Corvette Curse Continues: Chevy Stops Production Again
There are a lot of anxious Corvette customers wondering if they are ever going to get their 2020 Corvette. Between the GM strike, plant shutdowns from the coronavirus, and stop delivery orders, it is a wonder Chevy has gotten any C8 Corvettes out so far. Now, add another plant shutdown to the list. Today the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is shutting down for this week. It is doing so because it has run out of certain parts for the Corvette. So the 2020 Corvette Curse continues.
“Due to a temporary parts supply issue, we can confirm that Bowling Green Assembly will not run production the week of October 12,” said spokesperson Kevin Kelly. “Our supply chain, manufacturing, and engineering teams are working closely with our supply base to mitigate any further impact on production, and we expect the plant to resume normal operations on Monday, October 19.”
Corvette inventory is extremely limited
Corvette inventory is extremely limited because most of the sports cars are pre-ordered before arriving at dealerships, Kelly told Automotive News. This comes on the heels of its announcement to dealers last week that it is extending the 2020 Corvette production into December. It had previously said that 2021 Corvette production would begin then. Chevy’s plan is to ultimately produce 20,181 C8 Corvettes in 2020. It hopes, anyway.
Last quarter Chevy was able to squeak out 6,355 Corvettes. That is over half of the total amount of 2020 Corvettes produced. Year-to-date 12,634 C8s have been cranked out. Chevy planned on manufacturing 40,000 2020 Corvettes before the coronavirus emerged in February. That same month Chevy had received 45,000 pre-orders. So it was expected that there would be some unhappy Corvette customers right from the start.
The 2020 Corvette curse began with the UAW strike in September
The 2020 Corvette curse began with the UAW strike back in September 2019. The 40-day strike pushed off the C8 production launch to February of this year. But COVID-19 assembly plant shutdowns in March stopped production again for eight weeks.
Once production returned the company that ships Corvettes from the plant to dealers had to shut down its online tracker because it was receiving rude calls. It seems customers that had ordered Corvettes were calling the company to find out when they would be shipping out certain cars. Some of the callers were rude or upset so the delivery tracker was halted. Finally, in the middle of August Chevy issued a stop delivery order to make software fixes.
There have also been a couple of recalls issued for the Corvette adding another layer to the Corvette curse. Just as we are all ready for 2020 to end we would guess that Chevy is as well when it comes to Corvette production?
