I'm
very discouraged today, looking at these recent stats, comparing them to the other C8 years, and realizing I'll not see a C8 Z06 anytime soon and likely many years away:
-there's a direct correlation in the recent stats, showing that GM takes away the Canadian Corvette allocations and gives them (mostly) to Europe and then the other countries. This is supported by the stats confirming the US sales remain about the same for all 3 years: 91.0% (2022); 89.9% (2021) and 91.2% (2020), whereas Canada allocations have tumbled by about 50% comparing 2022 to 2021 with the other allocations going to other countries;
-GM is trying to break into the European market and can now satisfy those European buyers who want right hand drive. This trend is shown by Europe getting 2.7% of the 2022 production with Canada only getting about 300 more C8's compared to Europe;
-I suspect that GM will focus on the European market even more with the C8 Z06: it'll want to directly compete with Porsche and the other higher-end sports cars, hoping to attract those buyers to the Z06 and Chevrolet brand.
None of this is helped by the trend of reduced production numbers: the C8 was understandably underproduced in 2020 (20,368 made) due to the initial GM strike, followed by the many-month COVID shutdown starting in the spring of 2020, then the numbers crept up for 2021 (26,216) however the numbers were lower in 2022 (25,831).
So with ongoing production problems as shown by plant shutdowns and constraints this year (making it unlikely production numbers will pick up), and GM choosing to reduce Canadian allocations, I'm now rethinking my next vehicle...