The highly anticipated 2025 Corvette ZR1 is finally arriving in Chevy dealerships across North America. Predictably, the earliest models coming to showrooms are coming with significant dealer markups. The C8 ZR1 is already an expensive supercar, and the privilege of being one of the first to own one is coming at an even greater price at many dealerships. In one extreme example, a California dealership is offering a prospective buyer a ZR1 for $500,000.
The dealer in question is FH Dailey Chevrolet in San Leandro, California. The dealer has in stock a C8 ZR1 in a highly desirable configuration that closely resembles the press car spec frequently used in Chevy’s marketing materials for the ZR1. It’s a 3LZ coupe finished in Competition Yellow Tintcoat. It’s not a ZTK, but it does have the Carbon Fiber Aero Package (RPO TOM), front lift adjustable height memory (E60), carbon flash wheels (SOG), yellow brake calipers (J6E), competition sport bucket seats (AE4), and some extra yellow accents in the interior. The total ticker price, including the destination charge and the gas guzzler tax, comes to $206,280.
It’s not a cheap Corvette, to be sure. Even with that high price, the half-million-dollar asking price represents a 142 percent dealer markup. The screenshot above is circulating on social media after someone inquired with the dealer about the price of the car since the listing says “Call For Price & Availability” rather than listing the price on the window sticker.
This isn’t the first Corvette ZR1 markup we’ve seen in a six-digit dollar amount. Last month, we reported on a sales associate at a different California Chevy dealer making a post in the “Corvette C8 Z06, ZR1 & E-Ray” Facebook group showing a ZR1 that was in transit to the dealer. He listed an MSRP of $206,080, plus an additional dealer markup of an even $100k. The same salesman posted other available ZR1 allocations with $50k markups.
Unfortunately, supercar shoppers can expect the markup problem to continue on the 2025 Corvette ZR1 since it has a limited production run for its debut model year. However, unlike the C7 ZR1, the C8 ZR1 will be produced for longer than one model year. The 2026 model has already been announced, and there’s still more life left in the C8 generation since it just got an interior refresh.
Would you pay $500,000 for a 2025 ZR1 or would you rather wait for the 2026 model, which will likely be less subject to such aggressive markups?
Comments
GM should take their dealer license away for this
A short story on markups. 1996: Viper GTS coupes were red hot. Dealer mark ups galore. Awe, I’ll wait a year or two until the hoopla cools down. 1998, I buy said car for $57,000 while the original owner paid over sticker at $96,000. Patience prevailed. Decade later Ford GT comes out. Dealer mark ups. Awe, I wait a couple years until the hoopla cools down. Duh, and thus, no Ford GT in the garage😩
Hope that thing rots on the dealership floor for years… and GM should pull all future ZR1 allocations from them and reward dealers that sell at MSRP…
Anyone foolish enough to pay that is plain stupid. And yes the dealer is a moron for even asking it, but you just never know there may be someone silly enough to do it. It’s CALI!! Stranger things have happened there already!!