer
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management software that handles everything from customer info, accounting, finance, vehicle inventory.
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service departments use it for parts ordering or parts lookup. So, this cyber attack really kind of shut them down for
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a couple days. All these dealers had to resort to pen and pencil to do daily functions as they were working their way
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through this. We did hear that this was a cyber ransom event. No idea how much they were targeting from this company,
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but after 2 days and the amount of commerce that's been disrupted, it's got to be pretty substantial. Hopefully,
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they've been able to get through this. Their systems are back up and dealers are running back as normal. Yeah. If you're dealing with your dealership on anything, whether it's
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parts, service, or even purchasing a new car, give them a little bit of leeway because they are suffering from this
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ransomware attack and things are pretty darn difficult for them to do business right now. Also, Keith, let's end it on
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a cool note. We've got a brand new thank you gift that looks fantastic. Man, this is really cool. So, you know,
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for the C8 generation, GM really stepped up their quality of what we call their thank you gifts to new Corvette buyers.
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previous owners of C7 Corvettes, I think you got a letter and you got a poster, right? And now the C8 buyers, we get these
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really cool, they call them speed shaped models. It looks like a representation of your car. It's painted in the same
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color as your car. It's got your VIN number on it. Makes a really neat display. They came out with one for the Z06, a little bit different than the
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Stingray. And now we've got the -ay one. It's glass. It's see-through. You can look through it. You can see the front
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drive motor. You can see the battery pack. And then you can see the rear V8 engine. It still has your VIN number on
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it, but when it sits on the base, like if you get a red one, you can look through the base and see red. So,
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there's like a red outline that the car sits on. So, it does still show the representation of the color of your car
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as well. Just a really neat thank you gift. People have started posting their pictures online of them. Yeah, they are
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really cool. It makes you wonder what they're going to do for ZR1 next. Oh, yeah. Each Speed Shape model has just gotten better and better as they've introduced
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them. Really neat event that they do this for. -ray people are getting theirs early, but you know, there's only 500
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and some that have been built so far. I know for Stingray people, they tend to run about six to nine months or even
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longer behind when you bought the car versus when you get your Speedshaped gift. If you bought a new car, you will
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get one. Just hang in there and enjoy it and show it when you get it off. Yeah. And we'll have pictures of it on the YouTube version of this Corvette
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Today show. Check it out and make sure you look at them because they are really, really cool. Yes, they are. Well, buddy, thank you for being back on
30:53
Corvette Today. We will talk to you and see you in two weeks. Oh, my pleasure. See, this is a lot of fun. So much Corvette news out there. It's only going
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to continue to drop. Maybe we'll get some advanced notice of some of the ZR1 stuff happening. The next time we're going to be together, it's going to be
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in July. This year is just flying by. Again, we see you on the roads. Wave those hands. Thanks again for listening and watching
31:11
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