If you were a hopeful Chevrolet Corvette buyer who ended up being turned off by limited supply, dealer markup and the seemingly interminable stoppages that came with both the pandemic and a UAW strike, we have some potentially fantastic news for you. There are literally thousands of C8s sitting on dealer lots nationwide, and if you qualify for some discounts, it appears you can get them for pretty close to 2020 prices.
Corvetteblogger.com‘s ongoing “Corvette Tracker” series noted that as of last week, there were more than 5,700 C8s sitting on U.S. dealer lots. As you can see from Chevy’s inventory system, that number has declined slightly in the intervening days, but there are still more than 5,500 of them sitting around. Some of them even have some cash on the hood, provided you qualify for the various incentives, of course. At least one of the promotional rates we saw requires a Costco membership, for example.
Still, even with caveats, discounted C8s are still excellent news. Back at launch, when the redesigned mid-engine Corvette was still (at least nominally) a $60,000 car, it wasn’t unusual to see markups pushing that figure north of the $100,000 mark. And that was before the C8 Z06 came along and threatened to break the Internet when dealers and customers fought for their chance to reserve early examples.
But now, if you’re fortunate enough to qualify for all of the discounts on some of the cheaper Corvettes sitting in inventory, you could walk away with one in exchange for what you should have paid back in 2020. And if you’re not afraid of a car with an actual color on its exterior (rather than yet another shade of gray), you can snag a Z51 package for under $70k before tax, title and fees. If you can stretch that to $75k, you can find one in just about any color combo available, too.
So if you were turned off by the C8 launch kerfuffle, now’s your chance to snag a world-class performance coupe at an appropriately working-class price. I don’t know about you, but Sebring Orange is looking mighty fine right about now.