Depreciation Is Hitting C8 Corvettes Harder Than C7s

2020 Chevrolet Corvette StingrayImage: Chevrolet

The luster of the Chevrolet Corvette C8 is finally wearing off. Over four years after production started, Chevy’s mid-engine sports car seems to be depreciating faster than the generation it replaced.

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Data from Hagerty shows that the depreciation gap between the C7 and C8 Corvettes is shrinking. When the C8 first hit the market, dealers and flippers went wild with prices, and people actually paid them. Because of that, C8 prices were over 80 percent higher than the C7. Today, things have changed. A number of factors including more supply, newer and more powerful models, and enough of them being on the used market have closed the gap, as Hagerty pointed out.

More recently, though, there has been a shift for both cars. Supply for the mass-produced base C8 has caught up. New C8s are slower to sell, and the model has been out for long enough that there are C8s at used dealers as well. The initial buzz of the car has worn off, too, and while the C8 Stingray was initially the only model available in 2020, now there are the newer and more exciting Z06, E-Ray, and upcoming ZR1, further taking some of the heat off the base car. Prices have ticked down accordingly. No more pandemic markups.

Screenshot: Hagerty

Because of this, the average price of C8s has closed to just 48 percent higher than the average for the C7 — $72,090 to $49,180. And that gap could eventually flip. As Hagerty pointed out, the C7 is the last “true” Corvette in the sense that it has a front-engine rear-wheel-drive layout. The C7 was also the last Corvette available with a manual. If anyone is in the market for a newer Corvette, the C7 is the better buy right now.