Andrew Cuomo came to Watkins Glen International and took his 1975 Corvette around the track during the NASCAR weekend. He left with quite an impression. Saturday, Cuomo returned to announce a new ad campaign for New York tourism called “The …
1975 Corvette, sounded as great as it looked http://t.co/5lRMT1DQa4
While we all realize that cars are depreciating assets and therefore lose value with time and usage, many enthusiasts try to do everything possible to slow down this process. Some enthusiasts will go to the extent of covering their car daily, intentionally reduce the usage of their car, or even park their car when its brand new only to never use it for collector value.On the flip side of this, there are a lot of enthusiasts that believe “a car is meant to be driven” and will use their Corvette as if it were a Honda Civic in daily driving conditions. Both groups are very passionate about their opinions and if you ask either party, they will tell you that they are right and the other group is wrong.Whether you preserve your cars or drive your cars, one aspect of vehicle ownership that is sure to rapidly decrease the value of your car is an accident. Unfortunately for the driver of this video, they found out the hard way that while a beautiful black on black C5 may have a strong resale market when it looks great, that is not the case after a severe accident. Judging by the video, this black on black C5 ran right off the road– and into the trees. The impact of hitting the trees was severe enough to thoroughly mangle the front end of the car and deploy both front airbags. Often times, once the airbags deploy, the car gets totaled, which is unfortunate. Without having a video of the actual incident, one can speculate that speed was involved and the car was potentially pushed too far. Sad to see but hopefully they had some great insurance!
My Note: I’m the guy that drives his corvette like a Honda…only faster!!! Yes they sure did a job on this one but I don’t think they over drove the cars capabilities, more like the driver exceeded his abilities, which is usually the case with hi-performance cars.
The sinkhole that swallowed up eight Corvettes earlier this year has been something of a mixed blessing for the Bowling Green, Ky., National Corvette Museum. On the one hand, those rare (if not uniformly invaluable) Corvettes were damaged, or outright …
There were many Corvair owners that braved the wind and brought their Monza’s, Drop Tops and Van’s to the 29th Annual Chevy Showdown today.
Here are some of the pictures.
Parking and setting up
I’d estimate about 20 Corvairs attended. The white Monza was beautifully done!! There were a couple unique Corvair powered entries.
In a previous post entitled “Lost Classics – Trucks – Corvair Rampside” I mentioned that I’d never seen a Rampside in person. Well, I can scratch that off my car bucket list. Here is the 1961 Corvair powered Rampside.
Corvair 95
This Corvair 95 Rampside is in very good condition and got to the show under it’s on power provided by the ‘Flat Six’.
Now the Rampside also came in the Greenbrier packaged. And there was a Greenbrier Corvair there….this great looking 1962 van with the 110 engine.
1962 Greenbrier Corvair Van
AC in front and back!!!
Yup that’s A/C stuffed back here!!!
There now I’ve seen all manner of Corvairs!!! Only that was there was the Corvair wagon.
More coming up on the Chevy Showdown here in Tucson, Az
So it ends, at least the recovery part of the ill-fated “Great 8” as dubbed by the National Corvette Museum folks.
The Mallett Hammer comes to the surface.
As with a couple of the others – this is how I expected to see them come to the surface.
From the NCM:
The 2001 Mallett Hammer Z06 was one of two Corvettes that’s whereabouts were initially unknown after the sinkhole happened. The car was finally discover this Monday, upside down with the nose pointing towards the red Spire in the center of the room. It is, by far, the most heavily damaged of all eight Corvettes.
“It looks like the worst one… a lot of parts and pieces,” said Mike Murphy, CEO of Scott, Murphy and Daniel Construction. “It took a lot of punishment from a lot of big rocks.”
The Mallett Hammer was donated to the Museum this past December by Kevin and Linda Helmintoller of Land O’ Lakes, Florida, Lifetime Members of the Museum and previous R8C Museum Delivery participants. Upon hearing the car had been located, Kevin traveled to Kentucky to witness the rescue operation. “I expected bad, but it’s 100 times worse,” he said. “It looks like a piece of tin foil… and it had a roll cage in it! It makes all the other cars look like they’re brand new.”
Strode had forewarned Helmintoller that the car would be in bad shape and he might not want to watch the recovery process. “Honestly though, I’m still glad I’m here because I would have never believed it was this bad. I’m not positive I would have recognized it – there are just a few little pieces that give it away.”
Helmintoller added that he sent pictures of the damaged car to his engine builder, who (jokingly) was quick to point out that the motor was not covered under warranty.
Kevin and Linda spent 13 years modifying the Corvette, a car they purchased new in 2001. The Mallett Hammer conversion was completed in June 2002 and since then has had many AntiVenom LSX Performance modifications with the car boasting 700hp with 575 torque at the flywheel. The car’s speed achievements helped it score a cover of GM High Tech Performance magazine.
GM has said they would restore them. I look at this one and the Spyder and say “Really?” Same VIN number perhaps…not a lot more.
Although the recovery is completed – other than fishing out the top parts of the “Hammer” there is still a long way to go for rebuilding that part of the museum and restoring the cars.
I hope GM keeps great video records and that they release them to the public to allow us to keep track of the progress. That ought to be a good History Channel – nearly live – documentary, yes? For sure a dedicated YouTube channel. (Not sure live 24 hour camera coverage would be of much value.)
I’ve hyped the National Corvette Museum and urging folks to donate and I still do (Here’s the link again. Donate Click Here ) they need the assistance. But that’s because Corvettes are my thing (one of them, anyway), but there are a lot of car museum’s across the country that are doing a great job preserving vehicles of interest.
Right here in Tucson, Az is the Franklin Museum with a very nice collection of Franklin cars. Find one near you!!
I watched part of the day (stupid budget meeting!!! ) as they dug around the 1.5 millionth Corvette.Currently it is lays at the bottom of the of the sink hole.
So let’s see the Camaro got spanked at the drag strip. I get it. It wasn’t designed for straight stretch racing, so what’s the point Motor Trend? Why not take a Prius and run it against the Lotus? Oh….what? The Prius isn’t a race car? Huh…go figure!!
But I will say it wasn’t too shabby on the strip!! The Z/28 ran 0-60 mph in 4.0 seconds and the quarter mile in 12.3 seconds at 117.2 mph. But it couldn’t compete with 2.7 to to 60 and 11 second @ 125 MPH (GTR) nor 2.6/10.9@ 123 MPH (911)
The Z28 and some other cars.
If you read further they complained about “racing’ tire peformance…wait for it….in 290 temps. Seriously…read it yourself, it’s right there!!
I autocross my C6 here in beautiful…and HOT Arizona and you have to have meat that sticks (tires). I don’t plan on taking the car up to the mountains and have it hang on to corners in the snow… much less below freezing temps with the tires meant for track duty.
I agree with the conclusion that the Z/28 is “… a race car for the street. It’s got Recaro buckets, Pankl connecting rods, Mahle pistons, Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes (co-developed and shared with the upcoming Z06), and Multimatic dynamic spool valve shocks. But it’s not just a name-brand collection of parts, and the Z/28 is no tuner. It stands as one of absolutely the best track-focused cars in the world.”…..except that last part – I say it was 2nd best next to the Corvette.
While I love the nostalgia that comes to mind when I see this Camaro and the Z/28 badging, I don’t think I’d spend $75K on it. I just jump up to the C7 Corvette Sting Ray and be done with it.
News of a new reality show for aspiring car designers sponsored by Chevrolet got me to thinking – could the next-gen Corvette come out of a reality show?
The new TV series, Motor City Masters, will pit 10 aspiring car designers against one another on truTV testing both their exterior and interior design capabilities.
The 10-episode show, hosted by Brooke Burns, former star of Baywatch and Melrose Place, will be based in Los Angeles with a series finale in Detroit.
Show participants will be judged in areas such as creativity, execution and the forward-thinking in their work. After a series of elimination rounds, the top two designers will face off in front of members of Chevy’s design team.
) as they dug around the 1.5 millionth Corvette.Currently it is lays at the bottom of the of the sink hole.
