POLL: C8 1st Delivery

[John]

Other than the ME purchased for charity at Barrett Jackson sometime next year, when do you think the first regular customer will be receiving her/his mid engine C8?

[Fasttoys]

My concern is when is Barrett Jackson? That could be an issue if that has to happen first, January 2019 and 2020. That means I have to wait till 2020. That is 13 plus months from now

[John]

There are several different Barrett Jackson auctions each year. I personally think that the chances of the first customer ME not being delivered until 2020 are on the order of 1%. Of course until the car completes its manufacturing validation process, nothing is 100.00%. I hear however, that that process is going well. We outsiders do not know if it started last month, earlier than that, or?

[patriotc7]

My understanding is they are / have been building them since June, I believe they are called IVERS. 85 IVERS are scheduled to be built from June to January. They don’t get sold, in fact many are destroyed. They are used to establish and improve the build process. Clearly a few of these cars made it to Nurburgring.

[John]

You have good information patriotc7. However, it is still a very long way until the car is approved for production, and then after that, a further time until customer cars start to be built.

The good news is that sustained progress is being made toward that goal.

BTW, IVERS stands for “Integration Vehicle Engineering Release” — what many commonly call “mules.”

[John]

Josh Holder the Engineeering Launch Manager for the C7, the person who finally gave the light that the C7 was approved for production. In a wonderful book by Larry Edsall, called “The Seventh Generation of America’s Sports Car: Corvette Stingray, that describes the development from the initial crude C7 mules to the final production of the customer saleable C7. Holder describes his function as managing the building and testing of prototypes,and the integration of all their various systems.

[Quote=Josh Holder]We have functional experts in structure, chasssis, powertrain and more. My job is to integrate those functions so we have not just good systems but a good car. My primary purpose is to get this car launched.”

Edsall’s book is available at Amazon and good book stores, and I recommend it very highly to all who are wanting to know what is going on behind the scenes right now in the C8’s development.

Does anyone know if Josh Holder currently has that same “go/no go” authority and responsibility for the C8?

[Ssscooter66]

Hoping for June , thats my birthday month & what could be better ....

[SheepDog]

Other than the ME purchased for charity at Barrett Jackson sometime next year, when do you think the first regular customer will be receiving her/his mid engine C8?

February/March 1, 2019. Lay guess. That the car will be revealed when it is production ready, and the BG workers are C8-ready. Assume January 2019. Soon after the reveal in (January?), the production line will be switched from C7 to C8, if not before.

They have made enough backlog C7s to last for a long time already.

[John]

Thanks Sheep Dog. The current internal GM production schedule, which dealers can see, shows production of the C7 continuing through March,. That echoes a document GM sent to all of its Corvette selling dealers who were getting a 2019 ZR1 allocation(s), sent to them last December 11th, saying that ZR1 production is estimated to continue through that same March time frame.

If production were to end in March, as it appears, then by the time that the Plant is reconfigured, the slow ramp up building of the first customer cars, the roughly one month quality control hold (QCH) we typically see for new generations, that is why I started the poll with June deliveries.

However, there is not a one of us, who does not wish for an earlier delivery schedule — as in yours!

[JB]

Hoping for June , thats my birthday month & what could be better ....

Nice way to celebrate your birthday..

im rolling 60 come september 2019...

i dont expect to get an order filled untill at least six months after that..

dealers tend to fill loaded orders before the type of minimalist z51 dct, npp, mrc 1lt that i tend to order,

[John]

Corvette has a +90% rate at which an order submitted by a dealer is an order specifically chosen, each and every option, by a private customer (as opposed to the less than 10% of orders with are dealers ordering for their showrooms/lots, e.g., for their “stock.”

An honest dealer, if you were on their pre-ordering list, say number 4, will submit your order the fourth one even of a very scarce model, regardless of whether it is a no option 1LT or a fully loaded order. As to the non-honest dealers, I have no doubts that a minimalist order will be submitted “later” — for we all know that the more optioned a car is, the more the profit is for the dealer.

I have 100% faith in our MECF forum dealership vendors, that they order with intergrity and honesty regardless of whether not a single option or a fully loaded car.

[Shadow]

No one has selected July as the time for first customer C8 deliveries. Maybe because of the traditional BGA summer vacation occurring then?

[PaulChristian]

Look for an october-ish 2019 debut. Won’t be available until 2020 model year. We have a ways to go, gentlemen.