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CORVETTE TODAY #243 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid December 2024
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Jul 12, 2025
CORVETTE TODAY #243 - Corvette News & Headlines, Mid December 2024 Now that we’re into the holiday season, it’s important to keep up and stay connected with what’s happening in the world of Corvette. Our News & Headlines shows every other week are one of the best resources for doing just that! Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger returns with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to talk about these headlines and more… 1. The C8 Corvette is named to Car & Driver’s 10Best again for the 6th consecutive time 2. Has a C8 Grand Sport prototype been spotted on the streets? 3. The C8 ZR1 will pace the Indy 500 and Michael Strahan will drive 4. SavageGeese takes a deep dive into the new C8 ZR1 5. The C8 ZR1 is featured in MotorTrend’s new documentary about the American V8 engine These stories and more will be discussed on the new CORVETTE TODAY News & Headlines show next week! Listen to the podcast, watch the show on YouTube, join the Facebook Group, sign up for email notifications, follow the show on social media and shop in the newly updated CORVETTE TODAY Merchandise Store at: www.CorvetteToday.com (about:invalid#zCSafez)
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0:00
[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the show that
0:06
talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum,
0:13
president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
0:20
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
0:33
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 my pal Keith Cornet
3:51
from Corvette Blogger.com. Keith is with me every other week and we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening
3:56
with America Sports Car. Keith, welcome back to the show. Happy holidays, buddy. Happy holidays to you and everybody out
4:02
there in the Corvette Nation. Got a lot of good stuff coming up here, but it's great to be around family and these holidays are just a lot about that kind
4:09
of time together. So, yeah, it's going to be a good end of the year. And you had a merry Christmas to me moment with your brand new Hysteria
4:15
Purple E-Ray, too. Just been having a great time with that car. I'm actually real excited. I'm going to send you some photos, but uh
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getting Wheelcraft chrome wheels put on it. So, really excited about that. That's awesome, buddy. Talk about an early Christmas.
4:27
There you go. For sure. Let's start off like we always do with a Corvette production update from the
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Bowling Green assembly plant. Absolutely. So, we always get the latest VIN counts from Roger Ke's excellent spreadsheet on Facebook. We're about 3
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months into the 2025 model year and so far we have a total of 9,611 Corvettes produced for the model year.
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That breaks down to 6,368 Stingrays, 2,493
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Z06s, and approximately 750 E-rays. Huh. We talked last time about how the
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constraints seem to be favoring the Z06 and -ays over the Stingrays which are basically piling up on dealer lots and
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we can see that reflected actually on Roger spreadsheet. So the last time we were together, you know, I read off a few -ay totals as we were seeing the
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daily production counts in the 20s and 30s, right? But for the Z06, we've had multiple days over the last few weeks where they've
5:15
been producing 60 70 per day. Wow. Then this week they had a day where they produced 76 over two shifts. So they're
5:22
really cranking those out. But we've noticed that the stingray counts are a little bit less. They were doing like 190 200 cars. Now we're seeing a lot of
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160 170 totals during those two shifts. Could be impacting that a little bit. We're keeping an eye on it. And then as
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a reminder, the Bowling Green assembly plant will be closing after its second shift this Friday, December 13th. And
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workers will enjoy 3 weeks off with production resuming on Monday, January 6th. Even our hardworking folks up at
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Bowling Green are going to get a few weeks off to enjoy the holidays as well. A well-earned vacation indeed, buddy.
5:52
And also, we have a new hire at the National Corvette Museum. Andy Markham is now the director of accounting.
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Yeah, he's been appointed director of accounting. He will oversee financial operations of the museum, the National
6:02
Corvette Museum's Motorsports Park, and the NCM Insurance Agency. And he's going to be focusing on strategic budgeting,
6:08
forecasting, and all that fun stuff with revenue management. Thank God somebody's doing it, not me. Markham actually is
6:14
the latest addition to the management team at the NCM. We actually had Amy Harden joined as director of development
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and then early the beginning of the year we had Robert Maxheimer chosen as director of curatorial affairs and
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education. It really sounds like they're getting their staff in place for the new year and excited to see what they bring us.
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That's awesome. Also, let's shift our attention to Michigan now. We had an explosion at the Milford Proving Grounds
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and it damaged a couple homes. What happened there? Yeah, this happened on Thanksgiving Day. Apparently, you know, Milford Proving
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Ground is this huge area up there in Michigan. And it's actually more than just a testing area for General Motors.
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There's actually oil wells and storage tanks on the property that are owned by third parties. And then they pay GM a
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lease for being there. And it was one of these third-party storage tanks that blew up, damaging two homes that were
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about 200 feet away. Thankfully, no one was injured, but reports say it took the fire department several hours to put out these fires that were started from it.
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And then it just said, you know, investigators are investigating the the cause of it. Thankfully, no one was injured and it wasn't really anything
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associated with General Motors other than the fact that it happened on their property at the proving ground. Wow, that's crazy. Also, Keith, this is
7:19
another accolade for the Corvette. The C8 Corvette was named a Car and Drivers 10 best and it was the sixth consecutive
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year they've been named to this award. Yeah. So, six consecutive years C8 has been named a Car and Drivers 10 best
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list, which is essentially the 10 best cars chosen for the new model year. And the catch is these cars have to be under
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$110,000. That's one of the reasons why you're only seeing the Stingray and the E-Ray and not the Z06. Got it. Just to
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give you some of the flavor of the article, this distinguished team of editors goes on to highlight the Stingray is still exceptional value. The
7:49
-ray savage acceleration and the unique Corvette proposition offered by each of these cars in the portfolio. They also
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described the cars calling them superb and labeling the entire C8 lineup a smash hit. Wow.
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Congratulations again to the Corvette team. Six consecutive years of being on the 10 best at car driver. That's a
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great story. Fantastic, buddy. Well, let's take our first break, Keith. When we come back, Corvette racing and Corvette rumors are
8:14
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Happy holidays from Corvette Today. Now back to the show with your host Steve Garrett.
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is my buddy Keith Cornet. Every other week, we keep you current and up to date on
12:04
what's happening with America's sports car. In segment number two, we always cover Corvette racing and Corvette
12:09
rumors. First with racing. And Keith, it looks like Robert Wickens is ready to join DXDT racing for the IMSA sprint
12:16
rounds next year. Yeah. In fact, this is a really, really cool comeback story because Robert Wickens is a parapolgic. He was in a
12:23
major indie car racing accident back in 2018 at Pocono and left without the use
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of his legs, I believe. So, 3 years later, he actually got his chance to get back in a race car running the IMSA
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Michelin Pilot Challenge Series. And the car had the Bosch hand control systems on it. So he was able to fully control
12:40
the car and in fact he won two races in 2022 and then in 2023 he and his
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co-driver had seven podiums and they finished second in the series overall. Wow. They're actually getting a really
12:51
accomplished driver who knows what he's doing. They've actually got the DXVT Z06 GT3R is going to be updated with the
12:57
Bosch hand control systems. He's going to be testing out the cars. I don't know if he's actually going to be racing in Daytona because he's just doing the
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sprint rounds, I thought. So I think his first race will likely be Long Beach. That sounds great. And what a story. What a comeback, right?
13:10
It really is, you know, and of course we had I forget the other guy that was racing with the arrow car and he was a
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full quadripollegic. You know, he was doing the suck and blow with the tube and he was able to turn the car with his
13:20
head moving back and forth. But to actually have Robert Wickens challenging for class wins and stuff at IMSA, that's
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a pretty remarkable comeback. That's a big story for sure. In the rumors category, Keith, I don't know if
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this is true or not, and I don't think it's going to happen, but have we seen a grand sport on the streets? Yeah. So, this is interesting and and
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actually I do think it's going to happen. There was a picture of a camouflage CA Corvette, let's say, that was spotted driving around the Detroit
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area and it had some people going hm because you can't really see the front of the car. So, we have no idea if it had the cooling vents on the front,
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right? But the rear of the car had no spoiler whatsoever and it had the sidemounted exhaust, so it kind of looked like an
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E-Ray without a spoiler. But again, you know, it'd be so easy for GM to test this car now because they have all these
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different ways that they can hide whatever they're doing here. I made three points of why I see a Grand Sport being a natural fit for the C8. First of
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all is we have too many Stingrays as dealers are currently marketing down like $15,000 or more, right? So we could really use another model
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that would kind of release some of the pressure on Stingray. Secondly, we're actually hearing that the interior
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refresh in 2026 is going to happen and it would make perfect sense to launch a new car with that feature on it,
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especially a car that kind of serves as a replacement for that base model. That gets me to my third point here is that
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the -ray already has the LT2 and the widebody. So much of the development work has been done and as the Grand
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Sport has always kind of been a parts bin model. There's a lot that they can choose from there. We'd like to see actually a little bit more horsepower.
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But if they could come up with a widebody Corvette $85,000 that would fill a pricing gap between the Stingrays
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and the -ay and the Z06 and then that grand sport could become a cash cow for GM with lower development costs. It
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could actually be end up being one of the bestselling models through the end of the C8 era, which could go through 2028 or even 2029. Now,
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I know that the Grand Sport in the C7 category was really wellreceived and really sold through pretty well. Maybe
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you're right, buddy. And then the C6, you know, it was the bestselling model there for a while. As I said, it was completely cribed
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together by just pulling stuff from the regular base coups and then the Z06. And so, by doing that, you're kind of giving
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drivers the best of both worlds. People like the widebody styling, but they also like the LT2. We talked about that a
15:26
little bit. You know, that lower-end torque, the reliability, the gas mileage of the car is really good. Yeah, I think there's a really big case to be
15:32
made for a Grand Sport, especially again that $8,000 price point fits it right in between Stingray and Ray.
15:39
You got a lot of great points. Maybe you're right. We'll have to wait and see. I'm hoping it comes true. You know what? The more the better, that's for
15:44
sure, right? I believe that, too. Our last rumor, Keith, Eddie X has spotted a ZR1 in Detroit, and it wasn't
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in the best weather either, was it? It was kind of snowy there, it looked like. In fact, uh I think that car might have been parked in the snow because it
15:57
had snow up on the roof on the back of the rear deck there and then on the front where you know the waterfall is
16:03
going into that engine cooling area. There was snow on there as well. He had four pictures, two from behind, two from
16:09
the front of the car. It's just fun to see these cars kind of driving around in really lousy weather. You know, they do
16:14
that because as drivers developing the car, they're most likely running winter tires on it. They always feel a lot more
16:20
confident with those winter tires. Yeah. But the second point is another guy chimed in on that post and said, "I saw
16:25
one, too." He had a rapid blue Corvette that he saw a ZR1 and it was really snowy there. The
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ground was all mushy and stuff, you know, that slush, right? So, they are driving those cars as long as they can,
16:36
I guess. That's pretty cool. All right, buddy. Let's take our final break. When we come back, it's the fun side, the lighter
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You're enjoying the only current podcast on Corvettes, Corvette Today.
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is my pal Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. If you want a deeper dive into
20:45
any of the stories that we cover, you can always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final segment, we always cover
20:51
the fun side, the lighter side of Corvette. This first story is pretty interesting, Keith. The ZR1 is going to
20:57
pace the Indianapolis 500 and former NFL player Michael Strahan is going to be the driver. Yeah, this came really
21:04
early. You know, normally we get this kind of news in March or April even, but to get it in November was kind of a
21:10
surprise, but the news is that Fox Sports is going to be picking up the broadcast of all the Indie Car races. I
21:15
think there's like 17 of them scheduled for 2025. Wow. And of course, one of those is the Indianapolis 500. So during
21:21
their NFL pregame show on the weekend before Thanksgiving, Fox announced that, "Hey, the Corvette 01 is going to be the
21:26
Indy500 pace car and that Michael Strahan will be the official driver." When they were talking about it on set
21:32
there, they actually had that black show car with the blue stripes and the blue wheels in the studio when they made the
21:37
announcement. Although the real Indy500 pace car will have an official livery design that comes out later next year
21:43
probably. Still going to have a custom design for that, but really cool to see that. And the other thing I'm quite interested to see is how well a big man
21:50
like Michael Strahan fits in the car. Yeah. You know, he was a defensive lineman, so he was a pretty big guy. We'll be
21:55
watching to see how well he fits. These cars are generally coups that they run, although they they've been running convertibles, too. But they generally
22:01
run the coups, so it'll be interesting to see how well he fits in that car. Yeah, I think he's about 66 or 67, so it
22:06
will be interesting to see him getting in and out of that car. That's for sure. Really cool news to see the ZR1. And of
22:12
course, we were expecting it because it's always the next model up. They'll have no problem leading egg class to the
22:17
green flag. Yeah, that's for sure. Also, I love this. Every single year GM puts out a holiday commercial. It's now out. I
22:24
always watch last year's and I always say, "Okay, I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry." And I cry every dog
22:30
on time I watch it. This one is just as good. Well, it came across my news feed. I'm like, "Great. I'm going to be crying
22:35
here in about 10 minutes." You know? So, it's like I knew in advance that it was going to happen. So, yeah. Last week
22:40
they came out with the annual holiday commercial and actually I've already seen it running during the NFL games
22:45
especially on Thanksgiving. But what you really want to see is the extended fiveminute version. So go to YouTube, go to Corvette Blogger, search for it.
22:52
Frankly, you're going to be in tears. It's all about a family deal with the loss of their father/grandfather. And it's also about a young man kind of
22:58
finding his place in the world and kind of dealing with that loss as well. And as always, the Chevrolet is there that
23:03
kind of brings all the generations together. It's really another instant classic by Chevrolet. Definitely watch
23:08
it. And if you haven't seen any of these, I know on our blog post, we've got the last two or three of them from the previous years listed below in the
23:15
related area. So definitely go and watch those because they're just really feelood moments. Kind of makes you
23:21
nostalgic for the good old days, so to speak, and then wish like, man, I wish I would have hung on to some of those cars
23:26
because they're pretty cool. Yeah. But yeah, the new holiday commercial, another grand slam from GM and whoever
23:31
their ad companies that put that together. I also posted it on our Corvette Today Facebook group page as well, sitting right next to last year's
23:38
where I cry every single time I watch that. Also, Keith, last month in show number 238 of Corvette Today, I had
23:46
Jordan Lee and Dustin Gardner on the show. Jordan Lee is the global chief engineer for small block engines for
23:52
General Motors, not Chevrolet, not Corvette, for General Motors. And Dustin Gardner is the assistant chief engineer
23:58
of small block engines. We did a deep dive into the LT7 engine for the ZR1 in
24:03
detail. Well, Savage Geese has come out with theirs as well and they did a ZR1 show and they did an LT7 show as well,
24:10
didn't they? Yeah. So, they put together this event at the Milford Proving Ground and basically they were up there for a few days doing a lot of filming,
24:17
interviewing different people. The nice thing is when you're watching the video, you see Tad Stucker coming back and it's
24:22
almost like he's been gone forever, but yet he's just retired a few months ago. Yeah, of course, like you said, Dustin Gardner's talks, Mike Bailey, a program
24:29
engineering manager, and Chris Barbara, who's the lead development engineer of ZR1, are all talking about the various aspects and challenges they face. It's a
24:36
great video. It's very in-depth, but it's also quite long. It comes in a little over 50 minutes. If that video is
24:41
too long, then there's another one they just put out. It's a 10-minute walkound video featuring Dustin Gardner, and he's
24:47
talking about the ZR1's LT7 twin turbo engine. What's really cool is that the engine that they have there, it's all
24:53
signed. Dustin said, quote, "It was signed by those who had their fingerprints on it. It was the actual
24:58
engine that was used for the SAPE power certification test, which of course came in at the 1,64 horsepower and 828
25:05
footpounds of torque. Real special engine for them." The other thing he said about that engine was it was one of the later development engines, but it
25:11
was one of the first to be built inside the PVC at the plant, the performance build center. Kind of a cool thing to
25:16
see there. He showed some of the footage when it was on the dyno when they were doing their certification test. a neat piece of history that will one day be in
25:22
a museum and hopefully at the Corvette Museum. Yeah. Go back and watch or listen to Corvette today number 238. That's Dustin
25:29
Gardner and Jordan Lee. And then go watch the Savage Geese. Both of these videos are very, very good. It's a lot
25:34
of fun to watch. Speaking of Taj Keith, the C8 ZR1 is featured in a brand new
25:39
Motor Trend documentary about the American V8, and Taj is in it. Yeah, this is another video I'd highly
25:45
recommend watching. And this one only comes in about a half hour or so, so it's very doable. you know, if you're just hanging out and need something to
25:51
put on. Yeah. We also get some Z06 and some ZR1 goodness. Of course, like you said, Taj is there and a small block chief
25:57
engineer Jordan Lee. We hear from him as well. And then they also have some other people talking in the automotive world
26:02
like Jay Leto, Jim Farley of Ford and others. Really good documentary kind of like the old days of the V8, how it got
26:08
its start, and then the things that all these manufacturers are doing today. You know, General Motors is not the only manufacturer to have a high horsepower
26:14
V8 engine, although ours is the best, but others have done it before. And so they kind of go into the different brands and what they've done as well.
26:20
Really nice little documentary from Motor Trend. Yeah, it was a great video. I've been watching a lot of videos on YouTube
26:26
about engines and ZR1s and everything. This is a good one as well. Our final story, Keith, you've got the top 10
26:31
Corvette dealers year to date this year, don't you? Yeah. So, we got the sales figures for November and then that also includes the
26:37
January through November sales totals. And it really shows that nobody's catching up to Big Mulking Chevrolet as they've got like a billion cars they've
26:44
sold this year. They're actually going to be the top Corvette dealer. They have 1,746
26:49
Corvettes sold through the year, while Sioka Corvette in second place is 984. And then our friend Mike Ferman at
26:55
Criswell Chevrolet is third with 472. The interesting battles are actually going to start taking place because
27:01
we've got a tie between the fourth place Bomb Dland store and then fifth place Le Stanford in Dearborn, Michigan. They are
27:08
both tied with 402 deliveries each. With one month to go, one of those guys is either going to stay the same or move
27:13
up. So that's going to be interesting. And then the final three dealers who are eighth, ninth, and tth on the list.
27:19
They're only actually separated by 12 vehicles. That's Ki at Cogland Chevrolet, another Bomb West Kendall
27:25
store, and then Stonebrier Chevrolet in Frisco, Texas, who are battling for those top 10 positions. It's
27:31
interesting. Of course, the cars that are sold by the top 10 dealers only represent like 15 or 16% of all
27:37
Corvettes sold in a year. While they are always a go-to place to get a good price and generally they have cars available,
27:42
a lot of allocations sometimes because they're known for that, they can still have a little bit of a backup while some
27:48
of the other smaller dealerships now have worked all the way through their list and now are actively looking for customers. Always just something to
27:54
consider. We like to talk about the top 10 because that's where a lot of the action is, but the majority of Corvette sales happen outside there. So, always
28:00
do your due diligence. It's always good to see the top 10. That's kind of a fun thing for sure. It is. It's sporty. You know, who's
28:06
going to win that kind of thing. So, a little bit of competition always makes everybody better. You always like to be in the top 10,
28:11
that's for sure. Well, buddy, thanks for being back on Corvette today. I'll see you in two
28:16
weeks, which will be the week of Christmas. Sounds great. Well, everybody out there, be safe this holiday season and we will
28:22
talk to you guys in two weeks and keep waving. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your
28:27
family, friends, and other Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show. And thanks to our sponsors,
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