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[Music] welcome to Corvette Today the show that
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talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett lifetime member of the National Corvette Museum
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president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City Missouri and radio disc jockey at the number one radio station in Kansas
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City for over 45 years here's Steve Garrett
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thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only current
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podcast dedicated to Corvette i'm your host Steve Garrett i appreciate you tuning in corvette Today is brought to
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right my friend it's time to bring you the latest Corvette news and headlines with the one and only Keith Cornet from
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corvette blogger.com keith is with me every other week we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening with
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America's sports car keith welcome back to the show it's the official start of summer buddy we are into it already i
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know first summer of the weekend of 2025 it's hot here it feels like summer it actually felt like summer for the last
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couple months but it is here and we are ready to get going with it Steve yeah it's warm in Kansas City too we've got
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heat indices in the triple digits so it feels like Tampa you know and it's funny it's like I'll put my top down in the
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mornings or late at night but in the afternoons it's like nope I need that AC on full blast thank God for air conditioning right exactly all right
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buddy let's start like we always do let's get a Corvette production update from the Bowling Green assembly plant yeah you know I was kind of looking
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ahead to see we know that the model year ends on the 1st of August so I was doing some counting it looks like there's
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about 5 weeks remaining in the 2025 Corvette model year for production we do know that there's at least a week
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they're going to take off for the 4th of July so that's how we get to that five weeks but what's been interesting again is production continues to show a little
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bit more favoritism to the Z06 it nearly outproduces the Stingray on most days only one day or here or there that we've
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actually seen more Stingrays in the Z06 but for the most part your Z06 is your production leader right now as for the
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production counts we are at a total of 23,133 cars produced for 2025 and they break
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down like this so far we've got 12,735 Stingrays 7,610
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Z06s 2,741 E-rays and a whopping 47 ZR1s have so
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far been produced so that's our total 23,133 we had 310 orders for the ZR1s and
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there's actually some people starting to backtrack a little bit saying "Are we going to get to that number?" It might not be there's some people that don't
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have TPWs yet for my understanding and that's not good you want actually a TPW and you want to see that status at 3,000
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which means that it's being scheduled for production we're going to keep a close watch on that 01 production but they are making cars most days there it
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seems like so it is a good sign and it's just something we're going to watch there we are as I mentioned expecting
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the 4th of July holiday a shutdown either it's going to be that week of the 4th of July fourth of July is on a Friday this year or it'll be that
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following week i actually have a note into Rachel at the plant to confirm that so as soon as we have that we'll talk
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about that on the blog but yeah there's your production for the 2025s sounds good also speaking of the new orders for
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2026 I guess we got first order allocations and constraints for the first order cycle already didn't we
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exactly yeah we've already had that first one it's been put to bed it happened about a couple weeks ago and actually the constraints were both
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positive and negative we knew the negative would be the carbon fiber for the Z06 there's just no visible carbon
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fiber for the Z06 it's like that's where they got all those high wings from the ZR1s but for whatever reason we're still
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hoping that those quantities return the next few order cycles at least but on the positive side we actually had really
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decent quantities for the two new colors Roswell Green and Blade Silver production usually starts up and it's
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either they might roll out one color first and then a second color but they've got nice quantities for both those new colors from the very beginning
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which is nice and again we actually saw the Roswell green in person under the lights that car is beautiful it's got a
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gold flake to it it really comes alive and pops but outside I saw it in the overcast it was actually raining a
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little bit and it's just a little bit flat for me some people are really going to like it under the lights under the sun it's going to be a dynamite color i
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think those colors are available and I think our next order cycle will happen in early July i don't know if we're
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going to have two order cycles in July or if it's just going to be one order cycle and then it's done that's probably going to be the case since production
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starts August 4th for the 2026s gotcha you know I did a little comparison i took a picture of that Roswell green
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Corvette against one of the green Lamborghini Aventadors and you know what the color is just about the same which I
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was pleasantly surprised to see yeah Chevy's got so much flake in their paints these days when you see them you
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know even like the oranges and even Rapid Blue had flake in it so it looks like a flat color especially without
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direct sunlight or direct lights on it but boy you get those things outside and they really come alive and I think that's one of the ways that Chevy's
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paint department and especially that paint shop inside the plant has really found its place you know to be out to
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put these vibrant colors out and again some of these colors that weren't all that popular I go back to caffeine
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caffeine had more flake in it than any other color ever I saw you know it's just one of those really that plays with
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your mind when you get out in the light again this green color is not for everybody but for some they're going to love it that's one of the cool things
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about Corvette ownership yep i love to see it in person this next story Keith I'm really excited about and real
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jealous about because the first ZR1 arrived at Sioka Chevrolet and at the National Corvette Museum as well exactly
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they're actually going around everywhere now in the United States the first ZR1 delivery started about the first half of June i think Sioka got theirs in on like
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the 6th or the 7th by the 10th I know Le Stanford got a car it was out the door that following week the NCM just hosted
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their first R8C museum delivery it was a competition yellow Corvette that they had on the floor there that was an early
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car too i think it was number 12 or 14 i don't quite remember that the Sioka car was a black car with the blue stripes
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the blue wheels all these cars that we're seeing so far they're all split window coups with the big wings so
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congratulations to those owners i actually might drive out to Stingray Chevrolet over the weekend they got a
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competition yellow coupe that they just got in as well so there's a lot of good stuff happening we actually ended up having a video from one of the owners
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that picked up his car first in Orlando area he just loves it he just did a walk around not a driving video yet he's
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still doing the breakin but so far so good these cars are getting out into hands and we're excited to see it was
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that the white one with the big wing it was yeah okay he said he paid $50,000
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over MSRP for that car he paid 50 and he admit it he said you know if it was higher than that he probably wouldn't
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have done it but he felt it was worth it he wanted to be one of the first to get it you know it's just one of those personal things he's bought five
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Corvettes he's really into the Corvette hobby probably has the income to go with other cars but chose the Corvette he
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said it's always been a reliable car for him never left him stranded which is why he keeps coming back to it so he had a lot of good things to say about the car
9:57
but you know when he said you know you start talking about 100 over he's like there's no way I could do that everybody's finances are different and
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some people have a little bit more disposable income and some people need a lot more disposal income to buy a car like a ZR1 yeah that's true well
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congratulations to everybody damn it i'm jealous get out there enjoy the car
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give your friends a ride when you can this is fun this is exciting so stop by Kansas City and give me a ride also Also
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Keith this is really cool the -ay is now available in Europe which I think is fantastic yeah Chevy's first all-wheel
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drive performance hybrid car is now the third C8 Corvette model to be offered on the European continent buyers will be
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able to order the -ray basically how we can they can order coupe convertibles they have full access to all the 10
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colors for 2025 15 interior colors the four-wheel finishes it's not exactly
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cheap over there it starts at 193,000 United States dollars for the coupe and while the convertible starts at over
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22,000 equivalent in the euros they actually have some standalone Chevrolet dealers or actually they're dealers that
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handle the Chevrolet brand over there that's where you go to find it not cheap but they are available so if you got one
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order one i had actually had a guy email me from the UK tell me not only was he getting one but he was trying to source
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some of the upgrades like the Borl exhaust and some other things for it you know it's exciting time to be a Corvette owner and not just for us here in the
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United States but elsewhere in the world i think that's really really cool buddy also I'm so excited about this the Zora
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is here but it ain't called the Zora is it it's not called the Zora they actually decided to go with the ZR1X
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they did trademark the Zora name not only once they trademarked it twice in the United States 2015 i believe they
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had to do it again in 2020 because it was a future product i think you have to trademark every 5 years for that United
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States but they all went around the world they did Mexico they did China they did Japan all over with the Zora so
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we had legitimate reasons to believe that this car was going to be called the Zora but then a couple weeks ago you know inside the ordering systems dealers
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were telling us when they came across one of the hybrids in the order system that they could look up as a 2026 it
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would just say ZR1 with a little E after it so that looked like it was an internal model code and not something
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that stuck actually today these cars are now saying ZR1X as the internal code in there chevy right up to the point of the
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reveal was doing some changes with the name they wanted to say that because it's the ZR1 it's within the same family
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taj said that during one of his interviews as he was revealing the ZR1 that the ZR1 was always going to be the range topper the most expensive Corvette
12:23
so it all kind of makes sense but we do have confirmation from General Motors that they are treating the ZR1X as a
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separate model it's actually two VIN structures for the ZR1X versus the ZR1 confirmed by General Motors now we're
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just waiting on pricing and configurations my big question is are they going to be releasing it you know in the fall so we'll get a little bit
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later into the model year they did that with the Z06 you know when the 2023s first started Stingray started in
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September and I think the Z06 started later October now we've got the ZR1s
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2025s didn't start until the very end of the model year at some point in 2026 we are going to have that ZR1X if I could
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just go over some of the info about this car what they did was the motor actually would cut out around 150 mph and that's
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their trap speed in the 1/4 mile of this car so what they did was they actually
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juiced it with some additional voltage while strengthening the internals of it so they get the power up to 160 mph and
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now it generates 186 horsepower and 145 ft-lbs of torque compared to the E-Ray's 160 horsepower it also has a bunch of
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new modes to take advantage of that all-wheel drive system there's like an endurance mode a qualifying mode for
13:30
optimum power and there's even a push to pass that maximizes max power on demand and that push to pass button is actually
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a repurposing of the cruise control button whether you have to push it once or twice or push to pass I don't know
13:42
how they do that maybe you hold it down they did some interesting things there but they wanted that button on the steering wheel is what we were told and
13:48
then one of the really big things about this car is its new brake package the J59 brake package from Alcon they're a
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UKbased provider of braking systems for motorsports and sports cars this is the largest and most robust brake system
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ever tested on a Chevrolet josh Holder was talking about this at the live reveal at the Corvette assembly plant
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that the stopping power is off the charts they're at the Nurburg Ring and they're going into a tear garden corner
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at 180 mph they broke so hard that they recorded 1.9 g of deceleration as the
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car went from 180 to 120 in just around a second or so 1.9 gs that's nearly
14:23
double your body weight being affected by the momentum of the car stopping he says actually when you take off in this
14:28
car it'll distort your vision there's so much pressure and force from this car taking off we're still waiting on price
14:34
and availability come later this year but I got to tell you Steve this is an exciting time to be a Corvette fan
14:39
absolutely right those numbers are just mind-boggling alcon brakes out of UK they are really known for their racing
14:45
brakes i asked Josh why go away from Brembo and of course these are bigger brakes they actually get the rotors from
14:51
somebody else and they're very specialized rotor made with a continuous piece of carbon fiber as opposed to
14:56
being pressed or anything like that they gave them the best package they could buy they really tweaked it the way they
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wanted it not just off the shelf from somebody else that's why they went with Alcon and these J59 brakes by the way
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these are an option on the regular ZR1 they come standard on the ZR1X gotcha gotcha all right buddy that sounds
15:14
awesome i can't wait to see this car in person it'll be fun let's take our first break Keith when we come back it's
15:19
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i'm your host Steve Garrett with me is my buddy Keith Cornet from Corvette Blogger we are keeping you current and
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uptodate on everything that is Corvette every other week in this second segment we cover Corvette racing and Corvette
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rumors keith let's start with racing and let's talk about Corvette racing at Lama absolutely so we had three Corvette Z06
19:58
GT3RS competing this year at the 24 hours of Lemons the good news is that all three finished the race not only
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they completed the race they finished in the top 10 of LMGT3 and I believe there was 18 cars 20 cars in the class I mean
20:10
it was a loaded class so the fact that not only all three finished but they all finished well says a lot about this car
20:15
and these teams the number 81 Corvette from TF Sport actually did the best they did a third place podium finish while
20:21
other TF Sport entry in the 33 car finished seventh and then the AWA Racing Corvette Z06 with their red Canadian
20:27
flag motif they finished in 10th place it was a good race about midway through the 81 actually moved into the lead GT3
20:34
and then it was part of that back and forth with three or four other cars and the leaders in the class and it stayed right up there all the way to the end
20:40
the number 33 is currently third in the drivers championship points and then their teammates in the 81 are now
20:46
sitting in sixth place and the next race for TF Sport in the World Endurance Championship happens July 13th in Brazil
20:51
there's a 6-hour race in Sao Paulo I believe yes corvette Racing was actually in action at Watkins Glenn over the
20:57
weekend we'll have coverage of that race in our next news and headlines episode but then Corvette Racing is going to soon be heading to the Chevrolet Grand
21:04
Prix at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Canada that race happens the weekend of July 11th through the 13th so
21:11
stay tuned for that as well that sounds great i thought this was really cool oliver Gavin honored Tajjar tell me a
21:17
little bit more about that exactly so the media was rolling out their embargoed stories and videos on the Corvette ZR1 i believe that happened on
21:23
May 30th or so and just a couple days later former Corvette racing driver and Hall of Fame member Oliver Gavin shared
21:30
a photo of him and former chief engineer Tad Sher taken at the Nurburg Ring as the team was testing the ZR1 at the
21:36
track last year oliver actually drove it at one point with Tad riding shotgun during that test in this post he wanted
21:42
to talk about the cars and capabilities but he really ends it on a personal note he says "Amazing work Taj and the whole
21:48
engineering team at Corvette you have built one mind-blowing vehicle." So it was just a really neat picture you know
21:53
just one of those things where most people just might passive but I thought "Wow that's a nice little tribute to Taz he's retired he's going off and doing
21:59
his own thing right now." So let's put that out there that's a nice thing to say and of course these guys had a great
22:05
relationship with the drivers and the engineers boy it'd be sure nice to see Oliver Gavin maybe do one of those lap
22:10
tests at the Nurburg Ring yeah speaking of the Nurburg Ring the Corvette engineers are back at the ring and we're
22:15
looking at lap records hopefully planned very very soon and it does seem like that's why they're there they kind of
22:21
alluded to that at the NCM Bash this year they was kind of mentioned that yeah we're going back but the regime has
22:27
changed a little bit we've got different leadership now at the Corvette team but then you also had Mark Royce ZM's
22:32
president he was the guy that set the high speed record for the ZR1 233 miles an hour and now you've got the Mustangs
22:38
broken the sevenminute barrier at the Nurburg Ring maybe there is going to be a new emphasis on trying to get a fast
22:44
lap down and the reason why we say that is not only did they go over there with the ZR1 and the ZR1X but they also
22:50
brought two Z06s as well over the last few years we've actually made friends with one of the ring photographers over
22:55
there and we buy his spy photos he's been a wealth of info for us this year he actually says the engineers were over
23:01
there for one week of driving during that industry pool that's when we had the photographs up but then it ended on
23:06
that Friday so they took a break probably went down to Lemon and then last weekend was the 24-hour Nurburg
23:11
race there so they weren't even on the track up to then they will actually be heading back to the track this Tuesday
23:17
and we know that they had the track reserved for their first record lap attempt and then they're actually going to run it again on Thursday for have
23:24
their second appointment with the Ring and hopefully with Corvette history in setting a really fast lap times you know
23:29
everybody wants to see a sub 7minute time it's especially important that we finish ahead of that highly priced Mustang GTD which had a best time of 6
23:36
minutes and 52 seconds whether Chevy releases the time or not that's another story but we need to reclaim that time
23:43
and put Chevrolet at the top of American cars on the ring leaderboard absolutely right all right buddy time for our final
23:49
break when we come back it's the fun side of Corvette on deck next here on Corvette Today
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hi I'm Mark Falter host of the Retirement Income Hour podcast and Corvette enthusiast i know when I bought
26:22
my Z06 I was thinking two things one these cars are incredible and two man
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are they expensive owning a Corvette isn't just about driving fast it's about living life in the fast lane but are
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your finances keeping up on my podcast I make wealth management as smooth as your
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car on the open road whether it's planning your retirement building your investments or how to get this
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retirement account to pay for your Corvette vision I got you covered search for the Retirement Income Hour podcast
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wherever you get your podcast and let's shift your finances into overdrive i'll see you on the open road financially and
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literally investment advisory services offered through Mid-American Wealth Advisory Group an SEC registered
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investment advisory firm hi this is Kirk Bion and you're
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listening and watching Corvette Today with Steve Garrett hey thanks once again
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for listening and watching Corvette Today the show that talks about everything Corvette corvette Today is
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brought to you by Wheelcraft wheelcraft now carries all the latest factory wheel designs for the C8 Stingray Z06 and -ray
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and popular wheel designs from previous generations along with bright chrome and black chrome wheelcraft now offers
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bronze and custom colors at half the cost of OEM so visit wheelcraft.com or
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just give them a call 833-639-4231 i'm your host Steve Garrett keith Cornet
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is with me every other week and we keep you current and uptodate on what's happening with America Sports Car by the
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way if you want a deeper dive into any of the stories that we cover you can always go to corvette blogger.com in
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this final segment we cover the fun side of Corvette keith Bowling Green assembly plant is going to be opening for limited
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tours in 2025 that was really good to see yeah kind of a surprise announcement from the National Corvette Museum but
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there's just three weeks of tours that are going to be happening this year those dates are the week of August 11th
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the week of August 25th which also corresponds to that same week as the NCM 31st anniversary show and then the week
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of November 10th but excluding November 11th which is Veterans Day so if you want to book a tour of the Corvette
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assembly plant and I was just in there over the week of I was there for the reveal and anytime you can get into the plant you want to go i mean it's just
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fabulous all the moving parts and stuff and they're going to be building four cars now so really good stuff to see but
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you need to go through the National Corvette Museum they have a visit tab in plant tours i believe the tickets are
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still priced at $50 each or $35 for Corvette Museum members check with the NCM website to book your tour and you
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have to do it online you can't do walkups so make sure you book online and get that reserved before you go to
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Bowling Green exactly i don't even think you can do same day it has to be a day in advance as well yeah that's true also
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Keith I thought this was really cool i'm looking through everything and it seems like the 2026 Stingray is going to get a
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new base wheel isn't it yeah this was a total surprise from GM it showed up one morning as a distribution update in the
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Corvette order guide wasn't mentioned at the bash wasn't mentioned in any the 2026 roll out it's just hey you're
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getting a new wheel so the C8 Stingrays have been offered with that five open spoke silver painted wheels since they
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first came out in 2020 it was a standard wheel option that's 6 years now but now what they're doing is actually they're
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really going to freshen this up they're going to the five split spoke wheel this is a new wheel that was introduced I believe last year but it will be
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finished in pro nickel which is also the same standard finish now on the -ay wheels the difference between the Pro
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Nickels and the silver paint is like night and day and this is a base wheel this is the wheel that doesn't cost you anything these new wheels offer a fresh
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design and I think the Pro Nickel actually offers a more upscale look to the entry level C8 Stingray definitely
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take advantage of that it's a great looking wheel i still think the open spoke wheels will be there they're just getting rid of the silver painted but I
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think there's still a gloss black wheel and maybe a carbon flash wheel as well check them out you can check them out on the configurator that wheel does look
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good by the way also this is interesting mark Royce tells Jay Leno there's more to come for the C8 and the C9 is already
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in the works that sounded really good that was promising it was so Jay Leno's garage they had their driving portion of
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their ZR1 review up with all the others they actually had Mark and the car in the studio like last October or so where
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they did like the walkaround portion of it and you know Jay always has a great way of just asking direct questions to
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the GM team and a lot of times they answer them so in that part one video during the walkound you know one of the
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I don't want to say a gotcha question but the probing question was would Chevrolet ever split off the Corvette
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and be on its own and Mark stated very clearly that Corvette will always be part of Chevrolet that's always been
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something that's been speculated but Mark would know that in this video Jay asked Mark "Is a C9 in development
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somewhere?" And Mark says "Yes there's a C9 you know there's going to be a next generation it will be the C9." But he
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says the C8 has legs yet in terms of more to come from the family so we're not done ringing it out yet is what he
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said pretty cool c8 more to come and C9 underway i think we're still looking at
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2028 2029 2030 somewhere in there it could be moving a little bit but that's where we are so far yeah I think you're
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right also this is pretty interesting this almost could have gone under Corvette racing tracy Godu is going to
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be the first woman to drive a Corvette in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb that's very very cool yeah I
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actually thought Betty Skelton would be the first woman to drive a Corvette at Pikes Peak after all Zora set a production record there in a Chevy sedan
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she went racing with Zora and John Fitch on the beaches of Daytona for Speed Week i really thought she was there and there
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was some references that she was there but I actually did a couple AI deep searches and could find no records of
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her actually appearing in the hill climb itself so Tracy actually gets the call she's going to be a Lady Corvette driver
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she tracks an Atomic Orange C6 Z06 with a Lincolnfelder LS7427
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Eliminator Spec R motor that puts out 650 horsepower and 560 pounds of torque
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she's got an impressive resume not only is she a racer she's an Air Force veteran and she also serves as a vascular surgery and trauma physician
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assistant in Tennessee she's been racing for quite some time now and excited to see how she does eventually happens
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Sunday June 22nd hopefully we'll see some videos from the event and wish her well wow that's an impressive resume
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there for that young lady and our final story Keith this is really cool james Garner's race car just sold on Bring a
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Trailer yeah this is exciting stuff so you know if you know the story of James Gardner back in the day he did a driving
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movie and he got bit by the racing bug and soon he found himself taking classes on being a race car driver and then he
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went out and bought three L88 1968 Corvettes to go racing with he was racing under the Air Team which stands
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for American International Racing pretty cool stuff there one of these cars has been bouncing around for a while but
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eventually one of the owners recognized what it was restored it back to its original configuration now it's for sale
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on Bring a Trailer and the action's pretty heavy over there stephen the crazy thing is I watched this auction it
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was one of these things that it'd been sitting at $200,000 since I think it was first listed i think it was an 8-day
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auction but by Friday afternoon it really started zooming i started watching like I said I tuned in at 200,000 when I came back to it with
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maybe 10 minutes to go it was in the 380s this thing went all the way up to $755,000
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but unfortunately it did not meet reserve and failed to sell amazing there's some old school photos of James
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Garner in the shop with Mr corvette Dick Goldstrand who did the prep of work on the cars and stuff really cool you know
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they raced at Daytona they were going to race at Sebring they went a little bit different direction there and then eventually dropped these cars and went
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on to some of the more exotic stuff like Lotuses and stuff like that really cool cars great Corvette history and again
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our friend at Corvette Mike has just been finding these things bringing them out of the woodwork so good for him very cool well buddy thanks for being back on
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Corvette today stay cool there in Tampa and I'll talk to you in 2 weeks sounds good Steve we see you out on the road
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keep waving thanks again for listening and watching Corvette Today and be sure to tell your family friends and other
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Corvette enthusiasts about the Corvette Today Show and thanks to our sponsors Wheelcraft want to dress up your
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also Aerolari wheels get $100 off your purchase with the promo code CT111 at
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aolari.com mark Walter with the Retirement Income Hour podcast and Hendrickk Chevrolet in Kansas City at
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cheviusa.com thanks for checking out Corvette Today on podcast and YouTube if you'd like to
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thanks again for listening and watching Corvette today [Music]