The Corvette sales numbers for October are in. As of the first of November, 2023, there was a total of 118 Corvettes being advertised on Carsales.com, at a total advertised price of $16,687,339.
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Thanks to Corvettes numbers man, Peter Graham, we are able to provide you with a summary of all the Corvettes advertised for sale on the premier Australian automotive sales site, CARSALES.COM. While not all cars are advertised on this site, most of them do find their way here. So, although we will obviously miss a few, the numbers and averages, etc, should generally give a very good indication of what is going on in the market.
We also make the assumption that if a car disappears off the Carsales listing, it has been sold, and sold at the listed price. Again, this will not always be accurate, but it will give a good general indication of how the market is behaving.
Corvettes Australia plans to report each month on these numbers so we can spot any trends; either for a particular Generation of Corvette or for the whole Corvette used car market.
While the total cost of what it would cost you to buy all the cars and the size of the “chook shed” you would need to house them all may not be applicable to everyone, Peter is sure this must be of vital information to someone !! Possibly more important is the value of the first prize in Powerball, which would certainly help with buying all the cars and building that super-sized chook shed.
As has been the case for some time, C8 Corvettes dominated the Corvettes being advertised. The number of C8s advertised was 34, comprising some 29% of all Corvettes advertised. Advertisements for C3 Corvettes numbered 31, not that far behind the C8 at 26% of the advertised cars. In fact C3s and C8s comprise 55% of all Corvettes for sale in Carsales. Second place is normal for the C3, which is a popular Corvette in Australia with a decent balance between the relatively affordable cost of buying a car of this generation and the general acceptance of this model as embodying the stereotypical Corvette appearance.
The next highest number of Corvettes for sale belongs to the fourth generation, or C4 Corvette. This is not surprising when you look at the Corvette production numbers per generation. The C3 production numbers totalled 542,861 (by far the highest) followed by the C4 at 358,090. Although the C3 is more prolific than the C4, it really is its appearance that makes the C3 more popular than the C4. C3 has always been judged as more desirable than the C4 and, in general, the C3 will sell for more than a C4 of equal quality. There were 23 C4s advertised on Carsales at the end of October, representing 19.5% of the Corvettes for sale.
Over the last few months, the C6 has been the least advertised Corvette, followed by the C1. After these comes the C7, followed by the C5 and C2. The number of C5s advertised has been rising recently with the first year of this generation (1997) now passing 25 years in age, meaning the cars can be imported and have become eligible for club permits in LHD configuration. This massively reduces the price of owning a C5 in Australia because they no longer require a RHD conversion. The current cost of a decent C5 in the US is less than the price you would pay for a C5 conversion.
When it comes to the value of Corvettes of each generation currently advertised, the C8 represents more than half the total value. Over October, C8s accounted for 53% of the total value of advertised Corvettes. The C2s and C3s each contributed around 14% of the total advertised value, but for different reasons. The high average price for the C2s ($192k) made the total value high, even though only 12 were advertised, while the sheer number of C3s (31) made their combined value high, with the average price only $72k.
No C1s were removed from Carsales in October, with only 2 cars advertised. Two C6s disappeared from the listings during October with only 1 remaining advertised. Although only a small number of C7s have appeared over the past few months, several have been sold, including one in October.
The C8 situation remains interesting. Over 50 C8s have been removed from Carsales over the past 3 months (presumably sold), while the number advertised remains high. There are 34 C8s advertised as of 1st November, down from the 39 advertised last month, but higher than July when 32 were advertised.
What is really interesting is that of the total 499 C8s sold new in Australia by GMSV, 199 have been either sold or listed on Carsales. Presumably there have been other sales (I personally know of a few) that have happened outside Carsales. This means some 40% of all C8s sold new in Australia have been up for resale!
In January there were 15 C8s advertised, today there are 37. There has also been another unique occurrence – for the first time a C8 has been advertised below $200,000 (excluding Government Charges). The average asking price is also falling, now down to $259k from $307k in January.
Has the bubble burst?