The new mid-engine Corvette might release with an asking price of under $60,000, but it likely won’t stay that cheap for long.
Last week, Chevrolet announced that the 2020 Corvette Stingray would come with a base-model price of just $59,995. That’s only $3,000 more than the current base-model C7 Corvette and is a triumph of both GM marketing and industrial engineering.
However, the monetary victory of the first mid-engine Corvette may be short-lived. According to anonymous sources speaking with MotorTrend, the C8-gen ‘Vette will see a price increase after the first model year.
Now, we could likely have safely assumed that the 2021 model would rise in price as most cars do in order to keep up with inflation (and with the ongoing trade war between the US and China, the increasing costs of tariffs on raw materials). That said, MotorTrend also noted that the C7 prices rose by $2,000 just a few months after the Corvette went on sale.
At the time, Chevrolet noted “higher-than-expected demand” as the reason for the sudden price increase. However, few dealers were selling the C7 at the MSRP anyway.
As is often the case with brand new and popular vehicles, dealers will charge whatever price the market can bear. We saw that with the new Jeep Gladiator where several dealers were charging almost double the sticker price for Jeep’s new pickup truck. We also saw it with Toyota’s new Supra, where dealers were again charging many thousands of dollars above MSRP for the new sports car.
The C8-gen Corvette goes into production later this year at GM’s Bowling Green, Kentucky plant, with deliveries expected to begin in early 2020. When the 2020 Stingray does finally arrive on dealer lots, you can bet your spare tire that dealers will be charging more than the $59,995 sticker price for a new Corvette.