Sometimes there’s no good news, the best you can do is limit the bad news. That’s GM’s reality and aim with the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, which is already suffering under the weight of various industrial pressures. At the end of July, GM opened order books for one of its most anticipated products this millennium. Corvette watchers suspect there were anywhere from 315 to 500 allocations offered to the dealer body. If accurate, that range is minuscule compared to market hunger; dealers began taking names more than two years ago, and one dealer already has a list of more than 1,000 paid reservation holders. On top of that, there’s been confusion about which dealers got allocations. Some reports say the top dealers didn’t get any at first, and had to petition GM. Then, GM Authority reported GM would only build 10% of the orders that were finally accepted.
Now Corvette Blogger adds three bits of news: Order books for the 2023 Z06 are closed; OnStar is standard on the Corvette as of September 1; and the no-flipping rule has been shortened from 12 months to six.
The order book information comes from Rick Conti, a Chevy dealer salesman in Ohio (see video above). GM’s going for a slower production ramp-up at the Bowling Green Assembly Planet that builds Corvettes, intending to “get the car right.” The Corvette Stingray has been coming down lines for 2.5 years now and it’s still not out of the weeds. The Z06 isn’t in production yet, and there are already constraints on what are sure to be popular options, such as the carbon fiber aero package and 70th Anniversary Edition package. Conti said that a memo sent to dealers last week came with a webcast from Chevrolet brand president Scott Bell, the prez informing all that there’d be no more new Z06 orders until at least the end of 2022. Even taking the highest suspected allocation figure and adding dealer inventory stock, it appears Chevy won’t make more than a handful of Z06s this year. It’s too early to say that 2023 Z06 sold orders will be pushed back to 2024; by closing the order books so soon, Chevrolet’s given itself time to figure out what the world looks like in January 2023 and how many cars it could build before 2024 production begins.
The bit about OnStar is no surprise. GM already made OnStar and Connected Services mandatory for Buick, GMC and Cadillac for next year, and we surmised the Corvette could be next. Unlike those other models, however, the mandatory feature will add just $300 to the Corvette’s MSRP instead of the jumps of $1,500 or more that the other brands received.
Finally, at the end of July, Chevrolet said it wouldn’t transfer the warranty on any Z06 that a customer resold in less than 12 months of ownership. In return, the owners would get 500,000 points in the My Chevrolet Rewards Program. The recent dealer memo announced that the customer resale restriction for the Z06 would be cut in half, to six months, and that “No exceptions will be made.”
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Source: www.autoblog.com