This morning at 8:04 a.m., the last 2013 Corvette came off the line at the Bowling Green Assembly Plant. The celebration was short lived, as less than 30 minutes after the last car was built, workers began remodeling the plant to prepare for the launch of the all-new 2014 Corvette Stingray.
A total of 215,100 sixth-generation "C6" Corvettes were made at Bowling Green Assembly since production began in 2005, the last of which was the exclusive 2013 Corvette 427 Convertible Collector Edition outfitted with the 60th Anniversary design package.
The last C6 Corvette will join other historic General Motors vehicles at the GM Heritage Center in Warren, Mich. Even as the team celebrated building the last C6, Plant Manager Dave Tatman said there has been a great deal of anticipation and excitement toward building the all-new Stingray.
“The last C6 rolls off the line at 8:04 a.m. and I’ll have people in here at 8:30 a.m. to start tearing down and putting in new tools,” Tatman said.
The task will require that 120 workers take just four weeks to turn the Bowling Green plant around, completing a job that usually takes months to accomplish. All employees are slated to return to work on March 25, where they will learn the entirely new process required to build the Stingray.
Bowling Green Assembly, which hosts up to 50,000 visitors a year, is currently closed to the public to facilitate the remodeling of the line. Tatman said he plans to reopen the plant to outside tours as soon as possible, knowing that everyone is excited to see this new generation of Corvette built. However, he says this will not likely happen until Fall.
“As I always say, we don’t build cars, we build dreams,” Tatman said.
Read the complete release and see more photos on our blog here.