Edge Red Constraint Means that Chevy Will Use Bright Red Calipers on the 70th Anniversary Packages

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Photo Credit: Keith Cornett

Thanks to our friend Rick Conti for finally confirming how Chevrolet is going to handle building the 70th Anniversary Packages with the Edge Red brake calipers and Edge Red LT2 engine cover being on constraint.

As we’ve been discussing for the last few weeks, Edge Red paint has been on constraint due to the vendor having an explosion and fire at their Illinois plant back in July. The proprietary color is trademarked, so it’s not like Chevy can simply shift production to another plant.

Chevrolet sent a dealer memo out today with the constraints for next week’s order cycle, and we saw that the 70th Anniversary Package is available without constraint. However, there was no mention to any of the changes to the 70th Anniversary package, which we think is odd but also par for the course in how Chevy communicates to its dealers these days. Rick must have thought the same as he went into the GM order system and was able to confirm that Chevrolet will be swapping out the Edge Red Brake Calipers for the Bright Red Calipers to keep production of the special edition on track.

As for the Edge Red engine covers, Chevy did put those on constraint for the non-70th Anniversary builds, so perhaps they were able to reclaim a sizeable number of Edge Red Covers from their parts dealers to alleviate the supply issue in the short term.

Chevrolet has already built around 650 70th Anniversary Editions for the 2023 model year. The models are available in two different colors, White Pearl Metallic or Carbon Flash Metallic, and they have special badges, red-striped 20-spoke wheels, and now Bright Red calipers. As a true special edition, they come with their own unique VINs.

70th Anniversary Package in Carbon Flash Metallic

There have been many times during the Corvette’s 70 years where production or supply issues have forced changes on the fly or canceled out a special edition altogether. My 1966 Corvette is considered a “late build” as it received the ’67 style of seat belt release buttons more than those with an earlier VIN. We can imagine 20 years from someone looking through the Corvette Black Book about their 70th Anniversary Corvettes and will be greeted with an *.

In the grand scheme of things, switching the caliper colors isn’t that big of a deal, especially if it keeps the package available for production. But Chevy should at least communicate that change with the dealers so that they in turn can let their customers know in advance of their build commencing.

Source:

Rick Corvette Conti