​THIS IS THE BEST CORVETTE YET

My 2000 Hardtop is 1 of 189 that were made in Nassau Blue before the color was killed. I chose the hardtop because I think it's the raciest looking of all the Vettes. I also knew that because the Nassau Blue color was on a death watch, it would be the rarest of the Corvette colors. When my wife describes the color to people she says it's the color of a Blue M&M. I have had the car since February and started doing modification the first week I got it. My latest improvement is "Rally Stripes" in Metallic Pewter.

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BODY MODIFICATIONS:

We couldn't leave well enough alone so we reworked the tail lights to be the Euro version. Installing these tail lights took less than half hour. The difference is in it appearance is incredible. I get compliments all the time about how different it looks. Last but not least we added a set of chrome tips and to finish it off Carbon Fiber name from RK Sport.

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LS1 - The Best Corvette Motor Ever
CARBON FIBER...GODS GIFT TO MAN!

ENGINE MODIFICATIONS:

​Corvette guys can never leave well enough alone. Well I'm a typical Corvette fan. Under the hood we have added a Donalson Air Force air cleaner. We have hooked it to a Granatelli Mass Air Flow Sensor. The difference was noticeable right away. We replaced the Air Bridge and Coupler with a carbon fiber bridge and a silicon coupler from Haltech. Just for the effect, we installed all the Carbon Fiber we could find. I love this stuff. The finishing touch was an LS1 throttle body name plate.

Just A Touch Of Color Does The Trick
BLACK AND BLUE MAKE A GREAT COMBINATION!

INTERIOR MODIFICATIONS:

I found the black leather way too boring. So I changed the Shift Boot, the Brake Handle & Boot and the Console Cover to be Nassau Blue leather. I had the craftsman at Caravaggio Corvette make the pieces. Like I said I love Carbon Fiber, so we added glue on panels to the dash and Carbon Fiber lower door sills. The factory shift ball was really boring, so we installed a leather carbon fiber grip type. One of the nicest things I added was a trunk panel with a Nassau Blue logo from Design Specialties.

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​​1960 - 'Ol Yella

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When It Comes To Corvettes...One Is Never Enough
THIS IS MY OTHER LOVE...MY 1960 CORVETTE

It started back in February of 1991. I already had my Silver 1986 and had become a real Corvette Fan. I then decided that I wanted to own a Vintage Corvette. I had to ask myself, what body style, what year and how much to spend? I gave a lot of consideration to the Mid-Year Vettes, but felt that they had probably top out price wise. Then all those old feelings of what a Corvette was came rushing back to me. Route 66 TV Show and all that. Yep, side coves in color that was what I wanted. Now, I had to decide on a year. That wasn't too tough a decision to make because 1956 and 1957 were out of my price range. And 1962 did not have a contrasting cove color. This left me with 1958 though 1961. The quest was on. While in search of my dream car I saw a Red 1961 Vette at a display the Long Island Corvetter Owners Association (LICOA) had at S&K Speed in Lindenhurst. I'm looking at this car with my friend John Valvo when he says "This is my old car." I am thinking that he means that it looked the same car, but he means "it is his old car." He sold it when he was in Florida to two brothers from New York about 8 years earlier. Well that started a whole conversation about where the car had been and what had happened to it over the years. I drove the car and realized that it just wasn't the right one for me. Then in May there was a car show at a Chevy dealer (Palanker) being put on by the Classic Corvettes Society. As I walked into the show I saw it. In the middle of a sea of Red Corvettes. It was yellow and stood out like a shiny pearl. I started to look over the car and to my amazement it was for sale. I copied the Vin Nunber (10243) and went home to check it out. I looked in my handy-dandy black book and found out the there were only 10,261 cars made. Chevrolet did an average of 60 cars per day, that made this a last day car. Eighteenth from the end of the line and the end of an era. You see 1960 was the last year for many things. It was the last year for "finger nailed" shaped tail lights. The ones that were in the top of the fenders. It was the last year for the "bubble" trunk. The 1961 was going to be the start of the flat trunk panel (a prelude to the 1963 Stingray roadster) and it was the end of "chrome teeth" in the grille.

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Now the story gets really interesting. It seems that the owner won the car at a "Feed & Grain Trade Show in Atlantic City. A company named Caldwell had bought the car from C&C Trailers in Pennsylvania. C&C owned the car since 1972 when it had bought it from someone in Harrisburg, named Doug Arnold. Who I am still looking for. So, if anyone knows him, email me. The car had been driven maintained for years and eventually ended up in C&Cs private car collection. When Caldwell decided to buy the car from C&C as a grand prize for it is trade show sweepstakes, they wanted some sort guarantee on the car. After all, how would it be if the Winner got the car home and it broke down. C&C felt the only way to give some sort of guarantee was to charge a high enough price for the car. They had to be able to fix anything that could have gone wrong in the winner's hands. Therefor the value of the car was raised far beyond the true worth of the car. Well, now the IRS comes into the story. You see since it was a contest prize that was won, the government gets taxes it, like income. So the winner had to pay income tax on a $30,000 valued prize. He of course assumes that this would be a fair selling price for the car. Not so, cause back in 1991 these cars were going for anywhere between $12,000 and $20,000 depending on it condition. After months of discussions we finally settled on a price. This price was a little more then the winner had paid to the IRS. But his number was a fair selling price. I took delivery of this Yellow beauty on July 21, 1991.

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Let the restoration begin. Since the car was so well maintained it looked great, but it needed some mechanical and interior help. The brakes pulled, it leaked oil and the top had 4" rip in it. The interior need the most help, gauges were cloudy and the seats and door panels were rough. Lucky for me the dash pad was like new. Since I got the car in July, I was able to make Corvettes @ Carlisle in August. I went with a three a page list of items I needed to buy. By the time I finished the first row on the first day I had spent $1,800. Now, some of the members of LICOA have heard the expression "Fifty Dollar...That's all I spent was fifty dollars." This became the battle cry for anyone who spent more that their wife thought they should. After all, try to explain how some little, dirty, old part is worth hundreds of dollars. After the interior was finish from top to bottom I went to work on the motor. I had Ron Gruber do a total rebuild of the engine. As I said before I was really lucky because most of the engine original. There were some things that we had to hunt down like the correct distributor. But all and all it went smooth. I guess old Corvettes become a sickness that has no cure. It seems there is always something to do. I guess I still have another fifty dollars to spend.