When production at Bowling Green’s General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant resumed this month after a 13-week hiatus, speculation about the product that would roll off the retooled assembly lines was fast and furious.

Not as fast, though, as the 2019 ZR1 model expected to start being produced early next year.

Corvette Plant Manager Kai Spande said earlier this year that GM has invested nearly $900 million in the plant, including $500 million for a new paint shop. Big numbers, but sports car enthusiasts are more impressed with the statistics leaking out about the ZR1.

Expected to be unveiled at this week’s Los Angeles Auto Show, the ZR1 will feature a supercharged engine capable of generating 755 horsepower and lightweight metals and improved aerodynamics that will allow the car to push the speedometer past 210 mph.

“I’ve never driven a Corvette like this before, and nobody else has either, because there’s never been one like this before,” GM Executive Vice President for Global Product Development Mark Reuss said in a news release.

Spande, in a recent interview with Lexington Community Radio, said a batch of pre-production ZR1s was sent to Michigan for testing before the unveiling. Retail production of the supercharged sports car will start after the 2019 model year changeover scheduled for Jan. 29, 2018.

For now, the plant is producing the last of its 2018 models. Due largely to the extended plant shutdown, only 9,700 2018 Corvettes are expected to be produced, a big drop from volumes that topped 30,000 in recent years.

U.S. Corvette deliveries totaled 1,345 units in October, a decrease of nearly 50 percent from the 2,626 units delivered in October 2016.

While such numbers would not seem to bode well for employment at the Corvette plant, GM communications representative Lauren Langille said last month that employment levels will be similar to what they were before the shutdown.

State incentives granted to GM last year would indicate the plant could get an employment boost.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority approved GM for up to $3 million in tax incentives through the Kentucky Business Investment program. The incentives are based on eligible company investments of up to $153 million.

The KEDFA application said GM will be required to maintain a base employment equal to or greater than 1,030 full-time Kentucky resident employees.

A list of largest local manufacturers compiled by the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce has the Corvette plant with 887 employees.

Those employees returned to a manufacturing environment altered dramatically from the one they remember from before the shutdown.

Langille said the paint shop will improve the appearance and finish of the Corvettes, and she pointed out that other changes should improve the process of building the cars.

“During the shutdown, we made significant changes to the build process to enhance ergonomics for the operator and to improve vehicle quality,” she said. “For example, panels will be installed near the end of the build process in one location, as opposed to several locations throughout the process.”

GM began Corvette production at the Bowling Green plant in 1981. The facility has remained the exclusive home of the Corvette ever since. With more than 1.6 million produced since 1954, the Corvette is the world’s longest-running, continuously produced passenger car.