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There’s no denying that the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette is a hell of a bargain with a base price of just $59,995, but that deal may be short-lived. In a recent report by MotorTrend, a “well-placed source” alleged that General Motors may plan to raise the C8’s price following its first-year debut.
As news began to roll in that the C8 Corvette would be redesigned from the ground up to feature an all-new mid-engine configuration, a flurry of mixed signals began to appear. The public was afraid that the platform would stray from the Corvette’s traditional sports car values, including its placement in an everyday attainable price bracket. In fact, some publications expected the C8 to debut with an invoice cost of more than $80,000.
When GM broke the news that the C8 would start at under $60,000, it sent the car buying world into a frenzy. It’s admittedly a lot of car for only a slight premium over its predecessor, a huge surprise considering the research and development costs needed to re-engineer everything that the car’s nameplate had stood for in years prior.
Still, cost-cutting measures were embodied—like foregoing the manual transmission—were put in place to ensure that the C8 wasn’t priced out of consumers’ hands. Of course, GM will also look towards a myriad of money-making strategies to profit on the C8, including offering optional add-ons like the ability to customize the vehicle’s VIN or the $5,000 Z51 performance package that is available across all trim lines.
Historically, the auto industry is no stranger to model year pricing adjustments, and GM is no exception. In fact, when the C7 was launched in 2014, it carried a price tag of just $51,995—by 2015, the MSRP had jumped by nearly eight percent to $55,995. The likelihood of the C8 following the same path isn’t out of the question either, though a spokesperson for the automaker declined to comment on the matter to The Drive.
And, to be realistic, the possibility of finding a C8 at sticker price won’t necessarily be an easy task for some time, especially as GM reportedly confirmed that nearly all of the automaker’s first-year stock is already sold out. So even if the car’s sub-$60,000 price tag is alluring to potential buyers, they’ll be lucky to snag one for MSRP.
