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Clearing the air… The Z06 is making steady progress toward customer production. In communicating with a GM person mid last week and another one a couple of days earlier, and with a little more corroboration gained this past weekend, I learned the following good news.
The Z06 has been assigned a specific start date of regular (customer) production (SORP); this means that key development, safety, and other testing/approval points have been met or exceeded. The Z06’s SORP date is this summer!
One of these reasons I have decided to write this thread even though a skeptic would ask “where’s your proof,” is that I am repeatedly being asked via private messages, emails, and phone calls about the recent rash of unsupported, initially reported mainly elsewhere though videos and posts that “the Z06 sky is falling.” While I had hoped they would disappear due to their inaccuracy, but even yesterday I received two calls during from personal acquaintances both of whom were genuinely stressed by one or more of those unfounded Z06 rumors, each asking “is it true that” — their referring more than one of the doom-and-gloom recent Z06 allegations.
No, they are not true. As important, there is good news below to share.
Please note that I will not here nor later address the specific sources of any of the recent You Tube and Facebook Z06 rumors (and would remove every post which even mentions those sources). At MECF we focus on facts, work hard for double corroboration of key issues. If we are making an opinion, estimating, or guesstimating we so state as done in section # 2 below; conversely here we do not share third-party-sourced, highly negative rumors that just raise stress levels unnecessary because of the “supposed but never substantiated” Z06 issues/problems, such as some of the recent ones which are addressed below.
Instead focusing on facts….
Section # 1: FACTS
Section # 2: OPINIONS Re Upcoming Timing
The two items below were NOT GM confirmed but are solely my opinions based on the above GM staff communications, my being Corvette super intensely focused for four decades, and some additional sources.
OPINION # 1: We will not receive the Z06’s MSRP until probably sometime early next month; nicely July starts just ten days from now. However as GM sometimes likes to repeat special events in its Corvette history, might Thursday, June 30th be the day when the Z06’s MSRP is released for we all remember that on June 30, 1953, the first production Corvette rolled off of the assembly line in Flint, Michigan?
Then fairly soon after the C8 Z06’s price release, GM will release the Official Z06 Order Guide. Following the OG’s release, dealers who are getting first DOSP Z06 allocations would be so notified; I am guessing Thursday July 14th as to that date — for dealers are most often notified of upcoming DOSP allocations on the Thursday before the official order entering DOSP.
OPINION # 2: The first of the Z06 orders will go in along with the next round of Stingray allocations on July 21th.
The preceding timeline is fully consistent with Harlan sharing with all at the Bash that “Z06 pricing will be released a bit ahead of time, that no one will order ‘price blind.’”
The most important overriding FACT, that while Z06 information dispersal has not unfolded as fast as we anticipating customers would have liked, with of course the massive, worldwide parts’ component inflation being the # 1 reason for that, the Z06’s start of SORP summer production has been date-specific scheduled and the Z06’s progress remains on track to accomplish that.
For those unhappy that here we are in late June without the Z06’s key MSRP and other information we so wanted earlier, some still feeling that GM promised us that the first Z06 orders would go in in “late spring,” yet even when GM made that notice to its dealers two and a half months ago on April 7th, in writing GM stated that was a TENTATIVE timeline subject to change. Is ‘tentative” the most forgotten word? Another fact and again mostly forgotten, is that GM never has told told us when they would be releasing the Z06’s MSRP.
Yet, including me, we Corvette folks are impatient people.
Immutable Fact: Times and timelines have changed radically for every one of us personally and for every business since April 7th.
IMO the one single most important thing in this thread is that customer Z06’s will be integrated into the current BGA Stingray-only assembly line this summer, and to accomplish that, as precursors, we will see lots of key information releases during this next month.
The Z06 has been assigned a specific start date of regular (customer) production (SORP); this means that key development, safety, and other testing/approval points have been met or exceeded. The Z06’s SORP date is this summer!
One of these reasons I have decided to write this thread even though a skeptic would ask “where’s your proof,” is that I am repeatedly being asked via private messages, emails, and phone calls about the recent rash of unsupported, initially reported mainly elsewhere though videos and posts that “the Z06 sky is falling.” While I had hoped they would disappear due to their inaccuracy, but even yesterday I received two calls during from personal acquaintances both of whom were genuinely stressed by one or more of those unfounded Z06 rumors, each asking “is it true that” — their referring more than one of the doom-and-gloom recent Z06 allegations.
No, they are not true. As important, there is good news below to share.
Please note that I will not here nor later address the specific sources of any of the recent You Tube and Facebook Z06 rumors (and would remove every post which even mentions those sources). At MECF we focus on facts, work hard for double corroboration of key issues. If we are making an opinion, estimating, or guesstimating we so state as done in section # 2 below; conversely here we do not share third-party-sourced, highly negative rumors that just raise stress levels unnecessary because of the “supposed but never substantiated” Z06 issues/problems, such as some of the recent ones which are addressed below.
Instead focusing on facts….
Section # 1: FACTS
- The Z06 remains on track for summer production of customer units.
- The LT6 is not having emissions compliance issues;
- The Z06 is not having overheating problems;
- The first actual, sale-able CTF’s Z06 CTF’s units have recently arrived in Michigan;
- The 100% covers on the JCT transported high wing Z07 do not relate to anything being negative hidden from our sight but to something positive I learned at the Bash;
- GM Finance had not yet determined the Z06’s price.
Section # 2: OPINIONS Re Upcoming Timing
The two items below were NOT GM confirmed but are solely my opinions based on the above GM staff communications, my being Corvette super intensely focused for four decades, and some additional sources.
OPINION # 1: We will not receive the Z06’s MSRP until probably sometime early next month; nicely July starts just ten days from now. However as GM sometimes likes to repeat special events in its Corvette history, might Thursday, June 30th be the day when the Z06’s MSRP is released for we all remember that on June 30, 1953, the first production Corvette rolled off of the assembly line in Flint, Michigan?
Then fairly soon after the C8 Z06’s price release, GM will release the Official Z06 Order Guide. Following the OG’s release, dealers who are getting first DOSP Z06 allocations would be so notified; I am guessing Thursday July 14th as to that date — for dealers are most often notified of upcoming DOSP allocations on the Thursday before the official order entering DOSP.
OPINION # 2: The first of the Z06 orders will go in along with the next round of Stingray allocations on July 21th.
The preceding timeline is fully consistent with Harlan sharing with all at the Bash that “Z06 pricing will be released a bit ahead of time, that no one will order ‘price blind.’”
The most important overriding FACT, that while Z06 information dispersal has not unfolded as fast as we anticipating customers would have liked, with of course the massive, worldwide parts’ component inflation being the # 1 reason for that, the Z06’s start of SORP summer production has been date-specific scheduled and the Z06’s progress remains on track to accomplish that.
For those unhappy that here we are in late June without the Z06’s key MSRP and other information we so wanted earlier, some still feeling that GM promised us that the first Z06 orders would go in in “late spring,” yet even when GM made that notice to its dealers two and a half months ago on April 7th, in writing GM stated that was a TENTATIVE timeline subject to change. Is ‘tentative” the most forgotten word? Another fact and again mostly forgotten, is that GM never has told told us when they would be releasing the Z06’s MSRP.
Yet, including me, we Corvette folks are impatient people.
Immutable Fact: Times and timelines have changed radically for every one of us personally and for every business since April 7th.
IMO the one single most important thing in this thread is that customer Z06’s will be integrated into the current BGA Stingray-only assembly line this summer, and to accomplish that, as precursors, we will see lots of key information releases during this next month.
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