The Bowling Green, Ky., plant that builds the Chevrolet Corvette and Cadillac XLR will be shutting down for a week in October and laying off some workers to reduce inventory.

This is the first time the plant has closed due to slow sales in more than a decade. The Corvette has typically sold well, even through recessions. But its sales are down for this year by 8.5 percent, and early last month inventory stood at a bloated 145-day supply. Sales rebounded enormously in August, but largely because GM took the rare step of including the Corvette –even the Z06- in its incentives program. GM does not want to make a habit of discounting its most iconic vehicle, so it is cutting production instead.

The slowdown is relatively minor, so don’t look for GM to try and sell the car as Chrysler is doing with the Viper. However, GM product chief Bob Lutz did express concern earlier this month that low production, high performance vehicles like the Corvette might suffer under the new, tighter fuel economy regulations.

It's a sad day, when we have to worry about our beloved Vette, even if it does get better MPG than most compact cars.

That didn't seem to stop the dealerships from auctioning off the new ZR1 in the Houston area, with bidding starting at $30,000 OVER  the MSRP.  What a rip off.  Even other dealership held auctions for these cars.  I wonder if you can get them now?

I for one, will TRY to do my besdt to buy a Corvette, to help the economy!  Everyone must do their best! 

When the bubble popped this time, it went all the way. Everything seems to be involved. For the first time in my life I have seen ads pushing Corvettes as a economy car with good mileage. Yes, my two Corvettes, a 07C-6Roaster & 04C5Z06 do well on the highway, but I never thought of them as a "economy car". With the selling price at $10,000.oo off MSRP as it is these days with the GM employee pricing, Corvettes have never been cheaaper to buy. The Corvette is and will be the only American Sports Car

I guess the temporary prodution shutdown is to be expected. I was surprised to see 2009 Z06s on the lot, much less heavily discounted. I had presumed that the ZR1 was going to replace the Z06, or I might have waited to buy one. Except for the 90+ temperatures, I enoyed "exercising" my Z06 at VIR this past weekend. Only one car in my run group was marginally quicker (a C6 coupe with a Lingenfelter supercharger and R-compound tires). Long live the 505 hp economy car; I have gotten ~ 29 mpg on the highway !

GM told the dealers if they want a new ZR1 they have to take 6 Z0-6s. the Z0-6 is a hard sell with the new ZR1 coming out and most buyers don't think they are worth the difference in price over the standard corvette. same thing happened to the original ZR-1