This is what you get from Mike Furman the "Corvette King" if your a customer of his.
*No email response back to this newsletter please and thank you.* Dec 31st 2022
Happy New Year...
The often raised question as to when the 2023 production year would end, we do not have any idea. GM has had for several years as its annual goal to return to its normal production cycle, which up until recently was starting to produce the next model year in around July/August. Yet, as of now we do not having any information as to when would the 2023 model year end and the 2024 model year would start. We will know only that after GM formally announces that to its dealers or in public press releases. Within minutes of that formal press release, as “John” the leader of MidEngineCorvetteForum is GM media certified and thus gets as they are published the official GM press releases, MECF would immediately post that information. That is a good forum for you to visit. I go there daily to read owner’s comments, see pictures of their new C8’s, and enjoy the constructive, helpful to owners, and in short their positive environment.
Meanwhile as you read this, GM already made 20,975, 2023 Stingrays. Demand for the Stingray continues to remain strong. I still have many hundreds on my customer time-and-date stamped list; demand for the Stingray is far from falling off. The C8 Corvette is a world class sports car and well worth the wait!
~I have delivered 5,793 Corvettes over the span of 45+ years as of Dec 31st 2022 . #6,000 should occur late Sping/Summer 2023.
There was a surprise Christmas Day E-Ray playing in the snow video video. It starts out with the video of the E-Ray which GM’s President Mark Reuss showed us on CNBC last April, but then it adds a little more at its end. Here is that video, as then good discussion of this nice Christmas present:
https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/forum/mid-engine-corvettes/mid-engine-exterior-interior-pictures-and-renderings/441784-awd-e-ray-playing-in-the-snow
Mid EngineCorvetteForum’s artist PeterC-Pixels came up with a “real,” life-like digital E-Ray rendering. He created his rendering not just based on the GM E-Ray video mentioned noted above, but also from his taking detailed measurements from the E-Ray mules we have seen testing — and of course all of us realizing that GM build each next version on the last one. That rendering would make a good wallpaper for your phone or your compute if you are excited about the E-Ray:
https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/forum/mid-engine-corvettes/c8-e-ray-powertrain/437115-%E2%80%9Creal%E2%80%9D-e-ray
Which brings us to the major question of when will be the E-Ray’s formal reveal. That is not known at this time. We hope for the it reveal mid 2023 to start answering all the current questions about it. But until GM officially announces when and where, while that is fun to speculate upon, it still just
guessing.
A Z06 owner, who goes by the name of “John006” who has 1,000 miles on his was recently interviewed by
www.MidEngineCorvetteForum.com (MECF). Here are his impressions and comments:
https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/forum/me-discussion-photos-videos/442363-1-000-z06-miles-interview-of-%E2%80%9Djohn006%E2%80%9D
After 600 miles, another Z06 new owner with a different background just shared with MECF his 600 mile review (including his comparisons with his earlier own McLaren 720S)
https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/forum/me-discussion-photos-videos/442636-my-600-mile-z06-review
Meanwhile not to be outdone, the C8 Stingrays continues to receive high praise in its own right, e.g. these two recent two (2) Stingray awards/accolades:
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https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/forum/me-discussion-photos-videos/438258-stingray-best-car-i-drove-in-2022-edmunds
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https://www.midenginecorvetteforum.com/forum/me-discussion-photos-videos/439947-2023-chevrolet-corvette-car-and-driver-10best
Z06 news: Meanwhile what is happening on the Z06 front? One new option was just revealed, e.g., body-colored trim option code “EFY” that some chose on their C8 Stingrays and on their C7’s too. That option should start with the next Z06 allocation batch 1st quarter 2023.
There could well be one major additional Z06 option officially becoming available for the February/March Z06 allocation process, the availability of the Engine Build option, “PBC” (Performance Build Center) for those orders. This would be consistent with BGA Plant Director Kai Spande’s Corvette Museum “BGA Update” seminar on September 1st when he announced that starting in the “second quarter of 2023 the build your own engine program would begin.” What would be option “PBC’s price? It was $5,000 during the C7 generation but building the LT6, as it is a dual overhead camshaft motor, is taking engine the PBC Engine Assembly Technicians more time to build than either the supercharged C7 Z06 and ZR1 engines did. All info to be announced by GM 1st qtr 2023.
How much power is the Z06 really producing? We know GM uses the SAE testing method, their taking five routinely-build LT6’s, putting each of them on the dyno, throwing out the highest and the lowest one’s results, and then averaging the three remaining ones. That process showed that the LT6 produces 670 HP. However, we have seen on dyno testing recently showing as much as 640 REAR wheel HP and a second one showing 611 REAR wheel HP. My opinion is that as GM stated and as GM SAE certified, 670 engine HP for the LT6, and therefore ABOUT 600 RWHP. As all of us who have been gear heads for decades know, individual dyno tests of individual cars are always going to have wide variability numbers due to each dyno being different, weather conditions (including but not limited to temperature, humidity, altitude, barometric pressure), let alone whether the dyno operators choose and employ “SAE smoothing” as their measuring standard, and more. Thus individual dyno tests will always result in different numbers. I am sticking with what GM published as part of its SAE compliance testing procedures, e.g. 670 HP at the engine.
ZR1 testing: Is it in process? Based on GM President Mark Reuss’ comments about two Corvette performance models coming in the 2024 model year, it COULD well be that he was referring to the E-Ray and the ZR1. But again, having been at this for five decades, I await GM’s official announcement of every upcoming model’s reveal date.
My personal quote to all Corvette enthusiasts on future product...
I spent every Summer with Zora Duntov from 1978-1990 at Malcolm Konner Auto and every time I inquired about future product he would say...
"Rumors sell magazines, not cars"
-Zora Arkus Duntov
Mike Furman
National Corvette Specialist
Criswell Chevrolet
301-212-4420 Direct
503 Quince Orchard Rd.
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
mfurman@criswellauto.com
www.CorvetteFurman.com
He will sell any new corvette model made to anyone, any where in the country (at MSRP). Spoke to him yesterday and he said from the time your corvette order hits status 2000 till delivery is 8-9 weeks. One week after produced shipped and at your dealer. It's just a night and day different commitment to the customer. Plenty of 65k corvette buyers treated like kings, plenty of 115k Blackwing buyers treated like begging goat herders. Maybe we are all too self deprecating on this board. I got to believe that some of us are highly successful people who want to be treated with some measure of respect during the process. I definitely got more respect and dignity during my last colonoscopy than from Cadillac management.
