With the reveal of the new 2023 C8 Z06 earlier today, Corvette enthusiasts around the world are buzzing with confirmed specs, technical data, and what packages the Z06 will come with. One thing, however, that Chevrolet has not revealed yet is the price of the beast.
What makes this even more complicated is that the C8 is a mid-engine supercar, instead of the “high-end sports car” that the Corvette brand used to label itself.
Supercars can vary wildly in pricing between models, so the first guess that we found ignored the “supercar premium” and was based on previous generation differences in price between the standard Corvette and the Z06 model, pegging the base price at $85,000.
Taking the 2019 Corvette C7 base price of $56,995, and the 2019 Corvette C7 Z06 base price of $81,995, the difference is exactly $25,000. If you round out the decimal points, that premium comes in at almost dead on 44%.
Taking that information, and the base price of the 2021 Corvette C8 of $62,185, that would give us the equation of $62,185 x 1.44, which comes out as $89,545 (rounded), so it is pretty close to the “leaked” price.
Next, we scoured through Facebook Corvette groups, including our very own, with a seemingly silent consensus that no one in their right mind would buy a base-level Z06. The best guess that we’ve found was a reply to a question on one of those Corvette groups that was posted right after the Z06 reveal:
We’re not talking about the Dr. Evil meme here, we’re looking at the text reply. If you factor in a market premium, add some options, get a few fancy bits for your ultimate new toy, it sounds very realistic that a 2023 Corvette C8 Z06 would leave the dealership for between $150,00 to $180,000.
This seems a lot more on the nose to us, as the 6.2L V8 in the “normal” Stingray produces 490 HP, but the C8.R derived 5.5L V8 in the Z06 produces a howling 670 HP. As well, the Z06 will be coming standard with the magnetorheological dampers and a retuned control-arm suspension array, over 1.2 inch larger diameter front brakes than the standard Stingray.
Of course, Twitter has been abuzz with speculation, including by some of the bigger Corvette fan sites. One such site thinks that the $160,000 price point seems almost spot-on:
A discussion following Car and Driver’s article about the Z06 seemed to agree that the $90,000 base pricing point to build from seems reasonable:
GM Authority even went so far as to put up a poll on their page asking their readers what they think the price point will be, with some healthy (and some not so healthy, it is an open comments section!) discussion under their poll. However, it seems even one of the biggest sites for all things GM, not just Corvettes (that’s our job here at CorvSport!), is thinking that the $80k to $90k price range seems to be where things will be to start:
For the next reaction that we found, we must post the disclaimer that there is a lot of opinionated, passionate sports car, supercar, and Corvette fans out there that will never, from behind a keyboard, see eye to eye. That reaction is in the official Chevrolet post about the Z06, and after reading through what could only be called a minefield of opinions, there was one little snippet that caught our eye as a good discussion point:
One thing that we haven’t been paying attention to was what the dealer side of the whole process might be like. Chevrolet built up the hype around the C8 so well during its initial marketing that it became one of the most ordered cars on its initial launch in North America. With a good two years under the hood now, and the Corvette C8 proving time and again that it is a gigantic leap forward for the brand, the Z06 has just sat down in first class on that hype train, and while we expect there will be orders coming down from GM HQ to dealerships to sell at approved allotments and price windows, there may be some dealers marking up the price to make a profit.
To be totally honest, despite it being a “scummy move,” dealerships are ultimately businesses too, and they need to make a profit to continue operating. A lot of manufacturers build in a healthy profit margin to their MSRP and share the sale of each car with the dealer that sold it, but when you have what is quite literally a supercar poised to sell at anything under $150,000, you can bet that some people will try to take advantage of it.
However, there is also a massive example of dealership markup in the recent past that shook the dealership network quite hard, when the Honda Civic Type-R was finally released in America. Since there were no orders from Honda America about restrictions on markups, and it was a highly desirable car for the JDM enthusiast crowd, dealers were marking up the already nearly $40,000 car to $55,000 or even $60,000. This backfired spectacularly and forced Honda America to impose a limit to markups within the first year of sales. We can only assume that with the original C8 being heavily restricted in pricing from GM HQ, that the Z06, especially as a lower-production-rate car, will be similarly restricted in markups, at least when sold new.
So a fully loaded Z06 with a Z07 track pack and all the flashy toys that you can get for it does sound about right at or around $160,000. Only time will tell, however, what Chevrolet and GM ultimately decide to do in terms of pricing.
