Up next in 10
Things are starting to heat up about the new C8 Z06! And CORVETTE TODAY covers it all in this News & Headlines episode. Here are some of the topics you'll hear about ...
1. Final stats for the 2021 model year C8 Corvette
2. Nearly half of the C8.R IMSA Edition C8’s are already sold
3. 2022 C8 Configurator is now live
4. The C8 was the 2nd fastest selling new car in August 2021
5. Consumer Reports declines to recommend the 2021 C8 Corvette
6. 2021 C8 tops its class in the JD Power APEAL Study
7. A Nurburgring video captures 2023 C8 Z06 with unofficial track time
8. We have video evidence that the C8 Z06 will also come in an HTC
9. Did we see the reveal colors on the last teaser video for the C8 Z06?
10. Another Easter Egg discovery on the C8 Z06 “Save the Date” video
11. Spy photos of the C8 E-ray confirm it’s a performance hybrid
12. New Zealand about to get their right-hand drive C8 Corvettes
13. The C8 Z06 might break 3 production V8 records
14. Chevrolet has officially quit making the LT5 engine with 755 hp
This is a long list of topics, and it's not everything that's covered in this episode of the CORVETTE TODAY podcast.
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0:00
[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
0:06
that talks about everything corvette with your host steve garrett mc and dj at one of the largest corvette weekends
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in the country corvette fun fest president of the corvette club of kansas city missouri and radio disc jockey at
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the number one radio station in kansas city for over 40 years here's steve garrett
0:28
thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host steve garrett i
0:34
appreciate you tuning in you can listen to corvette today on all podcast platforms you can also listen on your
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1:11
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1:17
also excited to tell you about the new youtube channel for corvette today be sure and check out your favorite
1:22
corvette today podcast now on youtube first i'd like to thank our flagship sponsors of corvette today corvette
1:28
fever magazine corvette fever has been relaunched with an online and printed version the online version has
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incredible interactivity with hidden photos and information and the printed version is like nothing you've ever seen
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before huge and glossy get your free online version at corvettefevermag.com
1:45
you can also sign up for the printed version there as well corvette fever magazine come along for the ride also
1:52
mid-engine corvette forum.com if you'd like to join a new vibrant forum that focuses on the new mid-engine c8
1:58
corvette it's free to join this friendly community you'll meet a lot of fellow corvette enthusiasts like yourself at
2:04
mid-engine corvette forum.com also a shout out to canadiancorvetforum.com
2:09
welcoming corvette owners from around the world all right you know what it's time for it's time for the latest
2:14
corvette news and headlines with keith cornett from corvetteblogger.com as you know keith is a regular guest on
2:20
corvette today he's here twice per month to keep us up to date on what's going on with america's favorite sports car keith
2:26
good to have you back it's going to be the first week of fall here in 2021 as you and i start year number two of our
2:34
news and headlines podcasts well thanks again for having me steve we're actually starting to get a little bit cooler weather in the mornings and the evenings
2:40
here in florida so i figured we got just about another month to go before we can really get to some quality driving
2:46
weather here but i know you've been driving around why don't you tell us about corvette fun fest at mid-america i went to corvette fun fest at mid-america
2:53
motorworks in effingham illinois i'm the emcee of the entire event plus i dj there as well being 44 years on the
3:00
radio they throw me into djing on friday the first day of the event and it was great we had a great time obviously we
3:05
missed last year but everything went really well john cramen from mecum auctions who's been on the podcast was
3:12
doing a seminar also david burroughs who also did a podcast with us on corvette today gave a seminar as well paul corner
3:19
was there the corvette mechanic and it was just really a lot of fun and the saturday night concert they had a
3:24
tribute band for foreigner so it was all in all a really fun weekend well very good glad to hear that it's one of my
3:30
fun shows to go to i'm sorry i couldn't make it this year and our friends at seoka corvette on atlantic city also had
3:36
a big show they did their toys for tots run i saw a little bit of video from our friend zippity's garage you would not
3:42
believe the amount of toys they had collected that weekend so kudos to those guys as well it seems like things are
3:47
getting back to normal absolutely right buddy and kudos to them for sure it's good to hear that they had such a great
3:52
event well keith let's jump into corvette production house production looking and also we do have some final
3:58
stats for the 2021 model year as well yeah 2022s started on wednesday the 8th
4:04
which means that the 2021s also stopped on wednesday the 8th and since then there's already been 1100 2022's
4:11
corvettes already built wow they're off to the races dealers have already started delivering 2022's so it seems
4:17
like things are going really well bowling green was just one of four u.s production facilities to be open over
4:23
the last couple weeks general motors is like everybody they're dealing with this semiconductor shortage we're actually hearing that a
4:30
couple plants that were expected to reopen may stay closed just so they can continue to prioritize the trucks and
4:36
corvette as they continue moving forward with production so far it's all good with the 2022s some of the amazing stats
4:43
that had come out is the dealers load up their initial orders we heard that production of convertibles has even
4:49
climbed higher than it did in 2021 they're looking at about 46 percent of cars right now produced as convertibles
4:56
which is just an amazing number for the hardtop convertible that's incredible keith that's very very amazing i mean we
5:02
haven't seen those kind of numbers since the 60s have we the 2021s they ended up at 42
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and we went back through our black book and we did not see anything higher than that since 1969 of course the c3s didn't
5:14
really have a full hard top they did the t-tops and then the convertibles from 69 to 75 the convertible ordering just
5:22
dropped off majorly to the point where in 75 they just quit producing convertibles all together right so it's
5:27
a remarkable comeback for the convertible model and again i think it's just people really embracing the looks
5:34
and the functionality of the c8 hard top and how it works versus the previous ones which were soft tops and also took
5:40
up storage space kudos to the corvette team and that's an amazing number 46 moving forward in 2022 so far that
5:47
hardtop convertible is a definite game changer buddy and let's talk about final statistics then for 2021 since we had
5:54
the official switchover on wednesday how did we do for the 2021 model year well they said that there was a total of 26
6:01
216 corvettes that were built for the 2021 model year the coupes were 58
6:06
versus the convertibles at 42 and again as we said is the highest convertible take rate since 1969.
6:13
as far as ordering goes the majority of 2021 buyers selected the 2lt as their
6:18
equipment package at 44 and the three lt was this close second at 40.1 percent so that just tells you
6:25
people are ordering their cars with some nice options on there it's a little bit different when you start looking at the
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coupes versus convertibles the 2lt is the top one for the coupe but the 3lt is the top trim package for the convertible
6:37
so people when they're ordering that convertible and they're spending that extra 7 500 to get the drop top they're loading it up some of the other stats
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z51 performance package was on nearly 70 of cars i think the only take rate higher than that was the npp performance
6:51
exhaust at 87 e60 front lift was at 61 people are really ordering what they
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like on the car as well as what they've learned to like that mpp exhaust even though it's included on the z51 package
7:03
those that have it they get the extra five horsepower on it but also you get those valves that open and close based
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on your rpms people learned that that's really a must-have option to have yeah as far as colors go no surprises here
7:16
torch red was number one followed by arctic white and then missed red and then on the rare side zeus bronze only
7:23
509 cars done in zeus bronze this year accelerate yellow was second at 3.2 percent 890 cars and then shadow gray
7:30
which was actually ended early ended up as the third rarest color with only 1100 cars inside the cars gt2 seats were the
7:38
most popular ordering of the suede was very low and then nearly one out of five corvettes had the interior carbon fiber
7:44
trim these are the stats that are interesting too 89.9 percent of all the corvettes
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built in 2021 went to u.s customers but they did send 1887 to canada
7:56
361 to japan which includes those right-hand drive cars right 246 cars
8:02
went to the middle east and 149 went to mexico wow we have the full chart the full list of stats that come from the
8:08
national corvette museum and the corvette engineering team so if you really want to dive in and start looking at the stripe colors and the interior
8:15
options it doesn't break it out per car but it gives you a good indication of how many were put on the coupe and how
8:20
many are on the convertible the corvette museum does have a service they'll tell you exactly how many other cars were
8:26
outfitted just like yours and now that they have these stats they should be able to do that for the 2021s very cool
8:31
and you know speaking of 2022 cars we have a special edition it's the c8r imsa
8:36
edition and nearly half of those are already sold aren't they it doesn't surprise us that they wanted to get
8:42
these produced right away obviously you know we're in the middle of race season right now we're celebrating last year's
8:48
gtlm championship win where the corvette c8r won the drivers the team in the manufacturer's titles but they're really
8:54
kicking it off i think it was harlan charles said that nearly 50 percent had been sold it's actually 412 orders have
9:01
been accepted so far 52.5 of those are convertibles and 47.5
9:06
percent are coupe so even the convertibles are leading the way in this special edition and the other thing that
9:11
i think is really cool too is that in terms of colors you know you can order either the accelerate yellow or the hypersonic gray it's the greatest
9:18
leading the way with 65 percent of orders you think of the c8rs as yellow
9:24
coupes and people are ordering the gray convertibles now it's going to be interesting to see how that all ends up
9:29
there's only a thousand that are going to be produced the fact that they're halfway through that shows that production will probably only go on for
9:35
another couple maybe a month or two more before they are officially sold out well i would be following the pack myself
9:41
keith i would order a gray hardtop convertible and that's 65 so i'm
9:46
probably in that percentile if i ordered one of those cars which i'm not but that's the one i would like to have with
9:52
the big wing and the sky cool gray interior it looks great yes it does also the configurator is up now for 2022. you
9:59
can go online and build your car yeah this is good news and i can't tell you how many hours i've lost so far i spent
10:04
night earlier this week just drinking hand and kind of building what my dream car would be like you guys i get on a
10:11
kick and then come back later i'm like why would i ever pick that color and i start doing with another color that's
10:16
the great thing about the build and price configurator it's a little bit different than the visualizer the visualizer will give you more viewing
10:22
options but you don't have the user adding options or subtracting options it doesn't show you the running total there
10:28
the build and price configurator you can just go to chevrolet.com and it's under shopping tools you can just start
10:34
building your car these cars they start off now at 62 195 for the coupe you add
10:39
the 7 500 for the convertible so you can really go wild with this i think we saw one of the other websites out there had
10:45
done a what's the highest corvette you can price out at and they came up with like 110. personally i think i could
10:51
beat that number start adding it the 5 000 selective in and you start adding different options
10:57
on wheels and car covers and such but 110 000 was they came up with their spread there from 62 195 starting price
11:04
pretty amazing it is amazing also this is an interesting story the epa is now
11:09
using for fuel economy ratings the z51 as the basis for the corvette when they
11:14
started off obviously they didn't have any sales numbers attached to the epa rating so it was just based on the
11:20
engine packages that were available what it is is there's actually two different packages there's the base and then
11:25
there's the z51 right but because the z51 is like i said it's a 69.5 of all
11:31
2021s that were produced the epa uses that because it's the most
11:36
representative of the production numbers so what that does is yeah it cost us
11:42
three miles per gallon on the highway but the city rating went up and that's because that in 2021 they actually did
11:49
do a little bit of engine work for admissions standards essentially that's where we came up with so the ratings now
11:55
for moving forward are 16 city 24 highway and 19 combined oh very
12:01
interesting and other good news the c8 for 2021 in august of this year was the
12:07
second fastest selling car who beat us this year for august it was the hyundai santa cruz and when you look at the
12:13
hyundai santa cruz it kind of reminds you of a modern day el camino again it was a brand new car on the market their
12:18
average data cell was 8.0 whereas the chevy corvette was 8.3 days to sell also
12:25
we saw our average price go as high as it's ever been 89 788 it remains a top selling car of
12:32
course they're all pre-sold but because the plant has been open and functioning and they're getting cars out immediately
12:38
we continue to see the corvette on the top of the fastest selling new vehicles list i don't anticipate this to slow
12:43
down the only time it did slow down is when we had issues with the plant and the parts supply and then production
12:48
dropped off if we can keep everything going and keep moving i think we'll be towards the top of this list for quite
12:53
some time absolutely right and you know we always bring you some great news and we have some interesting news a little
12:59
bit of negative news actually here's another piece of negative news consumer reports is
13:04
declining to recommend the 2021 c8 corvette there's one question i have for you keith why as long as we've been
13:12
writing about corvettes we have a love hate history with consumer reports when the c8 first came out they test drove it
13:18
they loved it if you go back and look at their first drive reviews it's very positive so what consumer reports does
13:23
is they don't take cars from manufacturers they buy their own cars so that that way they don't say that they're under any obligations so they
13:30
finally got a car i guess like everybody else takes a little while to order and purchase a car but they finally got a
13:36
2021 z51 model it did fantastic in their road test five out of five points on
13:42
owner satisfaction but where they knocked it was they gave us only two out of five points on predicted reliability
13:49
and in fact they say we can't recommend the new corvette because of an inconsistent reliability history as much
13:55
as you're trying to increase quality and make things better for the future we're still kind of being ding on the quality
14:02
and the history of inconsistencies reliability from the past that's where they dinged us there okay well that
14:07
makes sense but on the flip side here jd power's appeal study c8 corvette in 2021
14:14
was at the top of the class so if we're getting bad on consumer reports jd power is stepping up to the plate so the
14:20
appeal study actually stands for the automotive performance execution and layout of vehicles it's all done by
14:27
class so the corvettes are in the premium sporty car segment up against mercedes-benz bmw porsches the regular
14:33
competitors that we have what this does it's asked about the most satisfying in terms of their overall appeal of cars
14:39
and of course corvette owners they love their cars and so we finished actually the top of the class with a score of 907
14:46
second was the lexus lc at 8.99 and then it goes on down from there again it just shows that corvette owners love their
14:53
cars they love them even more once they get them fantastic news again on another jd power survey for corvette well all of
14:59
a sudden i like jd power a lot more than i like consumer reports buddy like i said it's a love-hate
15:05
relationship with consumer reports well let's take our first break keith and when we come back we'll talk about corvette racing and also rumors with
15:12
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and now back to corvette today with your host and my husband steve garrett
17:02
hey i appreciate you listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host
17:08
steve garrett with me every other week is keith cornett from corvetteblogger.com we keep you up to
17:13
date on what's going on in the world of corvette and also just know that if you have any questions or want to see more
17:18
in-depth detail you can always see the stories we talk about on corvetteblogger.com
17:24
keith overview laguna seca with corvette racing we finally get a win for nick
17:29
tandy and tommy milner the number four corvette it's been a long time coming you know we think well haven't they won before this year and that is true they
17:35
have but this is actually the first race where they got full race points their very first race they won at the
17:41
beginning of the year was the 100 minute qualifying race for the rolex 24 that was their first win and then they also
17:46
won at belle isle which was an exhibition race so there was no points awarded there so that actually the very
17:52
first race points they earned as leading the gtlm class came at laguna seca
17:57
interesting now we also have a race this week long beach grand prix is coming up on friday and saturday and the race
18:03
happens at 5 p.m eastern time on saturday afternoon very cool and also
18:08
corvette racing the c8rs tested gt3 spec abs brakes and that was done at the
18:14
detroit grand prix that's kind of interesting we heard about this after the fact and what this erase allowed
18:19
them to do because it was just the two c8rs in the gtlm class so it essentially was a non-points race as an exhibition
18:27
gm went to emsa and got their permission to do some testing with the abs brake system currently the c8rs do not use abs
18:34
brakes in gtlm but the gt3 class does and so as we move forward to next year
18:40
racing in the gtd pro we're looking at upgrading certain aspects of the car and the abs brakes is certainly one of the
18:46
major components that will be upgraded the fact that they got to test those in there was again just a real world racing
18:52
atmosphere that's stuff that you can't get by just going to the track and running laps and testing it at a private
18:57
session definitely well that's going to be a big upgrade and a big step up for them so i'm sure they were enjoying
19:03
getting those abs on there and testing them for next year in the rumor section keith we've got a
19:08
lot of rumors here first of all we had nurburgring video that captured the 2023
19:13
and remember the z06 is a 2023 car we had video and an unofficial track time
19:19
tell us the back story about that video sure so one of the ring spotters that we've been following for quite a while
19:24
his name is car spotter gerund he's got a great setup so his videos are very quality and he goes he does buy photos
19:31
and such around the nurburgring and other places so his video of the 2023 corvette z06 as they were testing at
19:37
nurburgring in late august so he's filming the cars and then all of a sudden you see the camera kind of panned
19:43
down and he's got the timer app open on his phone as it goes around we're assuming that he's just clocking in as
19:49
it goes past a certain point as he films he shows that the low wing corvette which we believe is the base z06 had a
19:56
lap time of eight minutes and 18 seconds which is slow but there's other traffic
20:01
there's actually quite a bit of traffic they might have gotten behind somebody they've gotten slowed down by a couple
20:06
other cars there's everything out there from compacts to suvs that are testing during these manufacturer industry pools
20:12
but what really blew our minds was that the high wing corvette the one that we believe is the z07 performance package
20:19
he shows a lap time of seven minutes and 12 seconds which just would be flying in
20:24
that car if you recall jim marrow in the 2019 z06 had a seven minute and four lap
20:30
time so he is very close there and again this was in traffic so it just is a
20:35
amazing number if it works out to be true and then what can they do not in traffic we had mentioned that there was
20:41
an accident so they were going to go for a hot lap on one of the last days of testing and there was an accident with
20:46
the bmws and the tesla plaid that backed up everything and then we didn't get a run our lap so the actually there's an
20:52
industry pool going on right now but the z06 team is not there we'll be waiting again to see if they can do it faster
20:58
than 712 it'll be an amazing time for the z06 definitely and speaking of the z06 we have video evidence that there
21:05
will also be a hard top convertible so now that the team has tested over in nurburgring they take off that heavy
21:12
black cladding that black camouflage that we were seeing the cars with so now all of a sudden the team that's been
21:18
working over here in the united states testing the z06 they've removed their black camouflage as well so now we get
21:24
just the body it's all wrapped in the swirly camouflage but we get a much closer look at how it's going to be
21:31
and there was a team that was located in ohio last week that was doing some
21:36
testing brandon buyer's vet titans page was one of the guys that was there he found out about it actually followed a
21:41
couple cars down a rural ohio road that car the second car was a hardtop
21:47
convertible had its top down you can see the driver clearly behind the nasal there so before we just had all this
21:53
black camouflage we weren't sure if it was going to be a convertible but now we for sure have proof that yes there are
21:59
center-mounted exhaust corvettes running around with that z07 high wing and they are convertibles very exciting i like
22:06
that that sounds good also in the teaser video that we had for the z06 did we see
22:11
some of the colors that were going to be revealed in that video this is a fun story that video came out at the end of
22:18
august so it was about three weeks ago and it's called the save the date is what we've been calling that teaser that
22:23
was the one where the car drove from the nurburgring to le mans and it ended up in the paddock there next to the c8r so
22:30
that got us thinking but i'll tell you what i had a little nudge in this from a corvette team member who suggested i
22:35
might want to take a closer look at that and so as we started looking at it again we noticed that there was a series of
22:41
graphics that would appear at certain points within the video and it showed the cross flags and there was four
22:47
colors that were shown there was the accelerate yellow the hypersonic gray the red mist and the new amplifi orange
22:54
so that got us thinking well they do the reveals we figured would be like the c7 z06 reveal where they showed the c706
23:02
next to this c7r because that's what it's derived from imagine that on the stage when they do the reveal on october
23:08
26th that you'll have the c8r the silver and the hypersonic gray and then in the
23:14
middle of those will be the two production street cars one in red mist and one amplify orange we didn't get
23:21
confirmation from chevy we just got a little weak and a nod so we think that that's probably a good bet so expect to
23:27
see red mist and amplify orange as the two reveal colors of the 2023 corvette z06 that would be cool and there was
23:34
another easter egg and that saved the video as well wasn't there yeah so as you're watching it you'll notice that
23:40
there was some of these graphics that came on that looked like a sketch or a drawing but it wasn't of a complete car
23:45
it'd be like a fender or a half a wheel we saw the rear wing on one of them it
23:51
took somebody else to kind of give us uh hey did you see this so someone had dead screen shots where those sketches
23:57
appeared and it was in four places and so they stitched those four full screen shots together and it shows the outline
24:05
of sketch like a drawing from a designer of the 2023 corvette z06 as a whole
24:10
nothing really that we learned from it it's just cool that it was there man who thinks up this stuff i think those guys
24:16
up in chevrolet sometimes have a little bit more time on their hands but these are the fun things that happen as we're leading up to the reveal and everything
24:23
that'll come out after the reveal will also just be surprises here and there and why didn't we see that before kind
24:28
of stuff it's really exciting times for corvette enthusiasts absolutely right and also with the e-ray we have some spy
24:34
photos confirming that it was a performance hybrid don't we okay this is what really gets me excited about this
24:40
car because we've been talking about the e-ray for quite some time obviously it was a trademark that gm had filed that
24:46
kind of started off everything and then we had a couple leaks i know don sherman had talked about the e-ray with
24:52
supposedly a electric motor in the front that powers the front wheels and the idea is that it's not a full battery car
24:59
that it's just designed for performance and what really got us on this video is
25:05
the fact that there was a button that was spied inside the e-ray along the center console what that turns out to be
25:12
is gm's regen on demand the regen on demand that was first came on vehicles
25:17
like the 2014 cadillac elr the bolt ev also had it but what it allows you to do
25:23
is you can set different levels and every time you break it'll recharge the
25:28
batteries so what it does it takes the energy that's captured in the braking system and then it transfers it back
25:34
into the batteries with four different levels the regen on demand is also known as one pedal driving so imagine that you
25:41
got the pedal on the accelerator and then as soon as you lift off the brake system is applied so you really in
25:47
certain instances you don't even need to touch the brakes because as soon as you let off the accelerator the braking is applied and then that energy is being
25:53
transferred back into the battery system wow again with the regen on demand based on previous models of chevrolets they
26:00
had a programmable with a number of different options so we can expect the corvette team for sure will take
26:06
advantage of that just like your driving modes there might be a regen mode that gives you the ability to get as much
26:12
energy back or just maybe a little bit here and there it's gonna be interesting to see how this all shakes out but again the first time this button has been
26:18
shown was on these spy photos that we got it really to us confirms that this is a performance hybrid boy you were
26:24
right keith we got some exciting times coming up with corvette that's for sure i'm telling you and that was just the
26:30
last two weeks so who knows what the next two weeks are gonna bring exactly right well buddy let's take our final
26:35
break and in segment number three we'll talk about the lighter side of corvette on corvette today american hydrocarbon
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this is the corvette today podcast with steve garrett
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hey thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette i'm your host steve
27:53
garrett with me every other week is keith cornett from corvetteblogger.com we keep you up to date on what's
27:58
happening in the world of corvette in this final segment we talk about the lighter side of corvette and some
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interesting news as well new zealand is about to get their right-hand drive c8 corvettes i bet they're very excited
28:10
about that for a market that has always traditionally had to buy the left-hand drive and then convert them this is
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going to be an exciting time for these right-hand drive markets what we've heard and what we kind of pieced together is we talked about allocations
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i think maybe a couple weeks back and the big dealers weren't quite getting what they thought their numbers should be and we believe it's because that
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those first allocations once they started building the 2022s is that they produced a bunch of right-hand drive
28:34
cars for both england and for australia and new zealand pretty interesting we got a video from our friend mike brink
28:41
at brink of speed who actually had a guy that works on the docks in new zealand which i it sounds like a cliche down at
28:47
the docks but he has pictures of right-hand drive corvettes coming in the first couple are i think are already
28:54
over there now and have been registered for the street but pretty interesting you know these cars they're done as
28:59
packages so they've got the 2lt coupe or 3lt coupes their 2lt coupes over there start at 154.9
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the 3lt coupe starts at 169.9 and believe it or not they have this ultimate stingray with all this carbon
29:12
fiber on it right up your alley steve right that's priced at 197.9 wow for the market it's obviously
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exciting time for them they're getting their cars the way they want but obviously they're not cheap we see why chevrolet would like to sell some more
29:24
exports is because they do make a amount of money off of them that's for sure that's amazing i'd love to see that
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picture of them coming off the docks they've got to be excited yeah we've got a couple of them on the website that's from a break of speed video where he got
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the exclusive on that one very cool also the z06 might break three production v8
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records what are those records keith this is pretty good this comes from our guy alex summers alex is a writer for us
29:49
and he's been writing for us for a while but he's also been able to crack and he's been doing a little riding for hagerty we're glad to see him hit the
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big time there he came up with this list so we have first the largest displacement flat plane v8 currently
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that's in the ford shelby gt 350 at 5.2 liters so we might beat that at 5.5
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liters okay the second one most torque from a naturally aspirated flat plane v8
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again we're looking at as much as 500 foot-pounds of torque for the new z06 while the gt350 shelby has the 429
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foot-pounds of torque and then the third one is the highest red line of an american performance car
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currently that's the gt350 at 8250 haggerty believes that the new z06 could
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be as high as 9 000. i'm hearing that it's going to be probably closer to about 8 500 but obviously anything over
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8 000 for an american car is an amazing red line anyway and we've heard these cars at the nurburgring wide open it
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doesn't surprise us that they are at that 8 500 or 9 000 rpms that'll be absolutely exciting watching those
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videos they sound like a formula one car going around the nurburgring so this is going to be great that was one of the
30:56
reasons why i hear that chevy decided to move the exhaust all inboard so there's the four outlets are all together it's
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just to enhance that sound as opposed to kind of moving away from each other it is an exotic sounding car corvette
31:08
owners are still trying to grapple with a different sound based on we're so used to that low rumble it is an amazing
31:14
sounding car in fact one of the videos we had last week was from the car spotter jared again he did a compendium
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where he put in the z06 going by and then from a couple years ago the c8
31:25
stingray going by on the same parts of the track and you can really hear the difference of the sounding engine so
31:30
just again it's pretty amazing that corvette owners are going to have an engine like this for their z06 definitely and speaking of engines i was
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sad to see that chevrolet has officially quit making the lt5 engine that's the c7
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zr1 engine that has 755 horsepower yeah this was sad to see it one and done what
31:49
a fantastic engine it was they had to make some hard decisions on this engine because when they put it in the corvette
31:54
obviously they couldn't then sell it in europe anywhere else it was just for the corvette right what we've seen is that
32:00
production has already stopped on it and in fact when you order crate engines it'll show you they no longer have these
32:06
lt5s in stock so you actually would have to call around and hopefully a dealer somewhere or somebody would have one for
32:12
sale but as far as we know they're already gone and so the hunt's going to be on to find those remaining ones i think they were selling the crate
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engines at around 19 000. wow what a great addition to any kind of resto mod that would make boy that's for sure 19
32:25
000 for that 755 lt5 engine wow it's the end of an era we think of the 2019
32:32
corvette zr1 is the final hurrah for not only the c7 era but for the front engine
32:37
era of corvettes as well right and now we've got a couple cool fun stories for you first of all fuel tech has reclaimed
32:44
the horsepower record the world record for the c8 where are they up to now so they just put out a video last week of
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their 2020 corvette mule on the dyno they were able to get 1350 wheel
32:55
horsepower out of it which puts that horsepower at the crank somewhere close to 1550 to 1600 1350 at the wheel so
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again an amazing number here but here's what's really cool i just saw a video of the car at the track and they did a
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quarter mile time of 9.01 seconds at 153 miles an hour so
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fuel tech now has the fastest c8 corvette in the world wow that's incredibly amazing
33:23
those numbers are just mind-boggling and you know everybody's itching the fuel tax out there we don't know what really
33:29
is going on with amelia and her car recently she put out a video which kind of said that she might be taking a break
33:35
for a little bit on that car and of course the other car that's really battling for supremacy is the
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extreme turbo systems they actually had the fastest time before fuel tech came along they were at 9.05 seconds at 159
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miles an hour okay their car is still trapped higher but the fuel tech car did it at 9.01 seconds so they got the world
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record but for how long will be the question that i'm asking now buddy when we do our next news and headlines i
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wouldn't be surprised we have another world record holder in two weeks could be you never know with these guys
34:06
they're out there working hard that's for sure absolutely and finally our buddy speed phenom has sold his 2020
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corvette to carmax to carmax really yeah so this guy he's only a kid he's 20 i
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think he's not even 21 yet austin everett is his name and we've been following his youtube videos now for a couple years it's just fun to watch him
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doing he calls him his next level driving adventures and he does a lot of tracking stuff and that's where we
34:32
really kind of started really paying hard attention to him because he was really the only one that was out there tracking his car every couple weeks or
34:38
so and we'd see him up against gt2s and lamborghinis and other porsches so it was really fun to watch him so over the
34:44
last couple years we've seen him do all this stuff he racked up 25 000 miles on his car he ordered the 2022 imsa gtlm
34:52
special edition in his video he's saying that he got the notification that his car had already been built wow he was
34:58
like i've had this car for sale for a little bit now we found it on auto trader for 88 000 okay again it was the
35:05
high miles you know everybody else on auto traders selling their car from anywhere from just a few hundred miles
35:10
up to maybe a couple thousand but 25 000 miles is a big number he said he visited a number of chevrolet dealers in his
35:17
area i think he's out of southern california and they all wouldn't give him anything really that he was looking
35:22
for so it's just kind of one of those last-ditch efforts he went to carmax and as he's going to carmax he's talking
35:28
about he wasn't expecting much maybe 60 65 000 as an offer for the car but he wanted to see what they'd give him to it
35:34
when he walks out of there with an offer of 85 000 for his 25 000 mile 2020 corvette he
35:41
took it there's a little scene there at the end where he's kind of rubbing the back fender going i'm going to miss you buddy i kind of felt that you know we've
35:48
watched so many videos of austin with his corvette now he's got the new one coming so we'll have even more fun stuff
35:53
to watch from him in the meantime but again it's just an amazing testament to the amount of demand this car has that
35:59
someone would a dealership would pay 85 000 for a 25 000 mile car pretty amazing
36:05
keith we live in some crazy automotive times my friend that's just that we do well keith thanks so much for being back
36:12
on corvette today we will see you in two weeks we'll follow up on some of these stories if there is a follow-up and
36:17
don't forget everybody you can see all these articles on corvetteblogger.com thanks for stopping by everybody great
36:24
to see you as always if we see you on the road keep waving thanks again for listening to corvette today and please
36:29
be sure to tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the corvette today podcast and thanks to our
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36:48
with steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on corvette
36:54
today you can email him at steve garrett dj gmail.com
36:59
that's steve garrett dj gmail.com garrett has two r's and two t's or
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