2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Production is Underway

General Motors hasn’t made any official statement on the production of the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 beginning, but a moderator at the enthusiast forum StingrayForums.com was recently taking a tour of the Bowling Green Assembly Plant when he witnessed Z06 #1 rolling off of the assembly line – with more copies of the new super-Vette on the line.

The 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is billed by General Motors as the most track capable Corvette of all time while also being the most powerful factory production vehicle from GM ever so you would think that the start of production would be met with plenty of fanfare. Surprisingly, you would be wrong as there has been no official word from GM about the launch of Z06 production, but thanks to the moderator “elegant” at StingrayForums.com, we know that production of the super-Vette began yesterday morning and job #1 was finished and ready to roll at 9:26am EST.

2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 #1
The first 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 to roll off of the Bowling Green assembly line is the car that NASCAR owner and famous car collector Rick Hendrick won at auction back in April. Hendrick paid a million dollars for the right to own the very first C7 Z06 and he chose black paint with black wheels and red brake calipers (other options are unknown). It is also unclear as to which transmission Hendrick picked, but considering the collectable value of the first ever high performance Corvette offered with an automatic transmission, I would guess that the championship NASCAR team owner picked the new 8-speed automatic.

2015 Corvette Galleries:
The Debut of the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
The First Images of the 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Convertible
The debut of the C7R Chevrolet Corvette race car

More New Corvette Z06 Coupes on the Way
While Rick Hendrick’s blacked out 2015 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Coupe was the first new super-Vette to come off of the assembly line, it was not the only Z06 to be built on day one of production. According to elegant, the Bowling Green plant is building around 7 Z06 coupes an hour and he believed to have seen at least one copy of every color offered on the C7 Z06. Like Vin #1, all of these first 2015 Corvette Z06 coupes will likely go into an intensive quality control process before being sent out, but with cars being completed starting on November 10th, I would imagine that the earliest Z06 owners could have their cars before the end of the year.

Z06 Could Sell in Record Numbers
General Motors has been as tight lipped on early sales as they have been on the production launch, but considering the fact that the 2015 Corvette Z06 offers better performance than the C6 ZR1 while carrying a starting price of just $78,995. The new Z06 is similar in price to the C6 Z06, but it offers better performance than the Corvette ZR1 that carried a price well into the six figure range. Also, the C6 Z06 was available only with a manual transmission while the C7 version comes with the buyer’s choice of a 7-speed manual or a new 8-speed automatic. Oh, the new Z06 will be offered as a convertible as well, where the previous Z06 was only available as a coupe.

I expect that the new Z06 will sell better than the previous Z06 and in the first year of sales for the C6 Z06 (2006), GM sold 6,272 examples and in the second year of availability, the Z06 topped out at 8,159 units sold. The 2015 Z06 costs roughly the same amount, it has more power, more technology, improved performance, an automatic transmission and a convertible top so it is unfathomable to think that GM won’t sell a great deal more Z06 Corvettes for the 2015 model year than the automaker has in any year during the C6 generation.

Source: StingrayForums.com