Paul & Deb's Corvette Story

I grew up in a small town in Iowa and never saw a Corvette until one of my basketball coaches bought a used 1964 Daytona Blue Corvette convertible in 1966 or 1967. It was not his daily driver, so we only saw it during special occasions. 

After high school I moved to the suburbs of Chicago to go to college and start working. I couldn’t afford a Corvette at that time, so I bought a used 1965 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport. I was offered a full-time job before I graduated from college with the stipulation, they would pay for the rest of my college courses. Since I now had some additional money, I bought an Opel GT instead of a Corvette. It was a fun car to have and I liked the styling. In 1972 Deb and I married, and the Opel GT was gone. I had a chance to buy a 1963 split window Corvette with a 327 without the fuel injection, but it was not to be. I had to settle for a 1957 Chevy instead.  

As we raised a family and moved around, owning a Corvette seem like a dream that I was not going to have. I thought after both of our boys graduated from college, I could finally get my Corvette. Our oldest son kept taking classes and it never looked like he was going to finish taking college courses. Our youngest decided to get his MBA so that added some more time to my timetable.  

My dream of owning a 1963 split window changed as we got older. I wanted a Corvette I could get in and drive on the weekends, not spending all weekend on fixing it up so it would drive. We also enjoyed all of the new updates/accessories of a new car. The price of the split window Corvette was way out of our ability to buy one. A newer one looked like the way to go.

In 2002 I was at Morse Chevrolet and found out they had a 2000 Corvette convertible that was available as a lease. This seemed to me like a way to get into driving a Corvette without all of the cost of ownership, but my wife did not agree. It also gave us a chance to see what joining a Corvette club was like.  We joined KCCA because one of my coworker’s in-laws were members. Augers talked about all the friends they had met and all of the different events/trips they went on. 

KCCA has really been a great social club for us and I cannot tell you how many friends we have made. We have attended all of the KCCA car shows numerous times. We have attended he Black Hills Corvette Classic a couple of times. We attended one of the Colorado car shows, but I didn’t do too well with the high altitude, so we left early to return home. Columbia, MO was also a very good show that we attended numerous times. My best friend in Iowa joined me for the C5 Bash in 2003. There were other smaller shows in Arkansas, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, and Missouri that we attended with club members. 

My oldest son video-taped the 2003 caravan leaving Kansas City for the Corvette 

Museum. This seemed like a good idea until I realized our club led the Corvettes out of town and we were in the rear with nobody we knew. We caught up with everyone in the club for lunch in Illinois. 

When we moved to Georgia, we joined a Corvette club in Tallahassee, FL which was a lot smaller club, but almost as much fun. Car shows in Florida seem to be really expensive since they were mostly at resorts by the beaches. 

We have owned a 2004 Commemorative coupe, a 2008 Z51 coupe, and currently own a 2011 convertible. We were always trading one Corvette in for another, so we only owned one Corvette at a time. My wait was 30 years similar to another member in the club that waited 30 years for their first Corvette. 

Corvette family and friends are the best!