Our club started in 1976. But I was a long way from Columbus in 1976 — though I was in Indiana the first part of the year, finishing my ME degree at Purdue. Four long years of work and study… with lots of successes, some heartbreaks, some love found, lost, and found anew. Lots of growing up. Lots of dreaming of being done with school and back to a life of working on cars, running a machine shop, and evenings enjoying beer! No more studying!
So, what does this have to do with Corvettes?
In late, very wintery 1973, I bought a ’67 427-435 roadster. You can read more about that in some of my earlier stories for our club website.
It was not exactly an ideal car for a college student! Worst of all, it was very hard to start in cold weather. Say, below 50 degrees F! And if/when it did start, with 4.11 gears and side pipes, it was not exactly an Interstate cruiser. 70 mph was a very busy 3500 rpm drone. Mileage wasn’t all that bad, considering. As a result, this was a car that sat a lot in Purdue parking lots, but I was happy just to see it on my many walks to and from classes. And happy to dream of summer days, between Spring and Fall semesters, back home, hanging out with friends and their rides. And my ride… convertible top down, stars above, wind whistling around its whip antenna.
Finally, May 8, 1976 arrived. Finals were DONE! Four years of intensive studying wrapped up. The day I dreamed of! Free at last!
Not exactly. I’d fallen in love with someone new, a lovely young lady.
So after four years of imagining my finish line at Purdue – and leaving –– now, I wished it could go on longer. Funny how things work out. Nevertheless, that Saturday, May 8, 1976 arrived and it was time to go. My Corvette was packed with books, stereo, a beer mug or two, more books, notebooks, folders, many papers. The rear compartment and the passenger seat stacked high next to me — full. The shadows lengthened, the sun was going orange……. Engine rumbling, I left my new girlfriend crying in the parking lot, and then running back to her room.
What does that have to do with the title above?
My family sat down to dinner together every day. One dinner, soon after my graduation, my dad congratulated me. He was a very thoughtful gift-giver and he topped it all with an offer he never mentioned before: for my great results at Purdue, he offered to buy me a new Corvette. He understood how much Corvette meant to me.
Wow! But would I need to sell my ’67?
Yes.
A sudden silence, the proverbial pregnant pause.
A new Corvette might not be very fast or as much fun. But it would mean a sumptuous ride, a practical ride, a doable ride, a ride that would start on cold mornings, a car I could drive 250 miles to see my girlfriend in sunny Carmel, IN.
But life without performance in those malaise days, automotively speaking? 180 hp for the L-48. Or 210 hp for the L-82? Blech! Like sticking your foot in a bucket of mud.
Still, I imagined a white one, with a red or black interior.
For a few minutes. And ever since.
I turned it down. No. I’d keep the ’67.
I think my dad understood.
I don’t remember if I told my girlfriend about that offer.
And when I visited her 40 days later, it was already too late.
Since then, 50 years have gone by.
I’m an old man now. The years went by, pretty fast. My dad is long gone. Our relationship grew before he died. But we never again talked about his offer to buy me that new Corvette. Or how much it meant to me, even though I dismissed it. Even because I dismissed it.
I miss my dad.
So, what would you do if your dad offered you a new Corvette?