Gette The Vette - Ongoing Series

The other day Chip and I were out tooling around in our fabulous 1977 Corvette driving along the Lake Erie shoreline on Lake Road. Some of the homes there are to die for. They're gorgeous. Even the less than spectacular ones are awesome because what's their backyard? That's right. Lake Erie. A Great Lake! What's not to love.

A number of the homes along Lake Road, particularly several belonging to pro athletes, are over the top in their granduer. I don't know if those people have money to burn or feel somehow compelled to spend extravagantly on their homes but in my humble opinon those houses are extrememly pretencious. We get it! You're rich! You win! You 're the man or woman! Get over yourself!

We crept along Lake Road gawking at one home in particular that looks like a cross between a catering hall, mosque and cruise liner. "Look at thing", I said to Chip. "Tsk, so prententious..."

The ever delightful and insightful young Charles quipped right back at me, "Dad, you're driving a RED CORVETTE!"

Kids say the darndest things, don't they?

Little Red Corvette

The big difference between 1976 and 1977 Corvettes is that '77s were not called Stingrays. Same body though.

When I was a wee little nipper growing up in the concrete jungle wilderness of suburban Manhattan I looked at Corvettes with the same awe as I did the prettiest girl in school; Corvettes, like her, were completely, utterly unobtainable and unapproachable. I had convinced myself that just the thought of talking to that pretty girl would result in my bursting into flames. It was something mere mortals, like me, simply didn't do. Be safe! Stay away! Like a love sick boy I also looked longingly at impossibly gorgeous "Shark Body" Corvettes. Especially red ones. I'd just stand back, lurk and wish longingly for one as I drove by in my Ford Maverick. Oh. The pain.

Some Corvette purists are not fond of the 1968-1982 "Sharks". I grew up with these and have always had a fondness for them. From afar.

To celebrate twenty years of wedded bliss, on the eve of that most special occasion Mrs. Shotgun and I took delivery of this "Little Red Corvette". My wife's dad was a sports car guy and had a 1960. Ours is as a 1977. Automatic. "L48" (rated 180 horses, 350 V8).

The bump in the middle of the hood is functional as well as super cool. Without the hood would not close properly because the top of the engine is too tall.

The AC looks like it hasn't been hooked up since the end of the Reagan administration, the cruise doesn't work, the radio is horrible, the speedometer can't tell me how fast I'm going and the clock on the dash doesn't work. Oh, and the passenger seat won't adjust properly. If you call adjusting a seat back with a screwdriver adjusting a seat. She rattles and moans and growns. The engine fires up without a hitch and despite having what I would guesstimate to have "only" about 200 or so horses (the catalytic converters are long gone thus giving her a couple ticks more go) she goes pretty good. Just enough power to get me in trouble.

Mrs. Shotgun on the test drive driving it like she just stole it.

Forget all that, man. She. Is fine.

Our older boy, who's 15, nearly fell over when he saw it.

Jennifer Lopez was once asked if she'd rather be smart of good looking. She said, "good looking". I can see why. Our "Little Red Corvette", like J-Lo, is an attention grabber by just standing (or sitting) there. Oh, performance? What's that? I guess by 1977 standards she's ok. Contemporary road test reviews of der Vette are less than flattering. She doesn't handle or brake well, the ride is fairly murderous, she's uncomfortable and can bury a gallon of gas faster than any vehicle I've had in the last 25 years. The interior cabin also heats up like an attic. Pop the T-Tops and make sure you wear shorts. A short traipse in one of these is akin to a steam bath.

If you can, listen to your inner 15 and 13 year old and get one

Forget all that, man. She. Is fine.

The Hot Wife (of 20 years) and the Little Red Corvette

Happy anniversary, Mrs. Shotgun. I think your dad would approve.

'74 Corvette (update)

I write this this morning giddy with anticipation of what the day hopefully will bring.

To review, on the cusp of our twentieth wedding anniversary my wife and I have approved the purchase order for this delicious 1974 Chevrolet Corvette. Like any marriage, though, the purchase of this car comes not without strings attached.

The car is on Long Island which is 500 miles away. The distance between here and there is one obstacle to getting the sexy beast back to Cleveland. The good news is I am dealing with very close friends back in New York who are acting as brokers for me in this deal.

The second is, and I knew there was something squishy going into the marathon drive of a past weekend out to the Island to look at the car, there is a heavy ticking in the engine that even the most novice of muscle car mechanics would raise their eyebrows over and say, "that's not good". Some would not have made the traipse this past weekend knowing of the ticking. I'm not one of those persons. I looked at the possible engine trouble as a further bargaining chip down from an already decent asking price for the car. Besides, I don't need any excuse to take a trip back to the old country.

After some hairy logistics and heavy bargaining to get the car to a mechanic it turns out what at first may have been something as onerous as a "blown rod" or "bad lifters and a torn up cam" turns out to be be, perhaps at worst, a bad distributor. Wow. So, from at worst a $4000 engine transplant to maybe at worst a $500 repair job.

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Stay tuned.

The Old '76er - The Last Cadillac

GM's 1971 vintage B bodies went out with bang. With the federally mandated 5 mph crash resistant bumpers fore and aft these were the largest passenger cars GM would ever build.

In the fall of 1976 my dad, apparently flush with money from cashing in stock options, went Cadillac shopping. He took a look at the all-new-for-1977 Cadillac Deville and said, "THAT, is NOT a CADILLAC! This (pointing to a 1976 model also in the showroom) IS"!

That cow catcher front bumper spoiled what I always thought was a beautiful design

To my parents generation, that raised during the Great Depression, Cadillac was the ultimate status symbol and with that status symbol purchase came a stupefyingly gigantic automobile. The '76 Deville, the last of it's ilk, the most gigantic of them all. The bigger the car the bigger the bank account? I think that's what they thought. Or they wanted to give off the illusion of that. We were not well off by any means and certainly that money stuffed away in a coffee can under the bed should've gone towards something more pragmatic but I digress. Daddy wanted a Caddy and that was that. And he wanted a BIG one. The "little" '77's weren't going to cut it. He wanted that '76er. For the record, in 1977 General Motors began their mostly successful downsizing program on their full size cars. The '77's were still very big but not as big, shorter by up to a foot in the case of the Cadillacs, as their predecessors were.

Those gourgeous tail lamps evoke Cadillacs of the tail fin age. Even Cadillacs today pay hommage to that design.

On the long, air conditioned test drive (AC was a big deal in the '70s'. Only rich people had that in their cars) dad took the big boy home and found it wouldn't fit in the garage. Doh. When he was backing T-Rex out of our garage he hit the McChesney's tree and took a chunk out of the bark. Doh-DOH! My brother and I chewing our cheeks with tears running down our faces trying to stifle our laughter. Good thing the Frank Sinatra 8 track was muffling our chuckling too.

Hood ornaments were big in the '70s. This thing is spring loaded so it's able to bend back and forth without snapping off

While I LOVED the car, I never understood the snob appeal of it. I knew enough about cars even then to tell my parents that a comparable Chevrolet Caprice was essentially the same car and it cost THOUSANDS less but my mother, in particular, would have none of it. "A Chevrolet is not a Cadillac", she scolded. Well, it was their money and perhaps overly practical 12 year old me was trying to get some college fundage stashed away for myself. Parents 1, Kids 0.

Coupe is a french word for less. Less in this case being two doors less than a sedan.

They settled on a dark blue on black sedan. I thought the color scheme drearier than a Tim Burton film but mom and dad loved it. They finally got their Cadillac. When they were happy, which was far too infrequent, I was happy.

They got a good deal on it because it was the last year of that body style. "The Last Cadillac" as dad liked to say.