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CORVETTE TODAY #269 - Corvette News & Headlines, Early June 2025
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Jul 12, 2025
CORVETTE TODAY #269 - Corvette News & Headlines, Early June 2025 (https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2025/06/05/video-tracy-gaudu-is-set-to-become-the-first-woman-to-drive-a-corvette-in-the-pikes-peak-international-hill-climb/) It's the un-official start of summer (summer actually starts on June 20th), and CORVETTE TODAY heats things up with out News & Headlines show! (https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2025/06/05/video-tracy-gaudu-is-set-to-become-the-first-woman-to-drive-a-corvette-in-the-pikes-peak-international-hill-climb/) Keith Cornett from CorvetteBlogger is back with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, to bring you the latest in the world of America's Sports Car. (https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2025/06/05/video-tracy-gaudu-is-set-to-become-the-first-woman-to-drive-a-corvette-in-the-pikes-peak-international-hill-climb/) Steve and Keith cover these stories and more... (https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2025/06/05/video-tracy-gaudu-is-set-to-become-the-first-woman-to-drive-a-corvette-in-the-pikes-peak-international-hill-climb/) 1. The 2026 Corvette Order Guide is now live (https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2025/06/05/video-tracy-gaudu-is-set-to-become-the-first-woman-to-drive-a-corvette-in-the-pikes-peak-international-hill-climb/)
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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.
0:28
Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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right, my friend. It's time to bring you the latest Corvette news and headlines with my pal Keith Cornet from corvette
4:03
blogger.com. Keith is with me every other week and together we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening
4:08
with America Sports Car. Keith, welcome back to the show. How you doing, buddy? Happy June, Steve. Doing great. Doing
4:14
great. Looking forward to summertime almost being here, but after Memorial Day, it feels like summer's here. It's
4:19
hot here already. Just looking for some good Corvette stuff to do and talk about and see. So, what do you got planned?
4:24
We got a lot going on. As a matter of fact, summer starts officially on June 20th, so we've got a couple weeks. But,
4:30
let's get into it, buddy. Let's start off like we always do with a Corvette production update from the Bowling Green assembly plant.
4:35
Sounds good, Steve. So, my numbers from Roger Keel are running just a little bit behind this week. The last report available was showing June 1st, but
4:42
that's a nice round date to begin with. So, let's get into it. Chevy is actually now building four models on the line,
4:47
not counting the exports and all the right-hand drive models. And the one that's being built the most actually
4:52
isn't the Stingray, it's the Z06. Last week, we saw 267 of those built compared to just 221 Stingrays and 91 E-Rays.
5:00
Currently, ZR1 production was showing 19 completed. that was on Roger's chart, but by the time you hear this, it's
5:06
probably another week has gone by. We should probably be in the mid20s or even approaching 30 by the time this podcast
5:11
goes live on that Monday. As for the current VIN counts, the Stingray is showing 12,023. The Z06 is at 6,82.
5:19
The E-Ray is at 2454. And when you add those 19 ZR1s to the total, you have
5:25
21,298. So, pretty good model year shaping up. We've got about 7 weeks to go. We
5:32
believe when you account for that one week offered July 4th potentially. You know, I'm looking at about 25,000
5:38
Corvettes manufactured for the 2025 model year just kind of based on these current rates. The plan is supposed to start those 2026 is on Monday, August
5:45
4th. So, we'll see. You starting to hear some things about maybe it might start just a little bit earlier. We're not
5:50
sure because we had months and months leading up to this with no Stingray orders being submitted, just Z06s and
5:57
some -ay. So, it's going to be interesting to see if they've got enough of those cars to take them all the way through August 1st when the model year
6:04
is supposed to end. And so, it's something we're kind of watching, but about 7 weeks of production to go. That sounds good. And also, the final
6:10
order cycle for 2025 started on Thursday, May 29th. The last one.
6:15
Yeah, the last orders for the 2025s went in at the end of May, and only Z06s and E-Rays were available. The constraints
6:21
have been the same. There are no arrow available for this Z06, either with the ground effects or the carbon fiber wings. And with this order cycle being
6:28
over that, the 2025s are now done and GM just has to produce what's in the system. I know dealers are shocked about
6:33
these Stingray orders and how there have been no allocations since February. And one just keeps saying, Keith, it's unprecedented. But I mean, it's really
6:41
when you think about it and we're hearing people saying, "Yeah, my Stingray order was put in back in February and it's still just sitting
6:47
there." I'm telling those people if it's at 3,000, which most of them are saying it is, then your car is going to be built. They've got enough Stingrays, I'm
6:53
sure, to take those through. So, if you've got a Stingray, don't worry about it. I'm pretty certain that your car is going to be built. We are also beginning
7:00
to hear some 2026 orders with those first allocations coming out just last Thursday. So far, initial indications
7:06
appear as again Z06s and possibly E-rays. It's pretty wild how many Z06s they are building without having any
7:12
arrow for them. You just have to wonder who's ordering these cars or whether dealers are just taking them for dealer stock items. Pretty interesting so far
7:19
with the end of the 2025s and 2026s. It just shows you when it comes to ordering, there's never a dull moment.
7:24
Absolutely right. And also speaking of never a dull moment, there's 310 ZR1s that are already ordered. Any details on
7:31
those? Yeah, we actually got quite a bit. So, first we heard 302 orders were in the system and all we had was the model
7:38
breakdowns and then the colors. That was pretty interesting. We were able to break down all the different colors and take a look at those. But then just last
7:44
week, another dealer came out and said, "Now we're showing 310." So, it's getting pretty interesting there. That
7:50
top ordered color is black. A total of 98 units. And I think it's like 30% of
7:55
orders are black. The rapid blue is going to be the rarest color. Just six of those built. And I think what I'll
8:01
call the surprise color is competition yellow, which is actually number three with 39 total orders. If you go to
8:08
Corvette Blogger, you'll see the charts broken down again by body style. And as we predicted, the split window coups are
8:14
in much more demand than the convertibles on these first order cycles for the 2025s. What we got last week was
8:20
we all got data on ZTK package and the highwing. So, as a refresher, if you order ZTK, the carbon fiber arrow
8:26
package is mandatory, but you can order the carbon fiber arrow package without ZTK. Having said that, we have a total
8:34
of 150 of the 310 orders with ZTK. So, that's 150 wings because ZTK requires
8:40
it. But then when you add in those orders of the wings without ZTK, there's another 63 of those. So, we have a
8:45
total, Steve, this is crazy. A total of 213 ZR1 orders will have the Highwing.
8:51
Wow. Which is 68.7% of production based on those 310 cars. The ZTK order
8:56
percentage is 48.3. So, GM definitely went out and found some High Wings. And actually, they found a lot of them.
9:02
Again, it could be that's why we're not seeing any carbon fiber arrow for the Z06s because they had to jump in there
9:08
and grab as much production as they can and shift it to the ZR1s. But what else could that be? Yeah, I mean that's a ton
9:13
of high wings going to ZR1 orders. Yeah, Keith, that was my build, too. It was the black with the blue stripes and
9:18
the blue seat belt and the blue wheels and things like that. So, and I did want the highwing, too. I didn't want ZTK,
9:25
which is really, really nice because I saw that the Aero package included the Highwing. The ZTK package did not have
9:31
to have that Highwing. It's the ZTK package that really brings in the track spec suspensions, the
9:36
tighter springs. Without it, your ride is going to be much smoother. Yeah, definitely. Also, we saw that the
9:42
2026 order guide for Corvette is now live, which is really cool. Yeah, this is fun. See, because we
9:47
recorded that morning and I said, if you go back and listen to the last news and headline show, I made a prediction that,
9:52
wow, you know, this order guide could be coming at any time and we were correct because it came like at 10:00 that Friday night. Yeah.
9:58
I was up till like 12 1:00 a.m., you know, talking to friends and trying to go through all this stuff. The order guide is such an essential part of the
10:05
ordering process because it shows you all the options, the packages, it shows you what's available, what's restricted,
10:11
and it also tells you what's new and what's being deleted. And because there's not a 2026 configurator, that's
10:16
why it's really good to look at the order guide if you're getting one of those first 2026 orders. That's why we
10:21
love it. We learn all kinds of stuff. We got some stuff here. Of course, we got two new exteriors, five new interiors.
10:27
Of course, we got the whole 2026 interior refresh, which brings in the three new screens and a center console
10:33
for the car. Some of the cool stuff we learned, I mean, it's not cool that we learned this, but Roswell Green metallic is actually a premium color, so there'll
10:39
be an extra charge for that. We don't know what that cost will be yet. We're still waiting for pricing and
10:44
configurator to come out. We did learn that there is an extra charge for the green. Some other cool stuff, the 2026s
10:50
will have a front illuminated cross flags emblem. Ooh, that three stansion spoiler that we saw on the -ay is
10:56
actually available for both the -ray and the Z06. So, this is pretty cool. And this is a dealer installed wing as well.
11:02
Probably what'll happen is that rear facial will come with those three cutouts already made and then the dealers just have to mount it on there.
11:09
That's what I think is going to happen. We were talking to a dealer about how they were going to handle that. One of the things that we haven't seen yet is
11:14
an asymmetrical stripe package for the car, assuming that goes to the right or to the left of the center of the car. It's
11:21
going to be interesting to see how they do that. And then of course the blue brake calipers generally reserved for the ZR1. It's been that way for the last
11:27
two generations for ZR1. These blue ones are now available for -ay and Z06. Wow. Good for those guys, I guess. I always
11:33
like kind of reserving that for the ZR1. And then finally, I think the 2026s is kind of under the radar, but big news is
11:40
all 2026s are getting 5G connectivity when you hook up your data plan or OnStar or anything like that. So should
11:46
increase data rates and make some of those overtheair installs a lot quicker. Very nice. I saw one thing that I
11:51
thought was really, really cool about the ZR1 because it's got that great big massive wing in the back. They relocated
11:57
the rear view camera on the ZR1. Yeah. When you're standing behind the car, you look at it, you say, "How are drivers going to see around that thing?"
12:04
Now, now you've got that mirror camera on the back. You know, it sits on top of the roof, but that wing is so massive,
12:09
it even blocks that. We were standing at the front of the car looking through, and you know, it's just like it's a huge
12:14
wing. So, our friend Rick Kiy was at the plant a few weeks back and there was a 2026 ZR1 CTF car in that plant's
12:21
administrative parking lot. And sure enough, he found that there were two cameras now above the license plate
12:27
instead of just the one that's used for the backup camera. It looks like Chevy is moving the two cameras down so that
12:33
there is now visibility outside that wing. It might make the point of view a little bit lower, but there might be some ways that it's not as bad as we
12:40
think it would be. But what is kind of goofy is that roof camera that was up there. They put a cover over it so it
12:46
blocks it off. But the cover on this car that Rick caught was carbon flash and it's over the top of a visible carbon
12:53
fiber roof so it just kind of clashed there. So hopefully they've got that upgraded on customer cars when those come out in 2026. But yeah, a little bit
12:59
of change there. This is for safety. Obviously they want to make sure that there is plenty of visibility outside the rear behind those wings.
13:05
Yeah. And also the hard top convertible people will be happy about that relocated camera too. Yeah, it might work for them. Uh-huh.
13:11
Absolutely. All right, buddy. Let's take our first break. When we come back, it's Corvette racing and Corvette rumors on
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is my buddy Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger. Every other week we keep you
18:05
current and up to date on what's happening with America Sports Car. In segment number two, we always cover Corvette racing and Corvette rumors.
18:12
Keith, let's start with racing and Corvette racing at Detroit. Yeah, this was a 100minute street fight
18:17
on the streets of downtown Detroit. Then of course you had the General Motors Renaissance Center in the background. I mean, it was set up for Corvette racing,
18:24
but I mean, it was such a chaotic race. It even started even before the race. Qualifying qualifying was a mess. There
18:29
was a wreck at the very beginning of qualifying. And so, no one actually really got to go out and set any times. I think the entire field took the
18:35
checkered flag during the qualifying session without a chance to put in a final timed laps. It was what it was.
18:41
That means that the number four Corvette, it started 10th in class and actually was able to get back into sixth
18:47
place. This was kind of fun to watch because they were really doing some battling with the 77 Rexy Porsche. So,
18:53
there was quite a bit of shoving and going around there. I saw they hit us twice. We hit them a couple times. So,
18:58
it was something going there was something going on there. The other one, the number three Corvette with Garcia and Sims, they actually started eighth
19:05
place and clawed all the way back to finish second behind a Ford Mustang. So, they got on the podium, got some great
19:10
points there. So, we definitely needed that. The next race for IMSA in the Corvette Z06 program is the Seline 6
19:17
hours of the Glenn on Sunday, June 22nd at Watkins Glenn International. Very nice. And the granddaddy of them
19:23
all is coming up. Corvette racing is going back to Lama. Yeah, the 24 hours lemons is happening
19:28
this weekend, June 14th and 15th. We've got actually three Corvette Z06 GT3RS in
19:34
the field. Two of them are from the TF Sport World Endurance Championship team. And then the other car is from AWA
19:40
Racing, the Canadian car, which got a Lemons entry thanks to driver OE Fedani's win of the 2024 Bob Aken Award,
19:48
which goes to the top scoring bronze driver in the IMSA weather tech sports car championship. So basically, AWA, an
19:54
IMSA team, drove their way into the 24 hours lemons thanks to their bronze driver. So that's a pretty cool story.
19:59
And of course, AWA is going with a bright red Canadian flag motif on their livery that made their debut yesterday
20:06
at the test. We had the first testing sessions on Sunday. Qualifying will begin later this week. And then, of
20:12
course, the summer classic from France begins on Saturday. So, pretty cool there. Of course, Corvette Racing, nine
20:18
class victories at Lemon. We're looking forward to seeing a Corvette back in the winter circle once again. That'd be nice. I always look forward to
20:24
Lama. can't ever stay up for full 24 hours of viewing, but it's still a cool
20:29
race. Yeah, I used to try. It was different back in the day when it was our boys. A little bit different now with the way
20:34
the other teams have come in and are racing our cars. So, it's a little bit different feeling for me, but again, we want to see Corvette racing do great at
20:41
Lemons and we're here to cheer all on. Yes, definitely. In the rumors category, Keith, did we see a Roswell Green
20:47
Corvette out in the rain? So, there's been like three sightings of this Roswell Green Corvette. The first
20:52
one was it looked like it was behind the plan. I think we might have talked about that the last time we had our conversation. It was a really kind of a
20:58
dark photo. It was far away. It was blurry, but it looked like a Roswell Green on an E-Ray with black wheels. So
21:05
then a couple weeks go by and now there's pictures of this car driving in the rain on a highway. And we got like
21:11
three or four photos of it. It's looking better the more I see it, but it was in the rain so it's darker. And then our
21:16
friend Brad over at the Mid- Ninja Corvette forum, he showed a picture that he saw on Facebook. It was like four or
21:22
five cars that were parked in the administrative parking lot at the Corvette plant. Somebody took it far away, but one of those cars was a green
21:29
car and he never went up and got another picture of it. Huh. Really disappointing there. I'm telling people, hey, if you
21:35
see this, this is the white whale right now for the Corvette enthusiast, for the Corvette nation, as we like to say. The
21:40
white whale is being hunted. So, if you come across this green car, please get some photos of it.
21:45
Yeah, that'd be cool. The white whale. Very nice. The green whale, I guess. Whale. Yeah, it really is the green whale. All right,
21:52
buddy. Time for our final break. And when we come back, it's the fun side of Corvette. That's on deck next here on
21:58
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24:47
Hi, this is Kirk Benion and you're listening and watching Corvette Today with Steve Garrett.
24:54
Hey, thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette.
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I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is Keith Cornet from corvette blogger.com. If you want a deeper dive into any of
25:29
the stories that we cover, you can always go to corvette blogger.com. In this final segment, we always cover the
25:35
fun side of Corvette. Keith, it was it was kind of interesting because a grand jury indicted two of the men that stole
25:41
eight Corvettes from the Bowling Green assembly plant. You know what? Justice is done. Yeah. And I'm glad that that this is
25:47
under like the fun side of Corvettes because I'm really glad to see the hammer of justice coming down on these fellas. It was back in March, if you
25:54
remember, eight Corvettes were stolen. They cut a hole in the fence. These cars were driven out and then stashed at
25:59
various apartment complexes around the area. Only one man got arrested at the time, but as you said, a grand jury in
26:04
Bowling Green just indicted two men for the crime. Although it was reported that up to eight or nine were involved in the original theft. Those cars were all
26:11
driven out at the same time. There's still quite a few people out there that appear to have gotten away with it for now. We'll just leave it at that. The
26:17
charges include engaging in organized crime, theft by unlawful taking of property valued at $1 million or more.
26:23
Wow. Firstdeggree criminal mischief. This was Dante Cortez Walker, 21, and Armani and
26:29
Nasser Jordan, 22. I think they're both from the Detroit area. Walker was also indicted for tampering with physical
26:34
evidence, thirdderee fleeing or invading police, and resisting arrest. Again, hook them, Dano. Let's send these guys
26:40
away. They don't deserve to be part of our society anymore. Yeah, I just shake my head. Put my face in my palm and just shake my head.
26:47
Well, you know, there was just another case in the news. Somebody tried to steal a couple Hummers from the plant up in Detroit. They destroyed the cars
26:53
trying to get them. I don't know if people are arrested or not. It's like bank robbers. Why you rob the bank? Well, that's where the money is. I guess
26:59
they're trying to find these easy marks. And of course, when they got into the Corvette assembly plants parking lot,
27:04
the keys are in the car because they're ready to be shipped right now. You can't even see that. You know, where they had the fences before, the museum came in
27:10
and put in semi-trail trucks and containers, I think, all the way around the fences. Wow. There ain't no getting in and out of
27:16
that anymore. That's for sure. Also, this is a cool story. You know, the Indianapolis 500 is done, but 12 Indy500 festival cars, and
27:24
these are Stingrays. They're headed to Indianapolis dealerships. They're going to be sold there. That's cool. Yeah,
27:29
these are really cool because for collectors, you know, they come with all the documentation and provenence of being an actually used festival car for
27:37
the Indianapolis 500. You can go back and see some of these cars from previous races. They always have the livery on
27:42
them. These hardtop convertible Stingrays have the same livery as the ZR1 pace cars. Really cool stuff there.
27:48
What's going to happen was we heard that the 12 Corvettes were slated to be sold as certified pre-owned used Corvettes by
27:53
the local Indianapolis Chevy dealers. The MSRP on these 12 identical bills was $108,000 and have a ton of great
27:59
equipment on them, including those $6,000 visible carbon fiber wings. So, the two Stansion wings, these cars are
28:05
really in demand. I haven't seen anybody saying I got one or picked one up yet. But if you really like them, we've got the numbers of the individual
28:10
Indianapolis Chevy dealers on the website. So, dial for dollars and see if you can get one. Yeah, go get a festival car. That'd be
28:16
pretty darn cool. It'd be nice. I like them, too. Yeah, they look great. Also, ZR1 number
28:22
one from Rick Hendrick is now on display at City Chevrolet. It's Rick Hendrick's car, and it looks fantastic. Well, it
28:29
should because I think it was the same ZR1 that you built for our little challenge there. The black coupe with
28:34
the blue stripe, the blue wheels, the blue interior. He paid $3.7 million to
28:39
be able to buy that first car back in January at Barrett Jackson Scottdale auction. Like you said, now it is on
28:44
display inside his flagship dealership, City Chevrolet in Charlotte. We also got word just late last week as well that
28:51
VIN number 15, a yellow split window coupe, was just delivered to Les Stanford Chevrolet. The ZR1s are
28:57
officially shipping to customers. It's a pretty exciting time right now. Absolutely. Also, this is really cool.
29:02
The National Corvette Museum is having a membership appreciation day. What's included in that and what's the date on
29:08
that? Yeah, this is pretty cool. This looks like a new event for them. They're telling us that they're going to celebrate June 27th as member
29:14
appreciation day ahead of the National Corvette Day on June 30th, which I believe is that Monday coming up.
29:20
Activities include like a special cars and coffee hosted by NCM Insurance. There's complimentary coffee and donuts
29:26
there, and that'd be outside the museum. Inside the museum, they're going to do a pre-ely inspection demo with Adam's
29:33
Polishes, showing how to bring out the Corvette Shine and how they do it with cars before delivery. You've got some
29:38
artifact pit stops within the museum. They're going to be showing off the Quinland car, that 1953 Corvette that's
29:44
undergoing some preservation right now. And then they've got a collection of Narnhard letters they're going to share as well. So, that's pretty cool.
29:50
Finally, there's a scavenger hunt in the afternoon with all the events closing down in the afternoon around 3:00 or so.
29:55
So, it looks like a very fun event. If you're local, plan to go. If you're flying in, I don't know if there's quite a bit much to do other than what we said
30:02
there, but anytime you get a chance to go to the National Corvette Museum, I say go for Sounds like a good time to me, buddy.
30:09
Our final story. We had all the ZR1 reveal videos come out and some of them were really, really interesting.
30:15
Some of them were good. I asked Steve, I said, "Steve, so tell me your favorite one. I'll tell you mine." Okay. Well, obviously the Savage Geese
30:21
one is always good, but I think of all the others, I really like the Vehicle Virgins one the best.
30:26
Okay. Again, the Savage Geese in terms of production and the amount of time they put in, I think it was an hour and
30:31
a half. Yeah. It's hard to sit down for an hour and a half video of a review, but I guess if you break it up in chunks or if
30:38
you're a buyer, you know, then you're of course you're going to do that. Yeah, definitely watch the Savage Geese if you get a chance. I think I'm kind of torn.
30:44
I really enjoyed the Cletus McFarland video. He comes in very lowkey just looking at all the cars, you know,
30:50
comparing the 25s and 26s, but then he spends like 10 minutes with Dustin Gardner, who's the assistant chief
30:56
engineer of Small Blocks. They spend a good amount of time going through all the different components of the car and Cle is just amazed with what they've
31:02
done with all the different ways this car is engineered from those 72 millimeter turbos to the port and direct
31:08
injection of the car when it's used. I thought it was a very good ride. And then of course the one I thought was really funny, again, I love these guys,
31:15
the two guys from the straight pipes. What is happening with this car is it is so fast and so powerful, it's making
31:21
people sick. And we're saying literally because in the straight pipes, Yuri was in the passenger seat and you could see
31:26
him turning green literally in front of our eyes. Eventually, he's like, "I gotta get out. I gotta get out." And
31:32
then the video ends with Jacob when he was in the right seat also complaining about being a little nauseous. And it
31:38
ends with him saying, "I just threw up." And actually Cletus' photographer was
31:43
also talking about being nauseous as he was riding in the passenger seat. Well, now of course they're going around curves at 80 mph and sprinting all the
31:50
way up to 170 on the backstretch. So, there was quite a few G-forces working against that passenger. I couldn't
31:55
imagine launching your cookies during a ride and drive of a ZR1. You know, the
32:00
guys at Spring Mountain said, "Please pull over immediately because if you do that, it just never comes out of the car."
32:05
Yeah, that was awful. But the other video that was really good, too, if you get a chance, if you haven't seen it yet, I would say watch the Mark Royce
32:12
and Jay Leno video. Very good driving video. They actually at the very end there, Mark says, you know, C9 is
32:18
coming, but before we get to C9, you're going to see some more variants of the C8 come out. It sounds like there's
32:24
still some work to do on the C8. And who knows, maybe with the success the car has been having, maybe they're talking about extending it a little bit further
32:30
or not. We're going to have to see how that shakes out. There's been some predictions. I mean, the forecasting company said, you know, 2029 for a an
32:37
enhanced C9 or a C8 and a half, right? Mark Royce actually confirmed that they're working on it. That's all
32:43
good news for us. But I love the CR1 videos. I'm still working my way through some of the other guys. Hope to watch
32:48
them all here before the weekend ends. Yeah, they're a lot of fun. Well, buddy, thanks for being back on Corvette today.
32:53
We'll see you again in two weeks. Well, thanks again everybody out there. If you are on the road, you see a Corvette passing you, throw that hand
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up, wave, and let's keep that wave going. Thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today. And be sure to tell your
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