If you’re waiting on your new 2025 Corvette to be delivered, you can thank Ford Motor Company for the delay.
Thursday afternoon, General Motors ordered drivers for its long-time car shipper, Jack Cooper Transport, to unload the new Corvettes that had just been placed onboard the haulers outside the Bowling Green Assembly Plant in Kentucky.
“I stood there and saw them unload 50 cars from the trucks – they have never done that before,” the Detroit Free Press was told by a plant employee who asked to remain anonymous because they did not have permission to talk to reporters.
GM’s contract with Jack Cooper is currently being renegotiated after its No. 2 customer Ford Motor Company unexpectedly canceled its 40-year-long deal with the shipping company in January, forcing Jack Cooper to try to get more money from its other customers to stay afloat.
According to the Free Press, while No. 1 customer GM remains in “intense” renegotiations with Jack Cooper, it has apparently decided it cannot risk having thousands of its new vehicles, like the Corvettes made in Bowling Green, to be onboard the trucks, in case the talks were to go bad.
“Jack Cooper Transport has been a preferred supplier to GM for decades,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly told the Free Press on Thursday. “We are negotiating in good faith with their management team and private equity lender, Cerberus Capital Management. We hope to reach a fair resolution that permits GM to run our business responsibly and serve our customers while allowing (Jack Cooper) to continue operating as an ongoing business and employer.”
The sudden decision by Ford to exercise a clause that allowed the cancellation of the contract with Jack Cooper at its discretion has already forced the trucking company to lay off about 400 workers at a Missouri facility and permanently close a facility with 89 more employers in Michigan. The Teamsters Union, which represents many of those workers, has vowed to fight for their jobs.
Sources tell the Free Press that Ford has not given a reason to Jack Cooper for ending the deal before it was set to expire, prompting Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri to ask Ford CEO Jim Farley to provide an “explanation for suddenly terminating such a longstanding partnership.”
Source:
Detroit Free Press
Related:
Corvette Transporter Company Jack Cooper Acquires Rival with 240 Car Carrier Trucks
The Ability to Track Your Corvette Through the Jack Cooper Transport Website Has Been Disabled
Corvette Transporter Company Jack Cooper Files for Bankruptcy
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Remember…. the customer comes first….
To all the owners of the 50 Corvettes pulled off the trucks. Bowling Green did the right thing. They’re making sure your Vette won’t be held hostage in a truck stop.
Shakedowns from unions cannot be tolerated,, You want to keep operating? Do it in good faith
I understand niw after reading Stellantis.They build crap and with that ethos, I would have NOTHING to do with them either!
I can only presume that the union was asking for too much and enough was enough for Ford to stop using them.
It’s another instance of unions killing their own jobs and since of unions killing their own jobs
HMMMMM…. “We are negotiating in good faith with their management team and private equity lender, Cerberus Capital Management”. So how long has Cooper been under Cerberus Management? This is not a good sign as Cerberus method of business is ‘good product or services in, strip out the business for the benefit of their stockholders then sell whats left .
If the airbags are deployed no matter how severe or minor the damage, insurance companies right off the car as totalled. Same with flood cars.
Bring back the manual transmission. Automatics are BORING, you stupid Corvette engineers can figure it out!!
Don’t blame the unions for Corporate greed, ask yourselves why they make cars in Mexico, but charge USA, prices. So when you go to that Dealer to buy that foreign made automobiles think the price your paying is not because of the unions.
I think it’s funny how so many people don’t get it lol. Unions aren’t the bad guys for one, second this was a Ford decision between companies, workers had nothing to do with what is going on… Oh and by the way, for everyone out there that says “I’m not buying a Ford” or “I’m buying a Toyota because they are better” guess what… little secret for you….. its all the same suppliers lol. There you go, now you can look at your Toyota totally different now.. you’re welcome. Oh and by the way, the big three’s quality is by far better as a whole over the import competition and yet affordable to service which is important. People who build these cars care about your product because it’s people from here in the US who buy their own product and take pride in their work. For instance back when Ford made the Fusion out of the US and Mexico was their a price difference between them? No. You get what you pay for as the old saying goes. Buy a crap Kia and you will not see 300,000 on that odometer.
Done with new. These money grubbers are getting no more of mine
I wish someone could explain why I have to pay extra to pick up my Corvette at the factory and still pay the delivery fee. Somebody is getting rich on that delivery.
Way to expensive …sitting on the lot drying out seals ..mice and rats love the soybean oil cased electrical wires .engines are crap like gm rods blowing thru blocks..sensors shorting out shits computers down .I ll take a decent 30 year vehicle put new bushings..engine trans axles on it for a quarter of the cost they charge for plastic garbage..
To Joseph who left comment “Bring back the manual transmission.”
ALL C8’s HAVE 8 SPEED MANUAL TRANSMISSIONS. They are electrically shifted. That’s why they can be shifted automatically by the PCM or manually shifted by the paddle shifter buttons. That’s why theres no stick shifter. If I could upload a photo I would. Search the web and find a C8 trans cuttaway photo. If you have any mechanical knowledge you can clearly see that there are maual trans gears in it and NOT clutch packs, drums, and bands that auto transmissions have.
GM builds the best cars and trucks on the planet. It’s only natural that they would only want the best transport for them.
I think its really shitty that any of you would think this is the unions fault and saying the Jack Cooper drivers would hold the cars hostage is just plain stupid .this is just plain greed by Ford and Gm to want to pay drivers less for hauling their cars they already lose so much time with their families I hope they get less then drivers who have a ton a damages to their cars you get what you pay for
Bill
Big three??? GM does not build the “best cars”
Look at the quality reports!
If you don’t know your numbers you don’t know your business! Taiichi Ohno
I get it that you want to root , “USA USA!”
But don’t fib when the numbers are there for everyone to see.
The Camry is the world’s best selling car. Number 1
The Big Three are:
1. Volkswagen
2. Toyota
3. Stellantis
Please instead of posting with emotion, get your facts straight.
Big three trying to get there lost billions investments on ev’s, this is a shake down for sure.
Phew, this site’s commenters make me feel like I just ran into a brick wall with my head. The USA’s future is doomed.
Wow that’s kind of hard to talk about things like that I got people trying to make a living on all the way around you know and sometimes things cost more all the time but it comes a time when somebody’s just got to own something and make it make it real for everyone you know I was waiting for Corvette I probably would be right there wanting to know where it is you know if you were looking for a Ford you probably doing the same thing just got to come to it you know sometimes you got to bite the bullet a little bit then right over the coals all of us
Well I hope it all works out for everybody everybody wants to get their their Corvette or or something or their truck you know or they’re even their Fords too let’s let’s just be peaceful and we’ll figure it out
Unions absolutely increase prices on everything they put their hands on , don’t let them tell you otherwise!!
The trucking company is owned by an investment group that drains the company’s cash assets and then leaves them broke and abandoned… It has nothing to do with the unions.
Whoever said that North American car makers are better quality than imports is hallucinating. And I have never owned anything but Chrysler trucks and GM corvettes (but I have studied the industry and worked as a supervisor at Chrysler Minivan in Windsor) GM is probably well ahead of Chrysler and ford in quality. Toyota’s efficiency systems are still miles in front of the big three. I dint think they have many unionized workers either (if any). This is extremely important because it tells you that employees’s feel like they are treated well and that makes all the difference in the world working in a manufacturing plant.
This story needs an update, bigger things happened over the weekend.
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