Chevy Dealer Damages New Corvette Z06: Mid-Engine Sports Car Falls Off Lift

Flanked by a previous-generation Tahoe PPV and a civilian-spec Tahoe, the Torch Red Z06 fell off a lift. According to Jason Grubb, who uploaded the surveillance video on YouTube, one of the lift's arms wasn't positioned correctly. The $100,000-plus convertible fell off with the passenger-side rear wheel first. As it fell to the ground, the right rear lift arm sliced through the passenger's door like butter.

From the looks of it, said lift arm also scratched the passenger door and passenger-side front fender. From the fall, it's also certain that the dealership will also have to replace the rear bumper of the red Z06.

Should we call this a rookie mistake? Well, it certainly is a rookie mistake to misidentify the correct jack points of the C8. Contrary to popular belief, owners who install jacking pucks don't install said pucks to protect the fiberglass from any damage. Those pucks are designed to identify the jack points correctly, which is utmost important when working on cars with more weight hanging over the rear axle.

As a brief refresher, the C8-generation Stingray is rated at 39.4 percent up front and 60.6 percent out back. With the C8-gen Z06 being that little bit heavier than the Stingray, there's more weight hanging over the rear axle, which is why techs need to be extra attentive when positioning the lift arms.

The Chevy dealer's name wasn't made public, and the Z06's trim level and MSRP aren't known either. Most likely to be totaled by insurance due to undercarriage damage, the flat-plane crankshaft V8-engined Z06 is – after all – just a car. A 'Vette can be replaced with money, but a broken bone or worse? Not so much…

Introduced for the 2023 model year, the C8-gen Z06 originally retailed at $105,000 (sans the $1,395 destination freight charge and $2,600 or $3,000 gas-guzzler tax). At press time, the 1LZ carries a base price of $108,100 as a coupe. For the convertible, prepare to pony up at least $115,100 for the 1LZ. Emphasis on at least because dealers continue to tack on markups due to sky-high demand. Oh, and let's not forget those dealerships who charge a helluva lot of moolah for filling the car's tires with nitrogen. Considering that nitrogen makes up roughly 78 percent of the air we breathe in, that's a big rip-off.

Come 2024 for the 2025 model year, the C8 will go through a mid-cycle refresh. The wall of buttons will reportedly be dropped, and the 2025 model year is also expected to welcome a new 'Vette to the lineup. That 'Vette being the ZR1, which is pretty much a Z06 with two turbochargers for good measure, thus morphing the naturally-aspirated LT6 into the twin-turbocharged LT7.