The 2017 Grand Sport and the Collector Edition
Chevrolet revealed the 2017 Corvette Grand Sport at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2016, and with it a Collector Edition limited to 1,000 cars. Bowling Green built 935 of them between 23 September 2016 and 5 June 2017.
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The Grand Sport name
The name goes back to 1963, when Zora Arkus-Duntov's team built five lightweight Corvette Grand Sport race cars to take on the Shelby Cobras. Chevrolet used it again in 1996 for a run of 1,000 Admiral Blue C4s with a white center stripe and red fender hash marks. The 2017 car was the C7's version: the wide body, suspension and brakes of the Z06 with the naturally aspirated 460-horsepower LT1 V8 of the Stingray.
Geneva, March 2016
Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter revealed the Grand Sport at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show in a livestreamed presentation, and with it the Collector Edition: Watkins Glen Gray, Tension Blue hash marks and interior, and a numbered plaque, limited to 1,000 cars. Chevrolet's announcement is on GM Documents.
The car on the stand wasn't a production Collector Edition. It was a prototype: its dash plaque read "0001/1000", unlike any production plaque, and its sill plates carried a blue Grand Sport script the production cars don't have.
Ordering and building
GM's 2017 order guide listed the Collector Edition as option Z25, for the Grand Sport coupe or convertible with 3LT equipment only. What makes it a Collector Edition.
- 23 September 2016 First cars built (six in September 2016; none in October).
- 22 November 2016 The busiest day: 25 cars.
- 5 June 2017 The last Build Date in GM's records, on two cars. Car 940 was the highest number built.
- 935 built on 106 production days. Numbers 246–250 were scheduled but never built.
Month by month, body by body and market by market: Statistics and Where They Went.