Corvette Production: How Many?

As the publisher of the Corvette Story, I'll sometimes get questions which go along the lines of "I have a 19XX Corvette, XX color, XX engine and XX options. How many of this sort of Corvette were made?"

Along those lines, I recently got the following inquiry:

Message: I have a 1966 Convertible, it's a 427/425 hp, 4 spd. Triple black, how many was produced like this? It was born on Feb 2nd, 1966. I'm doing a frame off restoration. The car was bought brand new in Atlanta, and lived it's whole life there unit I bought it a few yrs ago and brought it to AL. Thanks in advance for your input!!!

Randy:

The answer is: We don’t know, at least not with any certainty.

Allow me to explain. We know that 17,762 Corvette convertibles were produced in 1966. We also know that 24,755 four speed transmissions were sold in 1966, including close ratio and heavy duty units. 5,258 Corvettes came with the 427 cu in / 425 hp L72 engine. Topping off the quantity list is 1,190 1966 Corvettes were Tuxedo Black.

So let’s so some extrapolation here, a common technique when it comes to these situations.

Looking at the total number of 1966 Corvettes sold (27,720) and number of four speed transmissions in 1966 (24,755) we can calculate that 89.30% of 1966 Corvettes were three pedal equipped. So far, we are good.

People will then proceed to figure that therefore 4,681 L72 engined 1966 Corvettes with four speed transmissions were produced - 5,258 x 89.03% = 4,681.

The problem here is that we are assuming that L72 engined Corvettes came with four speeds at the same rate as all other Corvettes (89.03%), both big and small block. And we simply do not know that.

There are some out there who will say that no big block C2 Corvette came with the two speed powerglide automatic transmission, but I can tell you that isn’t true because I’ve seen them. However my own observations are that the vast majority - I believe well over the 89.03% figure, of the L72s were four speeds. Exactly how many, it is impossible to know.

To carry the extrapolation process further, we can take the production quantity percentage of Tuxedo Black Corvettes (4.29%, quantity 1,190) and multiply that times 4,681 - the number of L72 four speed convertible Corvettes we figured earlier and come up with the figure of 201as the number of 1966 four speed L72 Tuxedo Black convertible Corvettes produced.

Here is where we run into the problem. It could be that all L72 four speed 1966 Corvette convertibs are Tuxedo Black, but that is obviously not true. We also could say that just one black L72 four speed 1966 Corvette exists (yours?) but I seriously doubt that. The exact figure is impossible to determine with the available data.

This doesn’t stop people from claiming that, in the case of your example, their Corvette is one of 201.

If this were my Corvette, I would be comfortable saying that an extrapolation estimate puts it as one of 201. And if space allowed, I would include the numbers.

A big problem is that we do not have reliable production figures for 1954 through mid 1981 Corvettes, which were produced at the St. Louis MO facility. According to the Corvette Museum web site, all those records were destroyed in a fire. It is worth noting that some out there have questioned this position.

The numbers we do have, found in my Corvette Story web site and the Corvette Black Book, are there because editors at the Corvette fan magazines back in the day would call the plant manager at the end of a production run and he would pass along what he knew based on his notes. This is why, for example, we do not have any color production quantities for the 1969 Corvette. There are other gaps.

Considering the dizzying array of options available throughout the years, almost every Corvette can be said to be rare - depending also on your defintion of "rare". Along that same point, just because a Corvette is rare does not make it valuable. If the options or exterior / interior color combination is rare because it is unpopular for example, its value in the marketplace would be diminished.

Regards,

Paul Pollock
WebCars! / Corvette Story Webmaster
http://web-cars.com
http://corvettestory.com

I also had the following exchange with a C7 owner:

2016 Corvette Arctic White Twilight Blue Design Package

First Name: Tony
Message: How many white 2016 z51 convertibles with blue twilight package were built?

Thanks!

Tony:

The absolute correct answer, unfortunately, is we don’t know.

Let me explain.

See the attached pdf. We know that 5,027 Corvette convertibles were built for 2016. We also know that 152 of those convertibles came with the Twilight Blue Design Package. And we know that 1,134 Stingray convertibles were Arctic White. We also know that 2,322 of the 2016 convertibles were Z51 equipped.

Lets focus on the 152 convertibles with the Twilight Blue Design Package. Since the package was available in Shark Gray, Blade Silver, Arctic White or Night Race Blue it is doubtful that all 152 were Arctic White. It is also doubtful that no Twilight Blue Design Package 2016 convertible Corvettes came in Arctic White as I’ve seen at least one. The problem is we do not know how many are Arctic White. The same is true regarding the Z51 performance option.

Simply put, GM does not break down those kind of statistics. While it might be possible if GM were to release the database files for the 2016 Corvette production, they have not done this. Possible reasons include legal issues as privacy laws come into play and that there is no business oriented reason for them to do so.

What you’ll see done sometimes is a process called “extrapolation”. In this case, the statistics of 5,027 2016 convertibles and 2,322 Z51 convertibles tells us that 46% of convertibles are Z51 equipped. If we extrapolate, we can multiply 46% x 152 = 70 (approximately) and get a figure for the number of convertible Z51 Twilight Blue Design Packages for 2016. That doesn’t include the Arctic White number, and, as pointed out above, it cannot be relied on as absolutely accurate.

Regards,

Paul Pollock
WebCars! / Corvette Story Webmaster
http://web-cars.com
http://corvettestory.com

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