Corvette Again
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 241
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From: Hollywood FL
Corvette Again
Hello All:
If I may, here is a short introduction and how I came to find this site.
I have always been a Corvette fan and have had three in the past but, the German bug bit me hard after a few test drives and I have been a loyal BMW M owner for the past 15 years now. My wife, who is also a performance car freak, grew up driving Vettes, GTOs, Trans Ams and Z28s. She has been driving BMW and Porsche lately.
So with the wife's 2010 Boxster lease coming to an end, we had to find her a new car. Now mind you, my wife loves performance cars and although she loves her Porsche, she really loves my 2012 M3 and has been known to steal it from me from time to time. So I was left with two options for finding her a car. Option 1 is to find her a larger more practical car with performance similar to or better than the Boxster, or Option 2, find me a new car that would make me willing to give her my M3. Well, knowing if I bought her a practical car she would always find excuses for taking my M and knowing if I bought her another small car, she would still find excuses to take my M. So I decided the best option would be to give her my M IF I could find something I liked better.
I went looking for a car for me and quickly narrowed the field down to a CTS-V coupe or a Grand Sport Vette as the two best bargains for what I wanted. I liked the CTS but, it does feel heavy and is a bit insulated from the road. It has a nice big blind spot too. A ZR1 was out of my budget and a Z06 required too many options for my liking. I really lusted after a 427 after seeing one in the flesh but, at $85K, if I took that home, there would be no home and no wife to go to.
Reality set in and I then found a local dealer with several Vettes and test drove a Grand Sport. I was quite surprised. The manual transmission shifted very smoothly. It was far superior to my M manuals and I would put it almost in the same class as the wife's Porsche. The steering feel in the Vette was better than I expected. It was still as twitchy as I remembered but, it was much more refined and felt very responsive. I could feel the road much better than I expected. The Vette interior is a bit of a let down compared the Germans but, it was also better than I expected and quite comfortable and quiet. After the test drive, I told my local dealer I would send him an email with a couple Grand Sports I was interested in and let him give me his best price on each. So much for his sale, he ignored my request so I started looking at the dealers here.
I found a few Grand Sports I liked and was about to make a deal for one when I stumbled across a few 427s at Kerbeck. The deal was almost too good to believe and was not far off in price difference from a Grand Sport I was eyeing. So I sent an email off to Dave and in a few hours, I was approved and we finalized the deal. My schedule is rather chaotic right now but the wife and I would like to take a long weekend to drive it back to our home in Florida. Dave was kind enough to work out arrangements within my schedule so in a couple weeks, I will be back in a Corvette that I will hopefully want to keep, assuming the wife doesn't take it as hers over the M.
So here I am. Thank you all for the welcome and thanks for reading. I am looking forward to spending some time here and contributing what I can.
If I may, here is a short introduction and how I came to find this site.
I have always been a Corvette fan and have had three in the past but, the German bug bit me hard after a few test drives and I have been a loyal BMW M owner for the past 15 years now. My wife, who is also a performance car freak, grew up driving Vettes, GTOs, Trans Ams and Z28s. She has been driving BMW and Porsche lately.
So with the wife's 2010 Boxster lease coming to an end, we had to find her a new car. Now mind you, my wife loves performance cars and although she loves her Porsche, she really loves my 2012 M3 and has been known to steal it from me from time to time. So I was left with two options for finding her a car. Option 1 is to find her a larger more practical car with performance similar to or better than the Boxster, or Option 2, find me a new car that would make me willing to give her my M3. Well, knowing if I bought her a practical car she would always find excuses for taking my M and knowing if I bought her another small car, she would still find excuses to take my M. So I decided the best option would be to give her my M IF I could find something I liked better.
I went looking for a car for me and quickly narrowed the field down to a CTS-V coupe or a Grand Sport Vette as the two best bargains for what I wanted. I liked the CTS but, it does feel heavy and is a bit insulated from the road. It has a nice big blind spot too. A ZR1 was out of my budget and a Z06 required too many options for my liking. I really lusted after a 427 after seeing one in the flesh but, at $85K, if I took that home, there would be no home and no wife to go to.
Reality set in and I then found a local dealer with several Vettes and test drove a Grand Sport. I was quite surprised. The manual transmission shifted very smoothly. It was far superior to my M manuals and I would put it almost in the same class as the wife's Porsche. The steering feel in the Vette was better than I expected. It was still as twitchy as I remembered but, it was much more refined and felt very responsive. I could feel the road much better than I expected. The Vette interior is a bit of a let down compared the Germans but, it was also better than I expected and quite comfortable and quiet. After the test drive, I told my local dealer I would send him an email with a couple Grand Sports I was interested in and let him give me his best price on each. So much for his sale, he ignored my request so I started looking at the dealers here.
I found a few Grand Sports I liked and was about to make a deal for one when I stumbled across a few 427s at Kerbeck. The deal was almost too good to believe and was not far off in price difference from a Grand Sport I was eyeing. So I sent an email off to Dave and in a few hours, I was approved and we finalized the deal. My schedule is rather chaotic right now but the wife and I would like to take a long weekend to drive it back to our home in Florida. Dave was kind enough to work out arrangements within my schedule so in a couple weeks, I will be back in a Corvette that I will hopefully want to keep, assuming the wife doesn't take it as hers over the M.
So here I am. Thank you all for the welcome and thanks for reading. I am looking forward to spending some time here and contributing what I can.
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