The C8 ZR1 line at BGP was slated to start early in the calendar year, but it did so with a 100% constraint on carbon fiber parts, and with nearly 70% of buyers having their hearts set on the “big wing” version, Chevy was forced to pull all orders and start fresh after working behind the scenes to source an adequate amount of the sweet weaved stuff.

By mid-June, a total of 310 orders had been accepted for production, but with time running out before the changeover to the 2026 model year, the Chevy brand had to again pull the rug out from under several buyers of its most expensive car in history, announcing that it would be unable to fulfill all 310 allocations.

As of June 30th, staring down the barrel of a two-week shutdown for the 4th of July, only 65 examples had been completed.
That left 19 workdays before the scheduled August 4th start date for 2026s.
At an average of two cars per day, we’re going to be in the ballpark of 100 units, about one third of what we originally reported for the inaugural model year.

The law of supply and demand dictates that these hundred-or-so ZR1s especially nicely-spec’d ones like the Trenary example should command a premium over MSRP, and so far at least one dealer has cashed in on the early frenzy, but Additional Dealership Markups (ADMs) have proven to be a double-edged sword as a one-way ticket to shame, ridicule, and even customer black-balling during the life and times of the C8 Corvette.

Chevrolet dealerships, particularly ones outside the top 20 have had to walk a tightrope between maximizing profit on their limited allocations and incurring the wrath of customers and possibly sanctions from General Motors.

Thus, the genius of the suburban St. Louis (the original home of the Corvette) dealership! It’s hard to hold a grudge when Jim and Co. wanted to sell at MSRP before a few ravenous clients got into a bidding war, isn’t it? The only fair way for them to settle this is to offer it to whoever is willing to pay the biggest price.

The only way it could be more brilliant is if they “pulled a Porsche” and also required the lucky winner to buy several less desirable models to earn the right to call themselves a ZR1 owner. So, what’ll it cost to get in on the action and throw your hat in the ring while #28 is still up for grabs?
There are different sums all over the place, but, as of writing, the highest one was on Autotrader, where the current bid is listed at a cool $410,000.

The current count is 108 ZR1s completed for 2025 (with maybe 2-4 still to be completed or have been completed and not yet reported).
Been stated that of those original 310 orders,
there were 101 that were bumped to the 2026 model year already. But that leaves around 99 ZR1 orders from those initial 310 orders that are still in limbo.

And finally, another component to the 2026 model year is the Build & Buy Configurator on Chevrolet.com, which still hasn’t been made public yet.

It’s bad enough that early 2026 customers didn’t have access to the Configurator for building their dream cars, and even now after the first 2026 models have rolled off the assembly line, customers still can’t use the configurator for building and pricing the 2026 Corvette.
Although Chevrolet simply said “August 2025” for the arrival of the 2026 configurator, we’ve heard that it could be coming as early as sometime this week, so let’s hope that happens.

So in short, 2025 ZR1s built less than 200 and BGP has started building the 2026 MY C8s