Georgia Man Wins C8 Corvette In State Lotto, But Dealers Won’t Give Him a Car

The Georgia Lottery has to source the new Corvette from somewhere, but unfortunately, the car itself is impossible to find without a mark-up.

byStef Schrader|
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The first-ever mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette is a hit, and it can be tough to find one for sale—even if you're the Georgia Lottery. Georgia resident Dennis Kahler thought he hit the jackpot when he won the grand prize on a scratch-off ticket: a new C8-generation Corvette valued at up to $107,000 and $250,000 in cash, per CorvetteBlogger. Unfortunately, he also won an extra headache: Actually finding a dealership who can sell him the Corvette. 

Kahler posted a photo of his winning Corvette and Cash ticket in the C8 Corvette Owners (And Friends) Facebook group, bemoaning the bizarre situation. "Just claimed this in December," Kahler wrote. "Now they cannot provide a dealer that has an allotment. They just thought I could go straight in and pick out a '21 C8. This is turning into a circus. Yes this is a true situation."

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While the lottery provided a $107,000 budget for a new Corvette, they still have to source the car just like the rest of us: by going through a dealership, and unfortunately, no one thought to line up an allocation for the hot car before releasing the lotto tickets. With such high demand for the car, finding one in the state with an unsold C8 allocation at all is a tough chore. 

Kahler told CorvetteForum that he already picked out what he wanted: a Rapid Blue 2LT Z51, worth $80,465. In the end, he would get the car, the $250,000 in cash and the $26,535 that went unused from the Corvette budget. 

The first dealership where lottery officials found a spare C8 allocation was Five Star Chevrolet, only that dealership didn't make it clear to the lottery that they wanted a $10,000 mark-up over MSRP for the car, CorvetteForum reports. This would eat into Kahler's prize budget, and he didn't feel as if it were right to charge a mark-up on a prize. 

“I used to be a general sales manager for a dealership, so I know the way things operate,” Kahler told CorvetteForum. “I’m not giving up the money on my purchase by using them.”

The lottery found other dealerships that were willing to sell the car for MSRP, but this comes with a significant wait. So far, the best deal Kahler's been able to get is from Master Chevrolet, who said they could get a C8 order in the third quarter of 2021, but could not guarantee when the car would be delivered, per CorvetteForum. Kahler hopes that publicizing his plight will lead to a faster resolution. (Hey, General Motors—can you hook a man up who has excellent taste in exterior colors?)

In the meantime, it's not all bad—Kahler confirmed on Facebook that he did receive the $250,000 in prize money. 

Correction: Sunday, January 24, 2021 at 4:36 p.m. ET: A previous version on this story said that lawyers were working to resolve the situation based on other sites' reporting, however, Kahler told The Drive directly that he never hired legal counsel to resolve the issue. This has been fixed above.

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