- The 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 starts at $105,000, plus a $1,395 delivery fee.
No one buys a 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 the way they’d buy a car they planned to commute and haul the kids to school in. The Z06 – an ultra-high-performance model with a 670-horsepower flat-plane-crank V8 and a 0-60 mph time of just 2.6 seconds – is something lifelong car lovers dream of owning and owners treat like a precious child.
With a $105,000 starting price, it’s also a very expensive toy.
If you’re buying a Z06, you’re committing to an experience. So you might as well commit time and effort to it, too. You might as well build the engine yourself.
Under a new program, Chevrolet will let owners do just that under the watchful eyes of the Z06 assembly team.
During an event celebrating the 28th anniversary of the National Corvette Museum, Corvette Assembly Plant Director Kai Spande announced the unusual perk.
How it Works
Buyers travel to the Bowling Green, Kentucky, plant where ‘Vettes are built and are assigned an engine build station. A technician brings the parts of the LT6 Gemini engine and walks the customer through installing them one by one.
When the engine is done, it’s taken to a dynamometer for testing to verify its performance and tweaked by the customer and the assembly team if anything is out of spec.
Technicians take it from there.
Chevrolet hasn’t put a price on the experience. They have offered a similar program with past Corvettes (though never quite this thorough – customers would walk the assembly line under the old program but not be assigned their own station). The old price for the perk was $5,000. We expect a similar cost to this one.
It’s a highly unusual offer, but a Z06 is a highly unusual purchase. Only an exceptionally dedicated Corvette enthusiast would want to spend their vacation day this way. But for that buyer, it’s probably a dream come true.
Chevrolet has reportedly stopped taking Z06 orders for the 2023 model year. Those interested in owning a ‘Vette with an engine built in part by their own hands can inquire with dealers about 2024 availability.
