GM sawed in half more than 120 new Corvette C8s after tornado in Kentucky

The more than 120 Chevrolet Corvette C8s that General Motors had destroyed after the tornado that hit the Bowling Green plant in Kentucky (USA), were not simply pressed. The sports cars had their chassis numbers removed and the bodies sawn in half, to prevent any attempt at reconstruction. The report is from Brandon Woodley, former disassembler of Stricker Auto Parts, in Batavia (Ohio), in an interview with the American website The Drive published last week.

The tornado hit the GM complex on December 11, 2021, in the same outbreak of storms that devastated cities in Kentucky. The phenomenon caused a fire at the plant, which exclusively produces the Corvette, and the destruction of the roof opened the way for water to enter the cars that were still on the assembly line, with exposed interiors and electronics.

According to Woodley, the sports cars arrived at the yard in stork trucks, as if they were going to a dealership, and most went through the checks of the dismantling itself. He claims not to have seen cars actually destroyed and says that, for the most part, the damage was not serious. Still, for civil liability reasons, they were all dismantled.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Labeled parts and sawed-off

bodies The routine described by the former employee was methodical: the fluids were drained before the car reached his bench, he received a list of the parts that should be removed and separated each assembly with the respective bolts into identified bags. Woodley says that many components returned to GM, including complete transmission assemblies.

All cars were Stingray, as production of the Z06 had not yet started. The naturally aspirated 6.2 V8 of the version yielded 497 hp and 64,3 kgfm in the standard configuration. In the 2022 American table, the entry-level coupe started at US$ 62,195, which puts the lot at around US$ 7,5 million in list price alone.

What GM says about the parts

Contacted by The Drive, the automaker said that the vehicles damaged by the storm were discarded and that no parts of them were used in new cars. The company also pointed out that, despite the damage, the Bowling Green team resumed normal production 11 days later.

The statement, however, refers specifically to the assembly line. Also in 2022, the Carscoops website located ads for C8 parts on eBay published by Stricker Auto Parts itself — including a steering wheel whose dashboard showed zero kilometers on the odometer, and images in which the “X” marked on the windshield of the condemned cars appeared. In other words: the Corvettes were effectively destroyed, but part of their components went to the aftermarket.

The exact number of cars lost has also never been closed. A memo sent to dealerships in December 2021 spoke of 115 Stingrays damaged beyond repair; Woodley estimates about 122. Affected customers had to reorder, which went back to the front of the production queue.