C8 Corvettes Are Depreciating Faster Than C7s
They’re both America’s sports car. They both have the same name. They’ve both had white New Balances stomp on their pedals and jean shorts pressed into their seats. Yet the seventh (C7, 2014-19) and eighth (C8, 2020-present) generations of the Chevrolet Corvette are rather different automobiles. It’s not just that the C8 is the first ‘Vette with a mid-engine layout and automatic-only transmission, either. Their prices are doing different things, too. C8s are pricier at the moment, which makes perfect sense because they’re newer, faster, and more advanced. The gap between them, however, is shrinking.
GM started production of the C8 Corvette in February 2020. Then, over the coming months, everyone shopping for a new vehicle, be it a pickup truck or a weekend toy, became very familiar with terms like “supply chain issues,” “production delays,” and “dealer markups.” Deliveries for highly anticipated new models like the C8 Corvette or Ford Bronco were slow and production challenges choked supply in the face of serious demand. Dealers asked well over MSRP, while some buyers who got an early slot successfully flipped their still-new C8s at auction. Meanwhile, C7s settled into their status as yesterday’s Corvette, but their sale prices defied the laws of depreciation and trended upward. In the early 2020s essentially all enthusiast cars—even used ones—got more expensive.
More recently, though, there has been a shift for both cars. Supply for the mass-produced base C8 has caught up. New C8s are slower to sell, and the model has been out for long enough that there are C8s at used dealers as well. The initial buzz of the car has worn off, too, and while the C8 Stingray was initially the only model available in 2020, now there are the newer and more exciting Z06, E-Ray, and upcoming ZR1, further taking some of the heat off the base car. Prices have ticked down accordingly. No more pandemic markups.
As for the C7, it’s still a used older generation Corvette, just like it was in 2020. Its supply is going down as attrition takes cars off the road. It’s still quicker than many newer and more expensive performance cars. It’s also the last Corvette with the traditional front-engine layout and silhouette, and the last available with a manual. And when a car is the “last of” something, it tends to have staying power in the collector market.
Pandemic-era craziness settled down for C7s and they have depreciated, too, but all of the above suggests that they don’t have as far to fall as the still-new C8. And while they’re a bit apples and oranges, if anyone is cross-shopping C7 vs. C8, the front-engine car looks like the better buy at the moment.
I loved my two C7’s although my 2016 Z06 had cooling problems. I should say I loved my Z06 on track where it had impeccable manners. On the street, not so much. It was constantly breaking loose and going sideways. It never did anything surprising on track except go fast. I’ve driven both a C8 and a couple of C8 Z06’s on track. Both cars are clearly better than the C7 there. The new Z06 not only sounds great but is easy to drive fast on track. But then there is always something just a little bit better – and that was a Ferrari 488 Pista with 710 HP. It turned 2 second better lap times than the Z06. In all fairness, the Z06’s did not have their factory specced Michelins which might have made a consierable difference.
Have owned 59 Vettes in 60 years. That includes a factory ordered 2LT Z51 2022 C8. Loved it but I like to shift my “fun” cars so when the year was up it was sold. Minor loss of 5K. Good timing because that would now be a 20-25 K loss. I also sold my 3LT 2011 GS Man Trans coupe for a profit in ’22 when the C8 arrived. Its one of the best cars Vette ever made. I had hoped to get a C7 Z06 or GS man trans but the price is still too high. The Vette market in the last year is so volatile and the dealers just do not seem to know what they are doing so I switched my daily driver to a 1 owner super low mileage 2010 Camaro SS man trans and for fun I found a man trans 6 k mile 2013 572 HP Callaway Camaro last March which is an amazing ride. I feel like a traitor to the Vette brand but I will jump back into vettes in the winter when the C7 Vert owners need money, or find a intelligently priced manual C7 Z06 . One more observance is the skyrocketing prices of C3 68-72 Vettes, even auto sticks and the amount available on every site. Must be because the C2s are now out of reach for so many.
Makes for a splash headline, but it is wrong. Not sure the author got this right. If you look at the trend since mid-2022, the depreciation curves looks almost the same between C8 and C7. If you curve-fit a straight line to each set of data, the slope of each the lines is almost the same. Both are trending down, but the distance between the curves is nearly the same month over month, hence the rate of depreciation is the same.
Real corvette fans know that Zora always wanted a Rear engine Vette. His exact words from an interview. So get over it. Its what Z wanted all along but the bean counters wouldn’t give it to him. Oh & Pre pandemic , C7s were in the low 20s all day at auction they were going nowhere.The depreciated faster than a Maserati. I’m a dealer you couldn’t give a 7 speed away. If you can’t understand that the C8 is the performance bargain of the century get your eyes checked. At LS fest Autocross last weekend a bone stock ERay was eating the new Z06s lunch & ended up 3rd FTD against full on prepped race cars of all eras with champion drivers .
It is less expensive still to buy a depreciated C6, which I would – I would never buy a C7, as I never liked them, from the big online introduction day onward. The C6 looks better than the C8, but the C8 is a much better sports/performance car. No manual, but that is not a deal-killer for me: I have owned 7 stick-shifts in my life (and still own two of them), have driven maybe a dozen more, but can take or leave them at this point. To each his/her own.
people are at last learning the C7 was the last real Corvette;
If that’s the case, I wouldn’t want a “Corvette”. Make mine the C8 – especially a ZR1 or Zora.
1972 and older Vettes are much more enjoyable to look at. Sorry but these new ones look too much like Darth Vader’s grand kid toys. Hard to work on at home with exspensive parts too. Faster, better gas mileage, more power but just not eye appealing.
I’m not a big fan of window sills at shoulder height. I like manual transmissions in a sports car – also like to be able to get in and out of the darn car. Recently at a local Chevy dealership the sales people were somewhat amused at my inability to “get into” a C-8 hardtop on the floor – that is until I invited them to show me how. Getting in and out of a convertible at Carlisle was easier. Yeah, yeah, the car is a technological miracle and more performance per dollar than a Ferrari, but for a $100K should I expect to at least be able to easily get in and out of the car? OK, maybe not. Hey, I heard that, no I’m not fat, but at >6′ and 220# with money to spend and looking at used Vettes, I just might pick the C-7…….. if I can’t find a cherry C-6 427.
“…newer and more exciting…E-Ray…”? Highly debatable!
As far as newer cars go, this is nothing new. I would like to see the rate of depreciation when a C7 was new as a comparison. Newer cars almost always depreciate faster while losing 50% during the first five years.
There are cars that buck that trend, but not many
I’m a reasonably fit 66 years old man and have never owned a Corvette. Never driven one or even sat in one until I recently had the opportunity to drive a used C8 about 2 months ago. I put about 400 miles on it one day, mostly freeway miles. When I got home that evening I told my wife about the experience and told her you never have to worry about me wanting to buy a C8 Corvette because for me anyways, the bad out weighed the good. While it was a fantastic car to accelerate, steer and brake in, the rest of the experience was a downer for me. The interior looked like it had pieces in it from the universal GM parts bin, visability is a joke, and how do you get out of it without basically crawling out? I’m pretty sure what I drove was a base model, at least I hope it was! I should state that I work part time for a car deal and my job is to transport cars from dealership to dealership or directly to the customer. So I get to drive probably a 100 different cars each year. Obviously most are the ones my dealership sells new but not always.
If I had a price was no object which corvette would I buy? Most likely a 65 or 66 convertible. But to each their own, right?
ccoccaro@optonline.net
Yet another article about the marketplace that raises the question whether dealers changed their financing schemes to reduce stock after the pandemic and supply shortage issues. Having fewer vehicles on hand constrains the consumer’s ability to negotiate price. Market adjustment$ have malingered beyond the period of shortages and pent up demand. Paying MSRP for a vehicle used to be laughable, now it’s point of entry and it’s due to greed. Consumers used to be able to negotiate a price based on the time the vehicle was on the lot to mitigate the dealer’s finance obligation to the manufacturer. Something is very different now.