Here’s an Estimated Timeline of Events for the C8 Corvette

By
Keith Cornett
-
5
20744

Here's an Estimated Timeline of Events for the C8 Corvette


If everything has gone to plan since the last C7 Corvette rolled off the Bowling Green Assembly Line in mid-November, this next week will begin a new chapter as the mid-engine Corvette inches closer to full-scale production. That’s because the retooling of the plant should now be complete and this week begins the ramped-up production of 350 captured test fleet cars.

Our friends at the MidEngineCorvetteForum.com have checked the tea leaves and heard from a few “little birdies” as the MECF’s admin John likes to say and he offered up this estimated timeline for production and ordering info that stretches into next year:

Week of December 9th:
* Full-scale assembly of 350+ captured test fleet vehicles commences.
* 1st December consensus is Thursday the 12th

Week of December 16th:
* 2nd December consensus is Thursday the 19th.

Weeks of December 23rd & 30th:
* BGA closed for annual two week Christmas/New Year’s vacation.

Entire Month of January:
*Progressively faster ramp up assembly-line speed. We do not know those exact rates. However, they will echo the ever-increasing rate that occurred during the first few months of the C7’s production. While we know that there was progressively faster assembly line speed that occurred during December, probably first at 1 C8 per hour, then 2 per hour, during January we are probably getting to a rate of at least four per hour — and perhaps faster??? As to when the line reaches its designed C8 final rate of 11.6/units per hour, that is currently unknown to us, and is probably also unknown to GM at this time.

Week of January 13th:
* First January coupe consensus.

Week of January 20th:
* First Hard Top Convertible (HTC) consensus; it will be integrated with regular (2nd) coupe consensus (e.g., one combined allocation for both models).

Week of February 2nd:
* C8 coupe customer production starts. HOORAY!
* Could the assembly rate ramp-up process still be ongoing or might the full production rate been achieved by then?

February, March, April
Looking further out, we expect these milestones:

* During February and maybe into early March, and up to four-week quality control hold (QCH) of the first batch of C8 customer cars.

* During late March, again an estimated time period, the start of customer HTC assembly.

* First customer HTC’s ship probably in April (for they too will have a QCH).

Thanks again to John at the MidEngineCorvetteForum.com for putting this excellent timeline together. These dates all seem to gel with the info we have about production and ordering. If you haven’t visited the web’s fastest-growing C8 Corvette website, head over and join in the conversation with other mid-engine Corvette enthusiasts.


Source:
MidEngineCorvetteForum.com

Related:
2020 Corvette Production Start Slides to February with Convertibles Starting in 2nd Quarter
2020 C8 Corvette Production Process Explained
GM to Reopen 2020 Corvette Ordering in December and Kills Planned Production Ramp-Up Schedule

 



-

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

5 COMMENTS

  1. Would greatly appreciate an explanation why there is a need for a FOUR week quality control hold on produced vehicles. Either a vehicle passes internal quality control inspection or it doesn’t, but FOUR weeks. Obviously GM has not embraced Demmings QC parts inspection formulas or Sigma 7/8 manufacturing techniques for product quality control. Worthnoting, I have already ordered a C8 and can’t comprehend why it is taking so long to produce actual sellable customer vehicles. Having previously been responsible for manufacturing FDA approved drugs and medical devices, quality control was present at ever step in the process, leaving ZERO TOLERANCE for error or out of specification product necessitating a recall.

  2. A four-week hold is what we saw on the initial production of C7 Corvettes. It allows Chevy to manufacture a huge batch of new Corvettes and if they find something that was done wrong during the process, they can go back and correct before the cars are shipped to dealers. While it seems like it’s taking a long time to produce sellable customer vehicles, in reality, we are going from reveal to vehicle launch in about 6 months with the strike’s 5-week hold adding the additional time to the clock.

  3. Week of June 1:
    * Announce and introduce manual transmission as an extra-cost option.

Comments are closed.