When the recently graduated high school class was starting its educational journey, Chevrolet was busy celebrating itself for 100 years of existence. Customers could all get a slice of the cake, too! What the Bow Tie brand baked up was one of the best special edition packages ever to grace its storied halo model: the Centennial Edition Corvette.
In a surprisingly bold move, Chevy discontinued the ever-popular Black exterior color for a model year to make way for the Centennial Edition’s bass boat metallic Carbon Flash paint. No matter which level of ‘Vette you opted to “Centennial,” the sparkly black was paired with a sinister set of matte black wheels to match a pair of low-gloss full-length stripes, special badging, and eye-catching bright red brake calipers. Inside, the reworked-for-’12 thrones have a unique headrest treatment, contrasting red stitching abounds, and more exclusive badging is featured, including a stylized mugshot of company namesake Louis Chevrolet in the middle of the Alcantara steering wheel.
The Centennial package’s calling card, ZLC RPO, made its way onto 18.9% of 2012 Corvette production, with total orders standing at 2,201. Base Corvettes accounted for 172 coupes and just 60 Convertibles, while the top dog Z cars added 195 (Z06) and 206 (ZR1) more orders, respectively, between the two of them. The remaining 1,568 all fell to the volume champion Grand Sport that combined the attractive wide fenders and hood scoop of the expensive Zs with the legendarily robust 6.2L LS3 V8 of the base car.
By far, the most liked Centennial Edition was the jack-of-all-trades Grand Sport Coupe, which earned 1,040 slices of the overall GS pie. In a world where the cheapest V8 performance Chevy is a whopping $70,000, it’s tough to fathom, but just 12 years ago, you could get into an eight-cylinder Camaro SS for around $32k, a base ‘Vette just under $52,000, and the glorious widebody/LS3/targa topped step-up that was the GS could be had for a tantalizing $58,920. If you’re kicking yourself for not jumping on that deal when you had the chance, we have two pieces of good news for you: 1) that number had equal buying power to $80,600 in 2024’s inflated greenbacks, so it definitely wasn’t the chump change that it looks like today, and 2) you can get your hands on a like-new 2012 Centennial Grand Sport for well under MSRP, today and everyone loves a comeback story!
New Jersey’s Vantage Auto, which you might remember from their shoutout in this C6 ZR1 piece from a few days ago, has the car in question on offer at this very moment! It’s a Carbon Flash Centennial GS coupe that’s only seen 2,400 miles of action in the last decade plus. The best part is that this collectible Corvette can be had for just $50,790, even though it’s basically still in its original packaging! Sure, it’s an automatic, but that’s a selling point to some people, and either way, that’s a lot of bang for the buck, just as Ed Cole intended! If you are interested, we suggest getting on the horn; straight-line acceleration isn’t the only way this one’s going to go fast!
Source:
vantageauto.com
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A Corvette to crave! Have always liked it and wanted one.
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