Dennis Kahler found himself in a truly bizarre predicament when he won the grand prize on a Georgia Lottery Corvette and Cash scratch-off ticket: the cash was easy to get, but the brand new C8 Corvette wasn’t. The state lottery’s plan was to get the car through a dealership—not directly from General Motors. In fact, a GM representative told The Drive that the company didn’t even know about the Georgia Lottery’s giveaway.
Meanwhile, dealerships had either sold out of the cars for the near future or wanted a markup on top of the 2021 Chevrolet Corvette’s MSRP, thus eating into some of the extra cash Kahler would take home. Fortunately, Kahler told The Drive that a dealership in Atlanta expressed interest in helping him get the car in a reasonable timeframe.
“I’m having a conference call tomorrow with [Jim] Ellis Chevrolet in Atlanta,” Kahler told The Drive. “They supposedly are willing to help get me one ordered in a timely manner. The lottery is also paying for the transport to my location covered trailer.”
One of the most baffling things about Kahler’s predicament is how bad it makes the dealerships look who won’t help get the lotto winner his prize—especially Five Star Chevrolet, who reportedly asked for a $10,000 mark-up. If Jim Ellis Chevrolet can pull this off and locate an allocation for the C8, it’s a huge PR win for them.
Any tale of dealerships behaving shadily tends to spread far and wide, as Kahler notes that he’s been receiving lots of emails and messages about the issue. Salespeople at other dealerships have also chimed in on his initial Facebook post offering to help.
So far, General Motors hasn’t been involved with the contest at all. While the company typically monitors media coverage of its products pretty closely, a company spokesperson claimed in an email response to The Drive that “GM was not aware of the Georgia Lottery’s contest.”
“We’re directing people to the Georgia Lottery for questions at this point,” the GM spokesperson wrote.
When asked to whether the company itself would step in and help Kahler find a Corvette allocation, the GM spokesperson couldn’t say, but promised to let us know if anything changes.
The Drive reached out to the Georgia Lottery for their side of the story as well as an update on the status of Kahler’s Corvette search, but did not receive a response at the time of this writing.
Fortunately, it sounds like GM may not need to step in at all, provided tomorrow’s call with Jim Ellis Chevrolet goes well. It’s just further proof that sometimes the internet can be a force for good.
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