Busted! Bring a Trailer Cancels 2027 Grand Sport Listing After Shill Bidding, Plus Top CorvSport Content In The Corvette Obsessed Newsletter

Our Corvette Obsessed Newsletter delivers a fast, high-impact dose of everything that makes this community so incredible—while highlighting the diverse ways we deliver it to your screen. Since launching in 2012, our team has crafted over 5,900 dedicated Corvette features, yet new enthusiasts still uncover the true scale and depth of our content. Spanning historical deep dives, exhaustive buyer’s resources, and proprietary market analysis you won’t find anywhere else, our expanding encyclopedia addresses nearly every facet of the Corvette lifestyle. Think of this delivery as a digital digest, gathering our newest Corvsport Features into a single destination tailored for owners, collectors, and die-hard fans who always want more.

We are leading off today with a controversial Bring a Trailer auction that has nearly the entire community talking. Next, we will slide right into a few of our fresh hallmark articles that have established CorvSport.com as the ultimate hub for all things Vette. You will find plenty of heritage, high performance, valuation trends, and straight-up Corvette entertainment packed inside. Let’s fire things up and dive in!

What We Have Lined Up For You In Today’s Corvette Obsessed Newsletter:

Busted! Shill Bidding Casts A Shadow Over BaT’s Second Grand Sport Listing
Z06X Possible, C8 Trashed For Clicks, Grand Sport X First Drive
Premium Member-Only Content From Our Eduardo Zepeda
CorvSport’s Insider Series: Free Exclusive Content From Our Resident Retired Dealer
The Corvette Obsessed Newsletter Archive

Our Corvette Obsessed Newsletter is free, and you can enjoy an ad-free experience, get exclusive content, and support CorvSport for only $2.92/month!

The Corvette Obsessed Newsletter: 9/30/2026

1 — Busted! Shill Bidding Casts A Shadow Over BaT’s Second Grand Sport Listing

The story that leads today’s Corvette Obsessed Newsletter is making its way around social media and even into the national spotlight. The CorvSport team first picked up on this cautionary tale of bidding hijinks on one of the dedicated Corvette Facebook pages, and it illuminates what many enthusiasts in the Bring a Trailer comments section echoed—be aware that fake bidders, commonly known as shill bidders, could be driving up the price on your next Corvette. And this isn’t a problem limited to BaT, as eBay and other major online auction sites also work to keep the bidding process as honest as possible.

A Nearly New Corvette Takes An Unexpected Turn

This fresh-out-of-the-wrapper 2027 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport should have made for an intriguing Bring a Trailer auction, as its first C8 Grand Sport listing from 8/28 failed to hammer and stalled at $95,500. With just 29 miles on the odometer and a $109,845 sticker price, this Grand Sport offered an early opportunity to see what Chevrolet’s latest Corvette variant might command on the secondary market. Instead, the auction ended prematurely just days ago after Bring a Trailer discovered that the selling dealer had used another account to bid on its own car.

When The Seller Becomes The Bidder

The practice of shill bidding artificially inflates an auction’s price and has no place in our hobby. Naturally, Bring a Trailer explicitly prohibits sellers from bidding on their own vehicles, and once the platform determined that its rules had been violated, it withdrew the Corvette from the auction. BaT subsequently restricted the seller’s accounts, preventing them from bidding, commenting, or selling on the site. Suddenly, the 29-mile Grand Sport itself became the least controversial part of the listing.

The Bidding History Raised Eyebrows

The bidding shenanigans came to light after members of the Bring a Trailer community began examining the bidding history of a user account called PlaintiffW74. Commenters pointed to what they considered suspicious bidding patterns involving other auctions associated with the seller, with one noting that the account had dozens of previous bids but no wins while repeatedly appearing on auctions connected with the same sellers. Bring a Trailer then reviewed the comments and seller information itself, ultimately stating that the seller had used an alternate account to bid on its own auction. BaT withdrew the listing, saying marketplace integrity mattered more than letting the auction finish, and said it would review the seller’s relationship with other accounts. Importantly, that review should not be confused with confirmation that anything improper occurred in those other auctions.

♦ The full unredacted statement from BaT

$89,000 On The Screen, But No Sale

The bidding history shows PlaintiffW74 placing bids of $78,000 and $86,000 before eventually pushing the displayed price to $89,000. Because the auction was withdrawn, however, there was no legitimate final sale price, making comparisons with the Grand Sport’s original sticker particularly difficult. And it leaves us avid market followers still anxiously awaiting BaT’s first C8 Grand Sport sale.

♦ User Steve138, an important voice and admin in the Facebook world and known as Steve Ensminger, was the first BaT user to alert others of the suspicious bidding activity.

This should have been an interesting test of the market for an essentially new Grand Sport. Instead, the most memorable performance came from the seller’s shady bidding activity. The silver lining? Bring a Trailer deserves credit here. Once they confirmed their rules had been violated, they stepped in and killed the listing nearly immediately—choosing integrity over a quick payday and a fat sales fee.

♦ The Full 2027 Grand Sport Listing

*Additional source for this piece: yahoo!autos

2 — Z06X Possible, C8 Trashed For Clicks, Grand Sport X First Drive

♦ From Eduardo Zepeda: Published 9/22/2026

Chevrolet has confirmed that a hybrid, all-wheel-drive Corvette Z06X is feasible from an engineering standpoint. Corvette executive chief engineer Tony Roma recently said the company could build one, although he stopped short of announcing a program. As GM Authority‘s George Barta pointed out in a recent report, the Z06X name is not new. Chevrolet first used it in 2010, when the badge stood for something quite different.

The 2010 C6 Z06X Track Concept

The original Z06X was a C6-based track car that Chevrolet developed with Pratt & Miller for the 2010 SEMA Show. The build started with a production Z06 and focused on closed-course use. The interior was stripped and fitted with an SCCA-spec roll cage, racing seats, five-point harnesses, and a fire-suppression system. Chassis changes included adjustable coil-over suspension, racing wheels, and upgraded cooling, while a large carbon-fiber rear wing, a polycarbonate rear window, and lightweight components rounded out the package. Power came from the 7.0L LS7 V8, rated at 505 horsepower. The car remained a concept and never reached the order guide…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE Z06X FOR LATER

♦ From Mark Leofe Capayas: Published 9/28/2026

WhistlinDiesel puts the mid-engine Chevrolet C8 Corvette through an unconventional series of durability tests designed to examine whether its construction can withstand treatment more commonly associated with a pickup truck than a $100,000 sports car. The experiment also uses a Chevrolet Silverado as a reference point, with both vehicles subjected to similar challenges to highlight the fundamental differences between a low-slung performance car and a utility-focused truck.

The testing begins with an intentionally chaotic drive that leaves the Corvette exposed to gates, construction obstacles, barricades, a pallet of cans, road debris, and even a fire scene. Despite the abuse, the car remains operational, setting the stage for more structured tests involving acceleration, dyno measurements, and attempts to establish its performance potential. The C8 is also driven through a severe rainstorm with its retractable roof open, effectively turning the convertible into an impromptu wash bay. Even after substantial water exposure, its major systems, including the audio system, continue to function…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE TRASHED FOR LATER

♦ From Mark Leofe Capayas: Published 9/25/2026

The Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport returns for 2027 with a fundamentally different approach to performance. At Atlanta Motorsports Park, Joe Raiti put the new Corvette Grand Sport X through its first drive, examining the car’s new powertrain, all-wheel-drive system, chassis hardware, interior, and pricing. The result is a Corvette that combines traditional small-block V8 character with electrified front-axle traction.

The Grand Sport X is based around the wide-body C8 Corvette architecture, adopting the Z06’s broader stance and adding an electrically driven front axle. Unlike a conventional mechanical all-wheel-drive system, the front wheels are powered by an electric motor, while the rear wheels remain driven by the V8. The system adds approximately 280 pounds to the Corvette, with the convertible weighing around 3,800 pounds…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE GRAND SPORT X FOR LATER

3 — Premium Member-Only Content From Our Eduardo Zepeda

Most of our content is free; however, for $2.92 a month, you can support independent, enthusiast-driven journalism. We aren’t a massive, faceless media corporation, but a lean, independent team of die-hard enthusiasts who live and breathe this hobby right alongside you. By upgrading today, you unlock a premium vault of exclusive articles alongside perks like special merchandise discounts and a completely ad-free experience. Here is a sneak peek at what is waiting for you inside the club right now, but only if you Join The CorvSport Movement!

♦ From Eduardo Zepeda: Published 9/29/2026

Every Corvette generation eventually stops being a used car and starts being a classic, and the C5 crossed that line a while ago. Chevrolet built the fifth-generation Corvette between 1997 and 2004, so the newest examples are now 22 years old and the earliest ones are closing in on 30. Behind the wheel, though, a C5 doesn’t feel like a car from another era. It has an all-aluminum LS V8 and a chassis balanced by a rear-mounted transmission, and it still wears the pop-up headlights that gave the Corvette its face for four decades.

The pricing makes the case even stronger. The average C5 sells for $26,435 as of September 2026. A 1998 coupe carried a base price of $38,995, which means that, before adjusting for inflation, the average C5 now sells for roughly two-thirds of what a base car cost new. That is classic-car status without classic-car money or classic-car compromises.

How the C5 Earned Its Place in Corvette History

The C5 was a clean sheet. It was engineered from the ground up rather than adapted from the C4, and very few of its parts were shared with any earlier Corvette. It also arrived late. GM originally planned to launch it in 1993 for the Corvette’s 40th anniversary, but internal turmoil pushed the debut back to 1997.

Racing sealed its reputation. The factory C5-R gave Chevrolet a proper endurance program again, and it won its class at Le Mans in 2001, 2002 and 2004. Collectors have noticed. CLASSIC.COM currently values the 1998 Indy Pace Car and the 2004 Z06 Commemorative Edition above the broader C5 average, and both benchmarks are trending upward…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE SWEET SPOT FOR LATER

♦ From Eduardo Zepeda: Published 9/18/2026

The fourth generation Corvette (1984-1996) has a reputation problem. Most of us enthusiasts know about the flickering dash displays, the electrical gremlins and how hard it is to find a clean one. All of that is true, but for its time the C4 was one of the most technologically advanced cars out of Detroit, and a lot of that was electronic. Today’s hybrid Corvettes are built on the same idea the C4 made central: let the computers help run the car.

Take the 2027 Grand Sport X, which replaces the E-Ray and pairs the new 6.7-liter LS6 V8 with a 186 hp front electric motor for 721 hp combined, with an electronically controlled eAWD system managing the front motor’s contribution. The groundwork was laid in the early ’80s, and the Grand Sport name has a C4 connection, since the 1996 Grand Sport closed out the fourth generation.

A Computer Arrived Before the C4 Did

To give credit where it’s due, the C3 had a computer before the C4 ever showed up. Emissions regulations were getting tougher by the late ’70s and GM turned to electronic engine management to keep up, so the 1981 Corvette got the Computer Command Control system to manage fuel mixture and spark timing. The 1982 Collector Edition went a step further with Cross-Fire Injection, which used two throttle bodies in place of a carburetor. The issue was that all of this was being added to a car whose design went back to 1968, and by the early ’80s the C3 was showing its age…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE HYBRID FOR LATER

♦ From Eduardo Zepeda: Published 9/04/2026

The 1953 Chevrolet Corvette left Flint with a 150 hp inline-six derived from Chevrolet’s ordinary lineup, a two-speed automatic with no manual anywhere on the order sheet, and plastic side curtains where the roll-up windows should have been. It looked like a sports car and it was assembled from whatever the parts bin could supply. That is close to the exact accusation Corvette owners have leveled at pony cars for sixty years, a shape sold on looks with ordinary hardware underneath.

America’s sports car did not arrive as America’s sports car. It spent a decade becoming one, and the clearest proof of what that decade bought turned up at the Nürburgring in 2026, when the fastest Mustang Ford has ever built finally beat a Corvette by turning itself into something most Mustang buyers would not recognize.

The Car That Almost Died in Its Third Year

The Corvette began as a show car. Harley Earl’s EX-122 appeared at GM’s Motorama at the Waldorf Astoria in January 1953, drew crowds for two weeks, and was approved for production almost immediately. The first 300 cars were hand-assembled in Flint, Michigan, every one of them Polo White with a red interior and a black canvas top.

Underneath, the compromises were severe. The engine was the 3.9 L (235 cu in) Blue Flame overhead-valve six, a development of the Stovebolt six that traced back to 1929. Chevrolet’s engineers worked it over with a higher compression ratio, a more aggressive camshaft, solid lifters, dual valve springs and three Carter Type YH side-draft carburetors feeding an aluminum manifold. All of that yielded 150 hp, a genuine improvement over the sedan version and nowhere near the performance expected from a Jaguar XK120…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE SPORTS CAR FOR LATER

4 — CorvSport’s Insider Series: Free Exclusive Content From Our Resident Retired Dealer

♦ From Douglas Barton: Published 9/25/2026

We hunt down the cheapest clean-title C8 Z06s on the retail market, then our resident retired dealer goes inside the wholesale lanes to uncover what dealers likely paid—giving you an insider’s look at today’s Z06 market, with bonus content you won’t want to miss

When shopping for your next Corvette, have you ever stared at an asking price and wondered, “What did this dealer actually pay for this nice ‘Vette?” If so, welcome to CorvSport’s Insider Series, where curiosities like that aren’t just fair game—they’re exactly why we built this series in the first place. Features like this, and especially our Wholesale Market Reports, are the kind of deep dives that get us fired up because we’re not stopping at the window sticker or dealer asking price. We go behind the curtain to uncover the numbers, context, and potential dealer margins that tell the real market story. Bringing Corvette enthusiasts data you won’t find anywhere else and packaging it into one easy-to-read format is a privilege, and we never take your readership for granted. And our creative Bargain Hunting series has now reached its two-year mark, making it one of our most rewarding perennial favorites—with the complete archive waiting for you below.

Inside The Wholesale World

Driving today’s market analysis is our resident retired dealer, bringing 17 years of dealership experience and the kind of insider knowledge that only comes from spending years on the other side of the transaction. Throughout today’s feature, he’ll weigh in on pricing, presentation, market realities, and whatever else happens to pop into his car-saturated brain. His perspective gives us something a simple listing price never can: context for what these Corvettes are actually doing behind the scenes…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE HUNTING FOR LATER

♦ From Douglas Barton: Published 9/24/2026

Discover the exclusive insider data that thousands of enthusiasts have enjoyed since 2024, with insights only our resident retired dealer with 17 years in the trenches can provide

Covering the wholesale world of America’s Sports Car for 66 episodes and bringing it to you has been a privilege—and we hope you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as we have! What makes these reports different is that you’re not just looking at auction results; you’re getting the perspective of our in-house retired dealer, a veteran with 17 years of experience who understands what happens between the auction lane and the dealer’s front line. He knows what makes a Corvette attractive to a dealer, what can make a unit difficult to retail, and, perhaps most importantly, what the numbers are really telling us before the rest of the market catches on. That dealer-level perspective gives CorvSport a unique window into the wholesale world, where today’s transactions can signal where tomorrow’s used Corvette market may be headed. After all, these are the ‘Vettes dealers are deciding to put their money behind right now—long before many of them ever hit a used-car lot and become the C8 you’re shopping for.

On Our Radar: Today’s Defining Wholesale Storylines

1. Testing Our Curated Top 7 That Have Rocked Five 100% Sell-Through Rates This Year

For today’s insights, we wanted to put the C8 Stingray market to the test—and that meant deliberately searching for examples that could challenge some of the assumptions surrounding today’s market. One of the more fascinating things we’ve noticed while scrolling through hundreds of C8s every month in search of our Curated Top 7 is just how difficult it can be to find higher-mileage eighth-generation Corvettes. Owners simply don’t seem to be putting many miles on these cars, making examples hovering around the 20,000-mile mark surprisingly uncommon. So, this time around, we intentionally went looking for them. Our Top 7 includes a 2022 with 21,501 miles and a 2023 with 20,006 miles, while the mileage spectrum swings all the way down to a 2023 3LT Coupe showing just 987 miles. The standout may be a 2025 1LT Convertible with 15,997 miles, high considering its age. And there’s another twist: four of our seven Corvettes are 2023 models, giving us an extra dose of insight into what that particular model year is doing when dealers get the chance to raise their hands…

CONTINUE READING or SAVE C8 TEST FOR LATER

♦ From Douglas Barton: Published 9/10/2026

Join our in-house retired dealer as Episode 65 of CorvSport’s Insider Series delivers exclusive data from the dealer-only Corvette lanes—this is a can’t-miss, action-packed installment that continues to defy the crashing narrative!

There is a moment in every Corvette’s journey when the shiny showroom story ends, and the hard reality of the market begins—and for 65 episodes, CorvSport has been standing right there to watch it happen. Our resident retired dealer, with 17 years spent on the other side of the wholesale curtain, knows exactly what happens when the hammer falls, which is why his insights after every Corvette have become such an important part of this series. These aren’t simply auction cars changing hands; they are early market signals. The wholesale number established today can help determine where a Corvette’s used-retail pricing lands tomorrow, often well before that car ever reaches a dealer’s used lot. That makes Episode 65 more than a snapshot of what sold in Dallas—it is another glimpse behind the curtain at where Corvette values may be headed next.

The Top 5 Wholesale Storylines We’re Following Today

1. A Curated Top 7 That Is Nearly Too Clean To Believe

Every once in a while, the auction gods hand us a lineup that makes you look twice—and today’s Curated Top 7 is one of those rare occasions. All seven Corvettes earned a perfect 5.0/5.0 condition report, and not one carries an accident on its record. That’s a first for our curated spotlight and a pretty remarkable foundation for this week’s collection. Better yet, the variety is outstanding, stretching from C8 Stingrays to Z06s, with a C8 Grand Sport and a ZR1 adding some serious spice to the mix. In other words, this isn’t seven versions of the same Corvette story; it is a cross-section of the modern Corvette market, all arriving in unusually clean condition…