A Corvette Love Affair

This is a story about a Corvette restoration project. As such, it’s important to highlight what it is that turns normal, every day people into a crazy, almost obsessed group so in love with this classic American Sports Car that they will expend untold amounts of blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention hard-earned cash, to bring these classic corvettes back to life.

My love of Corvettes began in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1975. I was fifteen and had just earned my learner’s permit after taking Driver’s education from Mr. Trautwein at Central High School. Since I could only drive with a parent and mom was at work, I still rode my bike most days. One day as I rode past the garage of an apartment building a block from my house I noticed a brown colored Corvette parked in the shadows. I turned in and discovered a Saddle Tan 1963 split-window Corvette. It had not been driven in a while as was covered in a fine layer of dust, so I took my finger and wrote my phone number on the back left window along with a message: “Do you want to sell this car?” To my surprise, the guy called me a few days later wanting $5,000 for the car. I was working as a bus-boy (my first job) and barely had $500 to my name. Crushed, I had to decline.

Life has a way of racing forward. I grew up, married, had children, and enjoyed a flourishing flying career in the Air Force and at Southwest Airlines. Still, I never forgot about that split-window Corvette.