Hello my fellow C8 friends (all the way from New Jersey),
As promised in my reply on the thread discussing the low allocations to Canada, taking time out of my family vacation here in Jersey to give you my raw feedback of my holy grail museum style visit to Ciocca (previous Kerbeck), the biggest/largest Corvette dealer in all of North America (which was quite obvious).
We drove from Montreal to New Jersey for our annual family trip to Wildwood and Atlantic City (my wife's family have been coming here ever since she and her brother were babies). It was only during the pandemic, and my online research of C8 stuff, that I discovered that the largest corvette dealer is right here in Atlantic City. The drive up took around 11 hours (with stops) and I just could not drive past Atlantic City to arrive in Wildwood without making a quick stop, with all the suitcases still packed in the car. Plan was to spend a morning there, but I just had to stop and get a quick visual if the plant shutdown and chip shortage had a negative impact on this dealer too.
My mouth fell open (flies could have filled it), when I saw the car show of C8's outside. After quickly parking, and drooling over the cars outside, we walked inside both buildings, also filled with C8's. There must have been maybe 50-70 cars there. Recall, this was just a quick stop, I had no info beyond what I saw, but man oh man, in front of me, I had every single color and combo possible. Me who was struggling to decide whether to go RB or AO or HG, and whether to go with HTC black or color top. And what would carbon fiber accessories look like. They had it all, scattered a bit everywhere.
Let me quickly get to the point you all want to read. A few days later we planned our outlet shopping trip to Atlantic City, with the family knowing the morning would be spent at Ciocca, analyzing everything to death, until my final choice in color and accessories was done and when we walk away, our choice was made (this was accomplished). What I did not anticipate was for a super friendly, older sales guy to approach us to have a nice chat with us. He felt our friendly Canadian vibe. And this is where I started to get all of the interesting and shocking info, so here goes....
* He confirmed that since the C8 came out, they delivered no less than 3400 cars (2020-2022).
* He confirmed that they are delivering no less than 200 cars this month, let me repeat that, 200 deliveries of C8's this month
* They are the largest C8 dealer in the country and North America
* The wait time for a C8 is around 14 months
* Their Z06 list grew to 1600 in the first 3 days they started it, and had to shut it down immediately
* Chip shortage ? What chip shortage (more on that later)
* e-Ray / Z06 allocation dates I asked ? he said Live In The Moment and forget about waiting (more on that later too)
* Patience is key, where else can you put down $1000 and get $10,000-$20,000 back (his words)
* If you trade-in your used C8, they offer MSRP buy back, and top of the list with 8 weeks for new car
Chip Shortage - What Chip Shortage ?
So this one surprised me. He leaned into me with a funny friendly smile, as if the chip shortage was some conspiracy theory. What he suggested was that while there might have been delays in getting cars to other dealers, for whatever reason, the plant made sure that their constant flow of supply was not interrupted to their dealer. In other words, they did not see much (if any) reduction in allocation during the tougher periods and GM probably had to provide reasons to other dealers why their allocations were reduced, to ensure Ciocca got what they needed, which is likely 100-200 cars per month.
e-Ray / Z06 allocation dates - Live In The Moment
He said they are telling their customers to just live in the moment, that their Z06 list shut down just after 3 days of being open, with 1600 people registered on it. I told him the joke of someone on this forum saying he was 60 and by the time his number comes around for a Z06 he will be 100. He laughed, and agreed, saying to appreciate the model of car that is in front of us now, that life is too short to wait, and that by the time enough Z06 and eRays come out, a new model will be upon us, and everyone will be wanting that one next. In other words, the eRay and Z06 will be trickling in, in tiny numbers, and the wait will be very long, so to stop thinking about it and just enjoy what is there today.
There you have it folks. I am trying this on my work laptop, and in a moment will upload all the pics I took from the dealer on my mobile. Sadly when I went back more than half of the cars there from a few days back were already picked up, so a lot less to show you from the first visuals I got.
Finally, let me answer a burning question that I had, which got answered in an interesting way. Atlantic City is not what it once used to be. It tried to be a mini Vegas, and in the years and decades I used to come here, it had the bright lights and flashy casinos and busy boardwalk. Not anymore, if feels run down a bit, aged. And I was even more surprised to see where Ciocca was located, off to the side of where the casinos are located, in what felt like an aged, kind of run down area. So how the heck are they the #1 dealer.
The answer to that question was standing right in front of me. A slightly older gentleman and his wife were at the dealer, with suitcase in tow, there to pickup one of the sharper looking red C8's with high wing on it. They had just flown in to Jersey from another state, probably straight from their hotel or airport, with suitcase, to pickup the car. My guess is that most of the sales there come from out of state, and people fly or drive down to pickup their car and drive it back home.
I might pop back to Ciocca one last time on our drive back home to Montreal this Sunday, just to take in the sight of all those C8's, one last time, to then drive back to that 3rd world country called Canada (at least for the automotive world), where the entire country's C8 imports are but a drop in the bucket compared to this one dealer alone or close to (sad to say but true).
Pics to be attached shortly, now back to my vacation .....