With GM facing well-publicized challenges — along with just about everyone else who needs a little thing called money — certain high-profile and expensive programs are crowding up on the back burner. Even America’s sports car, the Corvette, is not exempt, with CAFE regulations clouding the view inside the ‘Vette Nation’s crystal ball.

Motor Trend, commenting on the C7 Corvette’s delayed arrival, has said that the new coupe won’t appear until the 2014 model year at the earliest. The mid-engined route has also been scrapped, since it would simply cost too much to re-engineer the entire car for the purpose of easier integration of fuel saving tech like cylinder deactivation.

That means a six-cylinder is still being talked about — by GM outsiders only, at this point — as an option for the C7. If we take the Camaro as an example, that 2014 introduction date could mean late 2012, but that still only gives you four years to mentally prepare for a budget- and economy-minded V6 Corvette. Get cracking.

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If you were planning on heading down to your local Chevy dealership and placing an order for a new Corvette ZR1, think again. The new super-Vette is the fastest ever made, yet despite its $105k price tag, there’ll be a lot of eager customers lining up. But General Motors will only allow certain Chevrolet dealerships to sell the supercar.

Cauley Chevrolet, for example, sells 150 Corvettes a year, and claims it has 60-70 eager customers waiting for the ZR1, but GM will only be allocating four vehicles for the West Bloomfield, Michigan, dealership to sell. Fitchner Chevrolet in Laurel, Montana, sells 35-40 Corvettes a year, but won’t be allocated any of the new ZR1s. Out of nearly 4,000 Chevy dealerships in the United States, only 338 will have the chance to sell the ZR1. GM has not released final production numbers for the uber-Vette, but if you want to get your hands on one, you might have to do some hunting.

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Chevrolet Corvette

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