Every Saturday morning (weather permitting) I take my 5 year old son to the little country store by my house and we eat powdered donuts with juice and coffee.

On one morning a lady parks her "new" C6 Corvette next to mine. I comment on her nice Vette and she says. "Yeah, this is a Special Edition Corvette for the Saints". Pointing to the Corvette logo, she says, "See, the fleur-de-lis in the emblem?"

I thought she was joking and I said, Yea, Mine too! Then she stares at mee like I was crazy. Then I realized she was serious.

I pointed to my logo on my hood and she came over and saw the same fleur-de-lis. I explained that this is on EVERY corvette logo as part of the emblem. She was floored, she said that she was told at the delership that this was a Special Saints Edition.

Sorry, no pics of the woman, but your not missing much.....more money than brains I guess.

 

In late '53 or early '54, my Dad was managing a small Chevy dealership in Lebanon, Illinois. It is near Scott AF base, and it turns out that the head honcho there was one of the recipients of a '53 Corvette. Dad seemed to recall that the production VIN was upper 2 digits (like in the 91-99 range), but not sure, and the guy brought it in several times for service.
Anyway, this General HATED that car...it was, obviously, no good in slick conditions, EVERY part of it rattled, and the "Blue Flame" engine wouldn't run worth crap no matter how many times it got tuned.
Well, Dad had a nice new powder blue V8 coupe arrive about the time the General was picking up his Vette one day, and the old boy fell in love with it. He wanted to trade the Vette for that coupe, but wanted to test drive it first. Dad was excited at the possibility of ending up with one of the new 'Vettes on his lot.
Well, the dealership was responsible for setting up and test driving the car before it went out, so Dad sent his mechanic (Virgil) out to "road test" the new V8 coupe. Old Virg had the coupe wound up on one of the back roads. He had the driver's window down (everyone smoked back then), and was tooling along at 80 mph. It turns out that there was a duck coming in for a landing on a lake next to the road. He managed to get is head into the driver's window, where it was cleanly severed by the back window. The light blue interior got covered with duck blood as the poor critter's head bounced around in the back seat, and it's body streaked blood all the way down the rear fender and across the trunk hood.
When the car arrived, Dad said it was a royal mess. He told the General that they would get it cleaned up, and then he could drive it. The General declined the test drive, and took his Corvette back to the base. He left the base shortly afterward, and still had the Vette. Dad said they had to replace the whole headliner, back seat, and driver's side door panels to clean up the coupe.

 

WHAT!!!? Nobody is going to mention the story that I told here?

A "friend" who lives on another island described the engine in his C5 as an LT1. Remember that one? He said he bought it new like that. The last time I saw him he told me he sold it to a guy who didn't care that the engine wasn't an LS. I haven't been able to live down the fact that I told that one here.

Oh, his latest.. He bought a new '11 for $70k from a dealer in Oregon. He said the dealer told him it has over 600 hp. Do these BS stories never end? I plan on going to the island he lives on sometime this year to visit family. I got to look this guy up. Claims he has 17 cars.

 

The best one to me is one day at a bank an old lady comes up to me and reads my liscense plate VETSRFUN. She winks at me and smile and says they sure are my ex was a pilot.
Richard

 

"one time when i was at band camp"

 

Lol I'd be going back to the dealership just to call them out on that

 

to reiterate , guy working across the street came over for some water . he said he went with a buddy to look at a vette and it was all bondo . they had taken a magnet along to check body for bondo and said it was everywhere on the car .

 

GREAT...Nearly pissed myself reading that one. Other side of that coin is cars that could almost qulify as corvette bodies. I had an old F body camaro that had so much polyester filler you'd have thought it was a prefab funny car body. I shuold have sold it as a "C4 experimental vette prototype".

 

My license plate(s) is "ORALE (not ORAL). Orale is a Mexican greeting, and was used by Cheech Marin in his 1987 film Born in East L.A. The phrase Órale (vato), translates to: What's happening (man)!

You should see the strange looks and comments I get. (You a dentist? You good at that? You bragging?)

 

I thought it was a version of "OH REALLY?"...

Toque

 

I always thought the term was odale vato.

 

I was at a local cruise night with my 55 nomad, when a young couple stopped in front of my car, the girl asked the boyfriend what kind is that one? he replied it's one of those new crossovers..........

 

Nope! Being in Hawaii and of Portuguese heritage (not mexican/spanish) I looked it up. It's "orale vato!" "What's happening, man!" Pronounced like O-da-lay.

 

Gotcha!!!

So I wasn't hearing it wrong...it's just not spelled how it sounds. I've learned something new today.

 

I first started looking for C5's about 4 years ago. I was putting out feelers with all my buddies to find me my dream car.

One of my buddies tells me, "I don't know why you want one of those. I saw one after it ran the nose into a telephone pole and split the car right down the middle into two pieces!!!"

Needless to say, I'm VERY careful around telephone poles.

 

YEP!!! Be very careful. It's like riding in an egg shell with wheels.

 

I be more careful about who you choose as a "friend". He "saw one after it ran the nose into a telephone pole and split the car right down the middle into two pieces!!!" Really now!!!! How impossible is THAT!???

 

There was no 97 vert. The first C5 vert was in 1998.

 

Question heard at every car show, cruise, tour, etc - "I heard they were metal one year, what year was that?"

Another one that really floored me. Our 2000 is Dark Bowling Green Metallic. At a Corvette specific show-n-shine sponsored by a Chevrolet dealer, a fellow Corvette owner (obvious by his shirt & hat) was looking at our car and asked if it was a special, custom color and who painted it. I tried not to embarrass him, but I can't say the same for his friends who "piled on" pretty good.

 

Good catch.

My buddy always use to boast that his vert was one of the first out of the factory and I forgot that they weren't available until '98. So you're correct. It was not a '97.