Vetteman Jack

The color name is OK by me. Any way you call it, the color is very good on the C8. Enjoy your car when it comes in - it should give you a lot of smiles per mile when you get it.

Ragtop 99

Call your sales rep at MacMulkin. Ask them to let you know when they are delivering a C8 in that color so you can go see it. They probably get several cars a week, so you'll be able to see it and any other color you want well before you have to commit to your order.

AORoads

Good idea! ^^^

BADBIRDCAGE

It’s a colorless color that can’t make up its mind what color it might want to be.

JTBogus

Semper Fi Marine & thank you for your service. Welcome to the Forum. Take your questions and concerns to the good people at MacMulkin & they will get you the correct answers. They will probably have the CMG and probably all the other colors at the showroom over a period of time.

/Bear/

Thanks for the feedback everyone and for the warm welcome!

I'm hoping my order gets placed with allocation soon, but as has been noted, I still have time to change my build specifications. Even though I thought I knew for sure what I wanted when I placed the order, as I've learned more about C8s (mostly from this forum), some of my preferences have evolved.

I've looked at all of the exterior colors, and I like all of them, but I don't think all of them are right for me at this time in my life. While reflecting on this, I realized that I was being guided by my past. Maybe you've had the experience when you were a child of seeing the very first girl that was so beautiful you just couldn't take your eyes off her, and then you found that it was that type of woman you were most attracted to for the rest of your life. That's been the case for me, at least, and I guess it applies to cars too!

I posted a bit about the first two cars I owned earlier in the thread (one is in my avatar). Neither were white or light gray, but my very first sports car was. I also test drove a Corvette around the same time because the Gunnery Sergeant I worked for wanted to sell it to me, and that car was bright white, but I wasn't really in the market for a car at the time. I actually have a photo of that car, and I looked at it to refresh my memory about its color, but the photo was taken at night near a street light. I couldn't tell for sure if it was pure white, but my informal research has told me that the first Ceramic Matric Gray Metallic Corvettes were C7s produced in 2018, so if that's correct it couldn't have been that. I think one of the reasons I like CMGM so much is because of those past memories with white/light gray cars. Psychologically, maybe it's a way of holding on to my youth.

Besides being hard to describe and constantly changing in different lighting conditions, which I find intriguing, I'm also hoping that my CMGM Vette will mask dirt better than some of the other colors so I won't have to wash it as often. I do plan on keeping the paint clean and shiny, but life inevitably gets in the way, and I think I'll appreciate that color being a little more forgiving than most.

I've also had a couple of friends with Stingrays throughout the years. One of them is a long-lost Marine buddy. He was honorably discharged a year before me, and we lost track of each other, which is a shame because he was a really fun guy. He was smart too, so I'm sure he went on to do interesting things with his life. It occurred to me that he could be on this forum! Who knows? Stranger things have happened. For privacy reasons, I don't think I should post his full name, but if you're here or anybody here knows of a Marine who was stationed in California whose name is Billy R______n (originally from Pennsylvania), please PM me!

This is my first attempt to post a picture on this forum, so hopefully it works. Here's a photo of Billy with his Stingray and also a bonus photo of my first sports car (and a friend):

AORoads

Well written above. I think most would agree that a light gray will hide dirt best. Whether this gray is just dark enough and not too light, I don't know for sure. Owners of ceramic matrix gray can comment. But having any gray in it will help for the lighter colored stuff that always gets on cars. I still think Ragtop's idea is good if only that it shows you the color on the car itself (even if it's not YOUR car!). Good luck.

paulrom

When I went to pick it up, it looks white. Only really looks gray when next to a white car.

LowcountryVette

I’ve never seen cmg in person, but funny enough ford has a similar color on the mustangs that I think they call oxford white. There’s a gt350 I see every day in that color and it looks great. Regardless of whether you call it white or gray I think you’ll be happy

/Bear/

It's been four days since I joined this forum, and now the question I asked in the original post seems kind of stupid, even though I could still run into the issue I outlined in a later post. Ceramic Matrix is not a color. Gray is a color, but even though I don't precisely know what the people at GM mean by "Ceramic Matrix," I see clearly now that they didn't make a naming mistake.

Many of you guys provided helpful posts, and I think I'm going to be happy in this little corner of the Internet, which I assume is a fairly accurate reflection of what it's like to be in the Corvette family... a family I'm looking forward to officially joining soon (hopefully, next year when I get my new car)!

I now think of the color gray as being on a sliding scale. At one end is pure white, and on the other is pure black. Any mix of the two--even just one drop of white in a gallon of black paint--can technically be considered gray even though you wouldn't be able to see it. Obviously that's an exaggeration to make a point, and it's basically just me restating something that was posted before:
Mitch obviously knows more about colors that I do, but if I'm meeting friends at a restaurant and they ask what color car I'll be arriving in, I'll probably just say "white" and explain later (or not). Anyway, it's unlikely that I'll need to specify a color if I'm pulling into the parking lot in a C8.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I'm looking for my old friend, Billy, but I realized that probably 99% of the members here will never see that paragraph, so I decided to add a signature block to my posts for greater visibility and increased chance of finding him, but it doesn't seem to be working yet.

ETA ("Edited To Add"... not sure if that terminology is used here): Zymurgy helped me fix my signature in the post below.

Zymurgy

@/Bear/

To include your signature in a post you have to click "Go Advanced" in the Quick Reply and then scroll down to "Additional Options section. Click the "Show your signature" check box. When you have completed your post, hit the "Submit Reply". Your signature will be included with that post.

StrayDog

Welcome new member , I joined 20 years ago .........

Semper Fi , .

themonk

The answer is 7.....yes, purple.

/Bear/

Thank you so much, Zymurgy!

/Bear/

Thank you, Devil Dog! Semper Fi.

/Bear/

Are you thinking, "Chapter 2? I didn't know there would be a Chapter 2!" Well, I didn't plan it that way. After all, there is no Chapter 1, but I figured there's no sense in starting a new thread to discuss interior colors if I've already got this one going, and it's definitely a "first-world problem" which is appropriate for the thread title (which I don't seem to be able to edit, by the way).

I did edit the original post, though, to state that I plan to keep this thread going to serve as a record of my journey to becoming a Corvette owner for the first time! I'll outline my thinking process on choosing the build specs, questions that I have (even stupid ones), and anything else that comes up along the way. I look forward to reading answers and comments from forum members.

This post may be a bit controversial. I'm not sure, but I guess we'll see. I'm interested in the opinions of people who are more experienced with Corvettes than I, and hopefully whatever you write will help lots of people, not just me.

OK, let's get to the main topic. Assuming I get Ceramic Matrix Gray Metallic and Bright Red-painted calipers--which was the initial plan--I was going to go for the Tension/Twilight Blue Dipped interior. Since I'm patriotic, the idea was to have a red, white, and blue car! In fact, even though I believe the 2LT interior is the best value, I was willing to pay $4650 more for 3LT (over the cost of 2LT) because that's the only way to get a blue interior.

But then I learned about the 3LT dash issues that Corvettes have had in the past (leather shrinking and bubbling up and/or pulling away from the air vents, etc.)... I know, I know... from what I can tell, it only happened to a small percentage of cars, but that's hard to quantify. I don't think there's an accurate source for how many cars have been affected, and probably no C8 Corvettes have been--yet. It remains to be seen if they will be.

But I do know myself, and based upon the issues I've read about, I'd probably worry about it. I'd rather have the broken valve spring problem that some people experienced recently because once you make it past 500 miles, you know you're probably in the clear. If one breaks, you get stranded on the side of the road once, get towed, and then they likely replace all 16 valve springs. After that initial inconvenience, you never have to think about it again (but that shouldn't even be an issue in the future because hopefully they've found the source of the problem valve springs).

On the other hand, the dash issue would likely manifest itself only after a few years, possibly after the car is out of warranty. I could buy an extended warranty (which on most products seems to just be expensive insurance and is usually not worth it), but even that would not protect me because the dash is considered a wear item and is excluded from the warranty. That leaves me asking the Service Manager at the dealership to negotiate with GM to help me pay for an approximately $3000 dash replacement. Even if I got financial help to replace the defective dash, now there's a risk of introducing squeaks into my driving experience because the dash never goes back together like it was assembled at the factory.

I've read that you can try treating the leather on a 3LT dash with products to keep it from shrinking, but that's extra work you have to remember to do regularly, and it still may not prevent problems. You can also use a sun shade every time you park the car outside, but that takes away from the look and enjoyment of the car. At least it would for me, and when you're not using the sun shade, it's taking up precious cargo space. Some people use custom-made dashmats, but the ones I've seen look much worse than a 2LT interior (which actually is pretty nice), and I'm not convinced they solve the problem either.

From what I've read, because of the material used, 1LT and 2LT interiors don't have this shrinking problem, and I'm not sure I've ever had real leather in a car anyway (possibly in the Fiat convertible pictured in Post #46 above). I know I've never had suede, so I wouldn't miss either. I'd rather have a lesser quality of leather that stays in place and is easy to clean even if it isn't as fancy. I'm buying this car to look sporty and go fast, not to have the most luxurious interior available.

So now I'm thinking that if I give up on the idea of 3LT and get 2LT, I'll still have all of the high-tech goodies, but I won't have to worry about the dash, and the car may even get placed with allocation sooner because I'm not asking for the Tension/Twilight Blue Dipped interior, which I've read (probably somewhere here) only accounts for about 4% of orders. Not only that, since the level of orders are so low, it stands to reason that if I ever decide to sell the car it would be easier to do so if it has something other than the blue interior because that doesn't appear to be most people's first choice.

Again, I'm aware that the 3LT dash problem is likely a low-probability issue (based upon what I've read about past Corvette models), but I plan to keep this car for the rest of my life, and I just don't want to have to think about it. YMMV

For the critical thinkers who picked up on the fact that I wrote about keeping this car for the rest of my life and also that I'm considering resale value in my purchase decision, you got me! Psychology is interesting, and I think sometimes people play games with themselves to justify decisions. Maybe that's what I'm doing here, but if I ever do decide to sell the C8 I'm now in the process of buying it would likely be because of a financial emergency, or my family would be dealing with it after my death. In either case, ease of selling it for the most money possible would be a blessing.

So what all this boils down to is that I can still satisfy my desire to have a patriotic Red-White-Blue car by getting a red interior (like my first sports car) because my NH veteran's plates have blue lettering, so at least there will be some blue clearly visible. I'll still pay $1500 for GT2 seats, and I'll get a worry-free interior I'm happy with, possibly get my car sooner, with better resale value... all of that, and I'll also save more than $3000!

I haven't decided for sure about the red interior, though, because I like some of the other options (maybe two-tone seats?). Also, I think I have a better way (for me) to spend at least part of the $3000 I'll be saving on the interior, but I'll have to address that in a future post.

BigBoyRon

I lost interest after the first 5 paragraphs.

JerryU

For OP: Many folks are reading posts on their Cell Phone. Some are used to 280 character max communication.

You took 4 paragraphs to get to your "Main Topic" as you note!

Suggest you start with your main point and if you wish to include an Epilogue, Postscript, Details etc. Put in a heading after your question or main point and proceed. Know most will not read, but some will!

C82LT

I’ve seen CMG in person on several C7s and they all look more grey to me. Almost like a light grey primer with metallic flake/pearl in it.

Zymurgy

I can edit your thread title for you. Send me a PM with the new title (it can't be another chapter of your book - keep it short). LOL.