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CORVETTE TODAY #231 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid September 2024
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Jul 12, 2025
CORVETTE TODAY #231 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid September 2024 Now that the two big Corvette shows are now completed, CORVETTE TODAY looks forward to see what is going on with America's Sports Car! Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger.com (http://corvetteblogger.com/) is back on the show with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to keep you "in-the-know" on Corvette. Here are a few of the topics that Steve and Keith discuss:
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0:00
[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 everybody, it's time to bring you the latest Corvette news and headlines with Keith Cornet from
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corvette blogger.com. Keith is with me every other week. Together we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening
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with America's sports car. Keith, welcome back to the show. You had some big news last week. I'm so excited for
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you, buddy. Yeah, been working on this for a little while and I haven't said too much about I know my friends know about it, but the
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allocation for my got picked up on Thursday. Going to be ordering this car through Mike Ferman at Kriswell
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Chevrolet. Hoping to have it sometime near the end of October, early November. Pretty exciting stuff. It's the very
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first new Corvette I've ordered. Of course, I've had my 66 Corvette in the garage since before I was born. So, it's
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exciting that I finally get to kind of put my mark on my own Corvette and pretty excited about that. Yeah, that was your dad's car. tell them
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a little bit about the spec of the -. Yeah, sure. So, it's funny, you know, I was trying to cut cost and keep cost
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down and then the dream just kind of took over. So, it is a 3LZ convertible. It was always going to be a convertible.
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I tell people that from the moment I saw the convertibles at the Kennedy Space Center reveal back in October of 2020, I
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knew that that was the car for me. This car actually is going to be the new Hysteria purple metallic with Skyool
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gray interior. It's got a bunch of the options on. And of course, a lot of the options already come standard on it with magnetic ride control with the carbon
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ceramic brakes, but we're also going to get the front lift, the two-tone sky cool grade interior, chrome wheels from Wheelcraft. I think it's going to look
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pretty sharp, buddy. Congratulations. I'm so excited for you. Can't wait to see that car coming out from Kriswell Chevrolet and
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you guys driving home. That's awesome. Well, thanks. Actually, because we did mention in the story last week, I've
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actually had people reaching out and saying congratulations and telling me the journey's worth it and all that stuff. Really looking forward to this.
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It's an exciting time. I tell people I'm both excited and I'm terrified at the same moment. It's just the process you
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go through. I'm in good hands with Mike over at Kriswell. Definitely. Well, buddy, let's get the show started. Let's talk about Corvette
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production from the Bowling Green assembly plant. Absolutely. So, welcome to the 2025 model year. Chevrolet did start building
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2025 models on Monday, September 9th. And from our understanding actually is that they had to start those later in
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the day because they were finishing up on the remaining 2024 models. Just a little inside baseball. Our
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understanding is generally what will happen is when they do a rolling change of model years on the assembly line they
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actually take out a couple cars and our understanding was there was three spots separating the 2024s from the beginning
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of the 2025s. They just pick up where they left off but now they've got new 2025 equipment on the cars. We don't
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really have too many stats yet for the 2025s but unofficially we do have 2024 production numbers based on Roger Keel's
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Vin count. 2024 production ended with 30,92 Stingrays, 10,549
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Z06s and 1,249 E- Rays. So that's a total of 42,700
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Corvettes for the 2024 model year. Nice. And again, unofficial number. So I just make sure everybody knows that we are
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looking forward to getting the full download from the National Corvette Museum, which will have everything all buttoned up and then that's how we'll be
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able to know exactly what cars were chosen and where all the options and all that stuff. Look for that in a couple weeks or so. But again, 42,700
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cars for 2024. Not too shabby. Not too shabby at all. And this is all very interesting that they started 2025
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models because Chevrolet has delayed the 2025 build and price configurator until September 24th.
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Yeah, this was interesting because in early August, they did tell dealers that the configurator would be up on
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September 10th. And then I think the week before that, the most recent communicated dealers, they pushed it
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back to the 24th. We got a little bit of flack on Facebook for posting the story with some accusing us of having quote
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first world problems. And of course, it probably didn't help to say that no way to treat high-end sports car buyers. You
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know, the high-end being the trigger word there for some people. That may be so, but as someone who has some experience in this, try building and
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pricing out a new Corvette with last year's data. You have to get out paper and pencil. You have to try to figure out, do I have the right pricing? Do I
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have the right information? Even when I got my order back from Mike, I had to confirm pricing with him and make sure that everything was all buttoned up
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there. the builder price configurator. What a great tool it is. It's got to be up and running for buyers. So hopefully
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Chevrolet will get this in gear and get that up sooner rather than later, but we are expecting it on Tuesday, September 24th.
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That sounds good. Also on the technical side, GM has expanded the recall of the seat belt retractors for the C8
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Corvette. Yeah, you know, earlier this summer, General Motors announced that certain 2024 and 2025 Corvettes were being
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recalled because one or both seat belts can become locked after the automatic locking retractor function is activated.
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This is what happens when you pull the seat belt all the way out and then it retracts all the way in and then it becomes locked. The problem is like
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there's these two internal components of the retractor that are out of spec and when it happens you can't use your seat
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belts. They lock up and you actually need to take them to service. The word this week is that the recall again
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previously 2024 and 25 Corvettes has now included a few hundred more C8 Corvettes
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from every year from 2020 to 2025. Oh. So, according to the safety recall notices, some cars were supposedly
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already fixed, but they're fixed with defective components. So, these are the new set of retractors that will need to
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be installed in them. The good news is replacement retractors are available. We did actually speak to a dealer. They're
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actually still sending cars to dealers that have the bad retractors in them. And when the car gets to the dealer,
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there's a stop sale notice on that car. So, it cannot be delivered until those seat belts are swapped out with the new
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seat belt retractor. The good news is there are parts and that this expanded recall only adds another 400 or so
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Corvettes from 2020 to 2024. So they know what cars they are. They believe they have the bins. These notices will
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go out, I think on September 30th to these new owners saying, "Hey, you know, you might have to have your seat belt
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retractors replaced. Bring it into your Chevy dealer for a look at it." Yeah, it's expanded, but we're only talking
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about another 400 cars. But the total so far is with the 2024s and 2025s is 13,860
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or so. It's a big number of cars and like I said, they're still getting to dealers with these battery tractors.
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Hopefully, they can fix that at the factory as well as at the dealerships. Yeah, definitely. Also, there was a
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federal appeals court that says General Motors will still face a class action lawsuit about C7 transmissions. What's
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going on with that? Yeah, so for years, some GM owners have complained about what they call shuddering and shaking in the higher
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gears and then a little bit of lurching in the lower gears when shifting their 8-speed automatic transmissions. This is
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an ongoing saga. In the past, GM has responded by having dealers come in and they try changing the fluid. They try
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flushing it. It hasn't worked out. There's actually, it's called the transmission shutter problem. This has
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been going back and forth. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that a class action suit could be formed. GM appealed
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that and then the latest news was the sixth US Circuit of Appeals has ordered GM to face that class action lawsuit. It
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involves 514,000 owners of GM vehicles produced from 2015 to 2019. And it's not
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just Corvettes. It's Corvettes. It's Camaro, Colorado, Silverado. You've got Cadillac CTS, CT6, and the Escalade. And
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even GMC Canyon, Sierras, and Yukons all have this transmission shutter issues. Looks like it's moving its way through
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the court system, and then next thing is to go ahead with the lawsuit against General Motors for these transmission
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issues, and hopefully we'll see if affected owners can get something out of it. Wow. On the positive side, the Corvette
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- Ward's 10 best engines and propulsion systems for 2024. The -ray is really
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getting some notice. It really is. And in fact, the C8s have all done well with Word's Autos. Anyways, from a field of 34 nominees in
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2024, they actually chose eight electrified vehicles and two ice powered vehicles for its top 10 list. And then
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the 2024 Corvette was one of those that earned its prestigious slot on that award's 10 best autos and propulsion
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systems for 2024. So, this is the third C8 to win this honor. The winning streak for C8 powertrains began in 2020 with
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the LT2 engine on the Stingray and then they also earned the honor in 2023 with the flat plane crank LT6 V8 for the Z06.
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Pretty cool stuff there. Besides the -ray, this year's honores include the BMW X5, a Ford F-150 Power Boost, Honda
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Civic Hybrid, the Hyundai iconic 5N all-wheel drive, the Kia EV9 GT,
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Porsche's Cayenne Hybrid, and the Ram 1500 tungsten among two Toyotas and a
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couple others. Wow. Pretty cool stuff. Again, we talked about this. Wards Auto has been around forever. This top 10 list of engines is
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one of their big things they do every year. And again, great to see that honored on it. Absolutely right. Well, buddy, it's time
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You're listening and watching Corvette Today with Steve Garrett. Thanks for checking out Corvette Today
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call 833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
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my pal Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. Every other week we keep you up to date on what's happening with
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America's sports car. In this second segment, we always cover Corvette racing and Corvette rumors. Keith, let's start
15:34
with Corvette Racing first. TF Sport got some points in Cotto. I was glad to see that. Yeah. So, World Endurance Championship
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was recently at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. This was the Lonear Lemon 6-hour race, and TF Sport, of
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course, was there with their number 81 and 82 Corvette Z06 GT3RS. And it was the number 82 Corvette that actually
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placed eighth in the LM GT3 class at the race. So they got points for that which is big. Their number 81 Corvette
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unfortunately was a victim of some mid-ra contact. Actually it happened with about an hour left. They are actually in contention to have a top
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five finish and even could have won it but then they got hit and then they had to go back to the pits and fix some stuff and then it just didn't work out.
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So they ended up retiring the car. TF Sports making some progress. They're actually now headed to Japan for the 6
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hours of Fuji. We'll have that coverage next time we get together. Sounds good. And I love this next title.
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It said eight is great at Barber Motorsports Park. Tell everybody what that means. Yeah, we're talking about DXDT racing
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and the GT World Challenge America series. If you guys want to watch some really great GT racing, this is the
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series to do it. These races are shown live on YouTube. And the format's really easy. There's two races per weekend, one
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on Saturday and one on Sunday. And again, with the race there on YouTube, if you miss it, you can go back and easily watch it and kind of skip around.
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But these are exciting races. Of course, Tommy Milner has joined Alex Udell in the number 63 Corvette Z06. And last
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week, these two drivers earned their seventh and eighth straight wins at Barber Motorsports Park. Wow.
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What's really cool is with these consecutive victories, they've done this now four consecutive weekends in a row,
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and that's a record for the GT World America Challenge. Pretty cool there. But what's really important is now they
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are set up for kind of a winter takeoff. So the next race is next month at the 8 hours of Indianapolis to close out the
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season. You win it, you win it all. So, good for Milner and Udell there. The other thing that happened is DXDT Racing
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also has a pro amateur car and that one also won its class. Brian Sers and
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Bryson Morris won the first race in the number 64 Corvette there. Pretty exciting stuff. Again, the next race for
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the GT World Challenge America comes up, the eight hours of Indianapolis, and that is October 2nd through the 6th. Win
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it and you win it all. So, pretty cool stuff there. That is cool. Sounds like they're getting their mojo back. That's for sure, doesn't it? It does. These cars
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are the most winningest Z06 GT3 cars out there and currently racing. And again, it helps that you have Milner who is the
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development engineer and driver for the car, you know, the pilot sheet. That's got to help as well. But also, the class
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of racing is really good. There's a lot of familiar names that people will know. Next month's format's a little different because it's an eight hour race as
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opposed to like a 1 hour or 1 hour and 50 minutes and like most of their sprint races are. Yeah. Should be some really good competition
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there. That sounds awesome. In the rumor section, we have one, but it's huge. It's gargantuan. We think we got the C8
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Zora prototypes out on the Nurburg Ring, don't we? Yeah. You know, we got the spy pictures. There's really two clues that tell us
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these are indeed the Zora models. First, you definitely see the inclusion of the vertically mounted cooling radiator on
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the front driver side car. This is very specific to the -ay's e all-wheel drive cooling loop. It's definitely something
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that's very visible there. You can't really hide it. It's the only one that we see on C8 Corvettes is the -ray. So,
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the assumption is that this car also has an e all-wheel drive system. The second clue is probably even more important
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because any vehicle that wants to go on the Nurburg Ring with a hybrid or an EV battery pack, they're required to carry
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an official Nurburg Ring warning sticker to first responders that tells them that, hey, this car is electrified. You
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can see these yellow stickers on the back engine hatches of the Zora prototypes. That's not something we're putting on the cars or engineers are
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putting on the cars. That's something that track officials say that car needs to have if it's going to be on the Nurburg ring. So basically tells us that
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there is a hybrid e all-wheel drive Corvette back again. And there's four of them actually. All of them are coups.
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They all have that ZTK highwing. And once again, we see those special test pipes on the car to direct the sound of
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the exhaust downward so it doesn't run a foul of the acceptable track noise levels. All four Zoras are wearing the
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ZR1's bodywork. Includes that flow through front hood. We've got the additional rear air intakes on the
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sides. The one thing they are missing though is that vented split rear window design. We're not sure why they're not
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on there, but these are prototype cars and again they just don't show that on a prototype. Maybe just on the finished
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designs only. These Corvette Zoras and the engineers are expected to be at the Nurburg Ring through next week. Always
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the goal is will we see a fast time or not? We doubt that we will actually get it. But the good news is that there is a
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blue Corvette Z06 with them and that's going to be used by the German magazine Sport Auto and their driver Christian
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Gart for a super test on the Nurburg Ring. So we might be getting a fast timed lap for the Z06 after all. Maybe
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not from the Corvette team, but from a very well-known driver who does a lot of these super tests on the Nurburg Ring.
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You would definitely be able to take his times and compare those to some of the other cars he's driven as well. No real word if the ZR1 is with him though. We
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were kind of hoping it would be. Corvette Engineers actually said they would be going back to the Nurburgg Ring when we talked to him in Carlile in the
20:34
NC anniversary show. But right now, it appears the focus is totally on the Zora. That's really cool. Exciting news for
20:41
sure. All the way through the end of next week, we've got a spy photographer over there who's sending us stuff. We've got pictures up the first day they were
20:47
there and then we've already got a video. We're expecting another one or two videos over the course of the next seven or eight days or so. So,
20:53
definitely stay tuned for that. Fantastic. All right, Keith, let's take our final break. When we come back, it's the lighter side of Corvette on deck
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This is the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett. Thanks once again for listening and
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watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette. Corvette Today is brought to you by
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call 833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
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my buddy Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. If you want a deeper dive into any of the stories that we cover, you
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can always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final segment, we cover the lighter side of Corvette. Keith, we got
24:19
our top 10 dealers through August 30th. Did we have much movement in the top 10? Really the biggest movement is McMullen
24:26
just keeps on blasting off and selling way more Corvettes than anybody else. I mean the numbers totally amaze me. Just
24:32
to give you an example here in July they sold 127 Corvettes. In August they sold
24:38
254. Wow. Second place was Sioka with 91 cars. McMullen I don't know what's in the
24:44
water up there but man oh man are they selling some cars. Their total right now for the year is 1,311.
24:50
Again, Sioka Corvette second place, has 780 sales for the year. No real big changes in the way the list is set up
24:57
from last month. McMullen Sioka, we have Kriswell third. Mike sold 38 cars for 377 total. Fourth place, Bomb and Dland,
25:05
32 cars for 307 total. And then Les Stanford, our friends in Dearborn, Michigan, had 46 cars sold for 288. I
25:13
mentioned them because we've been doing on my email list, they're one of our sponsors, and we've been sending out some of their inventory alerts. Back in
25:20
July, they moved to 10% off MSRP. We did see their sales grow. They went
25:25
from 25 sales in July to 46 sales last month. That appears to be working. And we've see some other dealers that are
25:31
sort of following suit with that. Of course, now we do have GM employee pricing out there. So, could be that these dealers are a little bit more
25:38
flexible now and and have room to play with with that. So, definitely check out your dealers. Six on the list, we have
25:43
Stingray Chevrolet in Plant City, Florida. 14 cars for 184 total. Classic Chevrolet. Great find. 30 cars for 161.
25:51
Our friend Rick Connie Cogland Chevrolet 18 cars for 144 total. And then number
25:56
nine, Bombden West Kendall in Miami. 16 cars for 132. And then 10th on the list,
26:01
Don Mey Chevrolet in Claremont, Florida, just northeast, I believe, of Orlando. They have 20 cars sold for also 132. Don
26:09
Me is the kind of the new guy on the list. They just got on the list last month and already they're tied with Bombman for that spot. Pretty
26:16
interesting stuff there. Again, these cars, you know, we talk about the top 10s, but only about 15% of Corvettes are
26:22
sold through these dealers. We always say make sure you just continue to check with your local dealers and your regional dealers, especially because
26:28
there's deals to be had. There's a lot of Stingrays right now that are being ordered on dealer stock. It's a great
26:34
way to pick up a bargain if you're looking that way. And then if you want to order a car, again, maybe some of these smaller dealers are the way to go
26:40
now because the big dealers still have their list for Z06 and E-rays. So, it might be a smaller dealer where you
26:45
might actually get one of those faster. It never hurts to go to the big dealers. They generally have volume pricing, but
26:51
again, with only 15% of sales, you definitely need to keep your eye what's happening locally. Yeah, definitely good advice, buddy.
26:57
This is my favorite story of the whole show. A C7 ZR1 owner donated his tires
27:03
to a stranded ZR1 owner that was on the caravan in Wyoming so he can make it all
27:08
the way into Bowling Green. What a great story this is. Yeah, what a really great story. You know, we talked about giving the shirt
27:14
off our backs, but how about the wheels off your car? Right. Right. The leader was Pacific Central Caravan
27:19
leader Don Herszer, leading his group of Corvette Caravanners to the NCM when his ZR1 suffered a major right front tire
27:26
incident that left him stranded at Chevy dealership near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Good news was they could get tires for him.
27:31
It was just going to take several days to get there and that would kind of leave him stranded while the rest of the caravan making their way to the Corvette
27:37
museum. But the luck of God, it just so happened that day a local owner of a 2019 CR1 named Alex and Sarah Aragon.
27:44
They just happened to be at the dealership for the routine service on their car. They heard about Don's problems and they offered him his tires
27:51
so that he could resume his caravan journey. Wow. What are the chances that two ZR1 owners would be at the same
27:56
dealership at the same time and that one could help the other, right? But that's what Corvette people are all about. We don't know the deal. What
28:02
happened to how these two guys came up with this agreement, but God love them. They did it. They made it work. and hopefully everybody came out all right
28:09
on the end. That's awesome. That's fantastic. This is another cool story. A friend of the show, Mike Brink from Brink of Speed,
28:15
has his guest on new C8 ZR1 pricing. Yeah. You know, the one of the things that we've done, I know he's done it,
28:21
others are doing it, is to look at kind of the relation of previous pricing, especially ZR1s and Z06s, and how they
28:27
were separated, looking at C6, looking at C7, and then sort of applying those lessons to C8. So utilizing this theory,
28:34
Mike believes that the starting MSRP will be a lot more favorable to enthusiasts. We're hearing people saying, "Oh, 180, 200,000." We're
28:41
thinking that the worst case scenario based on just the way the pricing has been for a one ZR Corvette ZR1. Mike's
28:47
thinking about 164 is the worst case and that he actually thinks his best price is somewhere around 154,000. So he gave
28:54
himself like a $10,000 cushion there. Again, you're talking about a base 1 ZR car. Basically, no options. We do
29:02
believe that it'll be relatively easy to go north of 200,000 when you do start adding some options. You go to that 3ZR
29:08
version, you start adding pricey equipment like visible carbon fiber wheels and those prices will go up pretty quickly there. Not everything is
29:14
as bad as it seems. Again, my guess has always been around 1495. I'm still sticking with that. I think that's a
29:20
great way to showcase what America's sports car is capable of. And of course, the engineers at Chevy are really
29:26
standing behind this car is something that's pretty special. I'm thinking they're going to want to get it out there. They told us that there's not
29:31
going to be real constraints on the car in terms of limits. We've heard that from other people that yeah, this car is going to be limited because of the
29:38
special equipment on the car, but we'll just have to wait and see how things shake out. It'd be nice to see 2,000 or so a year produced. That's what we saw
29:44
other ZR1s in the day. I think they're capable of doing it. Yeah, definitely. I hope you're right about the 1499. I've always, for some
29:52
reason, thought 164 as well. Mike and I talked about that and he said, "Great minds think alike." Well, I hope you're
29:58
right and we're wrong, Keith. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see where exactly that comes up with. And I know
30:03
we're going to be doing an exercise on Corvette Blogger where the different riders are chiming in with their thoughts as well. So maybe we'll have to
30:08
include you in on that and see what we can come up with. That sounds great, buddy. I'd love to do it. Our final story, Hagerty. This is
30:14
really, really I couldn't believe this. Hagerty says that C8 are depreciating faster than C7s are. Wow. A lot of it is
30:23
just standard rule of economics is, you know, the growing supply of cars through the Bowling Green factory. They're
30:28
pumping out hundreds and hundreds every week and the market is softening. And so you also had the previous model year
30:35
already did take some depreciation. Although we actually did see used C7s appreciating during that whole fiasco
30:41
when the supply chain was all off. So people were buying pre-owned cars over new cars just because that's where the
30:48
supply was. But now they're both coming down. A chart compiled by Hagerty shows that the peak price reached about
30:54
$120,000 in late 2021 for C8s and then has come down since then with the current average being around $72,90.
31:02
That compares to the current average of $49,180 for that front engine 2014 to 2019 C7
31:10
Corvette. The graph does show the correspondence between those supply chain problems back in the summer of
31:15
2021 and into 2022. But you definitely see that the depreciation is much less
31:21
from the C7 as it is in the C8. That's amazing. I just find that fascinating. I thought, you know, everybody says, "Oh, Steve, now that
31:27
you've got a C8, I'm sure you don't miss your C7." Well, my C7 was a manual transmission. I always tell everybody,
31:34
you know what? I miss my C7 every single day. You know, that's the one thing that is
31:39
really driving some of these C7 prices is does it have a manual transmission? Of course, one of the big collector cars
31:44
right now, the 2019 Corvette ZR1 with ZTK. Does it have a manual transmission?
31:50
If it does, you're adding dollars to the price of that car. Yeah, definitely. There's some things there. And plus, they were great cars. I mean,
31:56
Grand Sports, the Z06, they were all great cars back in the C7 days. There was a lot of good things to look forward
32:01
to. Absolutely right. Well, buddy, thanks for being back on Corvette today. We will see you in two weeks. Okay. Sounds
32:07
great. If we see you out there, we're going to keep waving. And actually, that's the little saying I got on my plaque when we ordered the car is keep
32:13
waving. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your family, friends, and other Corvette
32:19
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Thanks for checking out Corvette Today on podcast and YouTube. If you'd like to contact Steve with ideas for Corvette
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