Milestone Vettes, parked at the Corvette Museum.
Amid quite a lot of fanfare, GM employees at the Bowling Green plant have something to smile about in these tough times. They just finished the 1,500,000th Corvette. Bowling Green might still be taking a production break, GM might be in Chapter 11, but let that sink in again. 1.5 million Corvettes. That is something to be proud of.
While slow and steady will not win a drag race, it’s how you win a production race. Finding homes for an average of 27,000 Corvettes a year might not seem like much, but remember that the car has been an expensive toy, living through numerous wars, economic slow downs, and oil shortages, while still bouncing back. Sure, Volkswagen may have produced 1.3 million Beetles in 1971 alone, but we’re talking about a car that people actually want to drive. Plus, if GM weathers the storm, all it needs to do is build the Corvette for another 9 years to tie the production run of the little Beetle. Not bad for something that never promised cheap, reliable transportation to the masses. It’s also impressive to realize, that while the Corvette is America’s go to sports car, in most other countries, you’ll find more Ferrari’s around than Corvettes.
In production close to 60 years, the Corvette recently has been back in the headlines for numerous reasons. Take the monster we call the ZR1, that has dominated the competition on not only performance, but value. The now forgotten Z06 has faded out of the limelight with the introduction of the ZR1, but back in 2006 (and still to this day), offered performance rivaling cars in twice the price range. Now, Chevrolet is reintroducing the Grand Sport, which offers Z06 looks, better than Z-51 package performance, and a starting price of only $55,720. Not bad for a car that pulls 1.0g on the skidpad, and rips from a stop to 60mph in less than 4 seconds.
KarFarm would like to say congratulations to the Corvette, and the men and women at Bowling Green who are building them today. You’ve kept an American icon alive and fresh, and we couldn’t be prouder.
-KF