Corvette fans are fighting dealer markups with the power of the internet
The 2020 Corvette is drawing massive amounts of interest and some dealerships are looking to profit off of that with markups of up to $30,000 over MSRP, but the Corvette faithful aren't having it.
So, you've been waiting and watching the internet, looking for news of a brand-new performance car, say, for example, the 2020 Chevy Corvette Stingray. You've followed its development and saved your money, and finally it's debuted, and holy crap, you can afford it, just barely. So you head on down to your local dealer to place your order.
This is where things can often take a turn for the worse, because when you get to the dealership and walk up to your dream car for the first time, you look at the window sticker and your heart sinks. The dealer has tacked on its own markup over the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
This happens a lot, and dealers for American car brands are among the worst offenders. This is why a large group of
Corvette
enthusiasts is taking steps to fight back and, somewhat predictably, using the internet to do it, according to a report Sunday by Motor1.
The whole thing started as a thread on CorvetteForums where some users were reporting that they'd encountered dealers asking for massive deposits on orders for the 2020 C8 Corvette, or even worse, they'd ask for markups of as high as $30,000 or more over the $59,995 MSRP.
Forum members started to keep a running list of dealers willing to sell the car as
Chevy
intended -- and other dealers that were attempting to take advantage of the massive amount of interest that the first mid-engine Corvette had sparked.
According to the post, it's more common to find cars being sold at or around MSRP at higher-volume dealers. The cool thing is that this forum thread not only allows buyers to find their vehicles without being preyed upon, but dealers have been chiming in as well, effectively committing to selling the cars at a certain price.
Now, while we've singled out dealers for American cars, they are by no means alone in marking up cars that are in high demand, be they limited production vehicles like Porsche's 911 R or just newly announced cars with cult followings as we're seeing with the Corvette.