Tag: C8 Corvette production halt

All Over The Place Wednesday

I wrote that between the UAW strike and the coronavirus 2020 C8 Corvette production would be around 5,000 instead of the original estimate of 40,000. That might not be correct. It is possible, maybe even likely, that people who ordered a 2020 model before the end of 2020 ordering in mid-March will still receive a 2020 model Corvette. While in Arizona for the recent Mecum auction John Kraman told me that 2020 production would be reduced to 30,000, but that was before the coronavirus led to GM closing its plants. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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Most of you have heard the expression, “He who hesitates is lost.” From Mae West via The Muscleheaded Blog, “He who hesitates is a damned fool.”

 

A few of the many funny lines from this post:

I threw a boomerang a few years ago….
….Now I live in constant fear

I couldn’t believe that the Highway Department called my Dad a thief….
….but when I got home, all the signs were there.

Coles’ Law….
….thinly sliced cabbage

My wife accused me of being immature….
….I told her to get out of my fort

Parallel lines have so much in common….
….It’s a shame they’ll never meet

I have the memory of a woolly mammoth….
….It’s like an elephant’s, but a little fuzzy.

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Some more cars from the Mecum Glendale 2020 auction:

 

 

From the staging area a picture of a 1960 Studebaker Regal Lark VIII convertible. Studebaker produced about 8,600 convertibles in 1960 and about 58,000 Lark VIIIs, but how many convertibles had the V-8 and not the six-cylinder engine is not easy to unearth. Extrapolation yields an estimate of about 3,900 1960 Lark VIII convertibles. This car went unsold at a high bid of $17,000.

 

 

This is a beautiful 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC. Only 600 were produced and it is a Ferrari so I guess it should be no surprise the car didn’t sell despite a high bid of $500,000. This car has its original engine which was rebuilt in 2013 and has about 1,000 miles since the rebuild. I don’t think many auction houses have the diversity of lots like Mecum. It’s not too often one will see a 1960 Studebaker and a 1967 Ferrari in the same auction.

 

 

A picture of the car with maybe the most famous face of all American cars. This is a 1936 Cord 810 convertible. The auction copy reads, though: “Meticulously restored to 1937 812 SC specs” and that the car was re-bodied at the time of restoration. Many of you know that Gordon Buehrig designed this car as a protest of Harley Earl’s maxim that the face made the car. Buehrig tried to design a car with no face, but wound up with this most famous of car faces. This car hammered sold at $190,000 meaning it was $209,000 all in to the buyer.

 

 

My wonderful wife and I really liked this sign. I’m not sure we were present when it was auctioned, but at $354 all in it certainly wouldn’t have broken the bank. My car is probably capable of 200 MPH, not that I would ever drive it that fast. He who hesitates—or is absent in mind or body—is lost.

 

Although the last few days have seen a flurry of comments, for which I am very grateful, in general 2020 has not been a robust year for them. Please don’t hesitate to submit thoughtful comments, the more the merrier. Thanks.

 

#C8CorvetteProductionHalt

#MaeWest

#MecumGlendale2020

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Another Saturday Sampler

On this day in 1925 Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signed the Butler Act into law. The bill was introduced by Tennessee House of Representatives member John Washington Butler prohibiting public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of mankind’s origin. The law also prevented the teaching of the evolution of man from what it referred to as lower orders of animals in place of the Biblical account.

The law was challenged later that year in a famous trial in Dayton, Tennessee called the Scopes Trial that included a raucous, and now famous, confrontation between prosecution attorney and fundamentalist religious leader, William Jennings Bryan, and noted defense attorney and religious agnostic, Clarence Darrow.

Incredibly, the Butler Act wasn’t repealed until 1967. Maybe that’s not so incredible…a sizable minority of Americans (usually polling at about 40%) do not believe in evolution. As Louis Armstrong is supposed to have remarked, “There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them.”

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On this day in 1996 General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a settlement in a 17-day brake factory strike that idled more than 177,000 employees and brought what was then the world’s top automaker to a virtual standstill. Only about 3,000 workers actually struck, but the de facto closure of the GM Delphi Chassis Systems brake plants in Dayton, Ohio forced GM to close 26 of its 29 assembly plants and cut back work at 90 parts factories. Independent suppliers also laid off tens of thousands of workers.

While the Dayton strike was over local issues, including safety, excess overtime and other contract disputes, its focal point became GM’s desire to award in-house work to outside suppliers, a.k.a. outsourcing.

The most recent UAW strike in combination with the coronavirus led to a reduction in 2020 C8 production from the original goal of 40,000 to probably just 5,000. In fact, as of March 18 it was no longer possible to order a 2020 Corvette. When orders resume in May, customers will be ordering model year 2021 Corvettes. I suspect most of the customers who ordered 2020 models will be receiving 2021 models instead and will have to wait even longer to receive their car, maybe a car like this:

 

See the source image

 

From Motor1 a picture of a 2020 Corvette.

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On this day a year ago I—with the help of my wonderful wife—wired the money to pay for my 2016 Corvette Z06. It’s almost incomprehensible that acquiring that car is already a year in the past. I didn’t receive the car until the 27th; I have only driven it about 2,670 miles. Since I am “retired” I do not drive that much, but that’s still a shame in my eyes. Let’s say I’m at an even 2,700 miles on the 27th, that would still be just 225 miles a month. I drove my Z4 almost 300 miles a month in the 29 months I owned it. Maybe the Z06 will get to stretch its legs more after the move to the desert.

 

 

 

#ButlerAct

#Evolution

#C8CorvetteProductionHalt

#2016CorvetteZ06

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

If you like this blog please tell your friends and share the blog URL (https://disaffectedmusings.com). Thanks.