In a video posted on Automotive News, GM’s North American President Mark Reuss responded to several questions posed from dealers, one of whom asked about the rollout strategy limiting allocations of the new 2014 Corvette Stingray to a select group of 900 dealers instead of opening it up for all dealers.

As we’ve discussed here before, dealer allocation of the 2014 Corvette Stingray during the model’s initial rollout was based on sales of 4 or more Corvettes during 2012. The belief is that initial demand will outstrip supply and so Chevrolet wants to get the Corvettes to the dealers who can move them quickly.

But there is some contention from dealers who didn’t meet the goal who worry about having to turn away previous customers.

The question posed to Reuss from a Kansas dealership was along those lines, asking why the automaker won’t accept sold orders for a 2014 Corvette Stingray from dealers who are serving customers in their area of responsibility.

Mark Reuss answered that question with the following:

?Again, we can only make a certain amount of cars in a certain amount of time, and so the first allocations are based on where we have the biggest density of Corvettes. I don’t think that selling four Corvettes in the prior year is a tall order, because we’re gonna take away customers from dealerships that have really performed in Corvette markets. And so that’s the trade-off there. We?d like to make more cars faster earlier but we got to launch this with high quality and that’s our launch cadence and it’s a very good one. We ramp up pretty quick, but I don’t think that’s unfair at all, so? sell four Corvettes and you’re gonna get great allocation.?

At this point, there’s no reason to second-guess the strategy that Chevrolet is using to rollout the C7 Corvette.

Those 900 dealers who qualified accounted for 80% of the Corvettes sold in 2012, so it’s not like a majority of 2014 Corvette Stingray buyers are going to be disappointed that they can’t get the Stingray at their dealership of choice if they want one during the initial 6-9 month rollout.

We understand a lot of dealerships are put out as they can’t get a single allocation until 6-9 months after initial production starts. Corvettes will be heading to Germany and England before they can be ordered by dealerships in small town USA. But it’s hard to ignore the 80/20 sales statistics.

Volume dealers like Kerbeck and Criswell won’t be using the C7 as showroom eye candy to bring in customers. Okay, it’s eye candy, but dealers with allocation will be moving the Stingrays to customers as soon as they come in.

And so it goes until demand stabilizes with supply.

Source:
Automotive News via GM Authority