The all-new, seventh-generation Corvette Stingray might be the most popular car of the 2013 Detroit Motor Show, but the truth is, its importance lies more in it being a halo car for the company than in the volume of the units it will sell.
Even so, all Chevrolet dealers would like to have at least one, as it would make for a hell of a showstopper. Well, that’s part of the role of a halo car, isn’t it?
Apparently, General Motors has a different view. After cutting smaller dealerships out of the Volt program due to its request that they purchase new tooling, Autonews reports that, for the first time ever, it has put a sales threshold to dealers who want to get the seventh-generation ‘Vette.
Dealers who have failed to sell at least four Corvettes in 2012 have been notified since last January that they won’t be getting the 2014 Stingray model, although a GM spokesman denied to comment on the new sports car’s allocation.
Byron Hansen, a Chevrolet dealer in Brigham City, Utah, says: “I don’t anticipate getting the new Corvette this year, and many smaller dealers like me won’t get it either.” Hansen sold just two Corvettes in 2012.
“I keep one or two on the lot on the lot as showstoppers”, says Jim Stutzman, owner of the Jim Stutzman Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Winchester, Virginia.
Stutzman used to sell as many as 50 Corvettes annually in the 1980s and 1990s but, as sales have dwindled, he expects to miss out on the new one.
He says that he understands GM wanting “us small dealers out of the Corvette market to drive that volume to the metro stores” but is not exactly jumping in joy to tell any interested customer to go to another dealership. “Being a Chevy dealer and not being able to sell the Corvette – that makes me sad”, he told Autonews.
By Andrew Tsaousis
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