Used C8 Corvettes Are Still $55,000 Cars Because Chevrolet Made Them Too Good, I Guess

When Chevrolet first revealed the C8 Corvette in 2019, it was a revelation. It offered a 495-horsepower V8 wedged behind the motive force, making it the primary mid-engine Corvette if you happen to aren’t one among those, “Well, actually, it’s technically been mid-engine for some time,” nerds. Even higher, for a short while, it also carried a sub-$60,000 base price, making it far cheaper than a number of people expected. Nowadays it starts at somewhat over $70,000, which still is not bad in any respect, and you may probably pick up a high-mileage used version for like half that (or possibly less), right? Improper.

Because it seems, if you offer a mid-engine sports automotive with a near-500-hp V8 for much lower than any of the alternatives to begin with, used versions hold their value way too well. That is also a direct attack on those of us who depend upon massive depreciation to make otherwise-unaffordable performance cars attainable for us. In fact, loads of those self same people will loudly insist they’d never buy a C8 because they can not get it with a manual transmission, but come on. Don’t pretend you do not still wish you might get an inexpensive C8. That is the way you help justify the (most certainly absurd) cost of a manual swap.

Before Covid hit during Trump’s first term, it was pretty common for five-year-old used cars to only be value a couple of third of their original price, while more desirable cars might retain as much as half their value. And yet, if you happen to need a used C8 with a clean title, $55,000 or so is about as low-cost because it gets for now.

Now, it’s entirely possible you might have the ability to search out a sub-$50,000 C8 Corvette in your local Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, but the most cost effective one I used to be capable of find is a 2020 Corvette Stingray 2LT in Albuquerque, Recent Mexico. It has 76,548 miles on it, and it’s listed for $54,950. There’s also a red 2021 Corvette Stingray 3LT in Miami for $54,990 and a blue 1LT at that very same dealership for $55,990, although the 6,265 miles that the listing claims is unquestionably incorrect. 

For those who prefer something somewhat easier to search out within the car parking zone, you might at all times head to Hillsdale, Michigan, and pick up this 2022 Corvette Stingray 1LT with the Z51 package and Speed up Yellow Metallic paint. It has 55,733 miles on the odometer and can cost you $55,520. But that will require you to get dangerously near Hillsdale College, and no normal person wants that. 

Heck, even totaled C8 Corvettes are still too expensive. For instance, here’s a blue 2022 Corvette Stingray with 45,415 miles on it for a way more palatable $31,980, nevertheless it has a salvage title, and who even knows how much it could cost to truly fix all of the damage and get it repainted. Odds are, you are higher off going with one among the costlier but not totaled C8s listed above.

In fact, if individuals are still willing to pay those prices, that is what a used C8 is value. Dealers are within the business of selling cars, and Chevrolet built far too lots of these for it to even be possible to collude to maintain prices artificially high like some low-volume hypercar owners allegedly do. Sadly, for the parents who were hoping to select up a five-year-old C8 for $30,000, though, the dream still stays very much out of reach.