WOOOHIE BABY! I
thought that some of you folks out on the Corvette Forum might want to
read about our National Corvette Museum Delivery experience and our
first week with our beautiful new car. As with a lot of my posts, this
will be long winded. For those of you still waiting for your cars,
hopefully, this will serve as a time killer and inspiration to help you
through the living hell you are experiencing at this time. For you
seasoned vets, you will be able to relate to my thoughts on the first
time you ever saw your car or ever drove a Vette. BLAH BLAH BLAH!
Alright already – I’ll start talking sightseeing, delivery and
speeding and turns and burnouts and Zaino and Valentine 1,s and etc…
Karen & I flew
into Nashville on Sunday afternoon (April 30, 2000). I was afraid, the
entire flight, that my ears would not clear but my fear was unnecessary.
I had no problems on the flight whatsoever. We picked up a very nice
rental car from National Rent-a-Car and headed up to Bowling Green. The
day was beautiful and the scenery magnificent. I never imagined that
Tennessee and Kentucky would be so beautiful in the spring. Along the
road we saw numerous barns that were over 100 years old, sitting on
these beautiful Rolling Meadows. Wild flowers were in bloom everywhere
and the trees were lush green and packed very tightly together. The
drive up from Nashville was very easy with no traffic and nice roads.
Karen and I arrived
in Bowling Green in approx. an hour and drove directly to the National
Corvette Museum. We were staying at the Country Hearth Motel, directly
across from the Museum so we killed two birds with one stone. The Museum
is kind of out in the middle of nowhere and looks kind of
hokey when you first see it in person, just what we had expected.
We had a very nice room with an oversized Jacuzzi tub. The room was
clean and very conveniently located for NCM delivery. It is nothing
fancy but we enjoyed staying there due to its proximity to the Museum
and Corvette plant. Karen and I looked in the window at the NCM and
Karen wanted to go inside and see our car. I told her we would have to
wait until our Monday AM delivery. I didn’t want to spoil my best
Christmas ever by peaking at the presents on Christmas Eve.
We drove across the
highway and checked out the Corvette Plant. It was much larger than I
had imagined. There were hundreds of brand new C5s sitting out in a back
parking lot just waiting for some UAW member to drive to Wendy’s. It
was very cool seeing that many Vettes in one parking lot, even if you
couldn’t get a really good view of the entire lot.
We found a great
place to eat in downtown Bowling Green. Mariah’s is one block away
from the town square and it serves delicious food. The bread comes with
cinnamon butter and it tastes like you are eating mini cinnamon rolls.
VERY YUMMY! Karen and I highly recommend Mariah’s if you want a really
nice meal for not a lot of money.
We spent that
afternoon sightseeing in Bowling Green and taking pictures. We went down
a back road and were taken by the fact that many families were sitting
out on their porches, sharing time with each other instead of sitting
inside watching TV. People waved as we drove by and this was in our
rental car. We really enjoyed seeing the countryside up close and at a
leisurely pace. We headed back to the Museum and met two guys from
Alabama who were doing an afternoon pickup on Monday. These two guys
were Corvette fanatics, had owned or still owned many Corvettes and were
a kick to talk to. They had done the plant tour about 20 times and knew
Sonny well. They were very excited about the White/Torch Red C5 Roadster
that one of them had ordered. He had never driven a C5. We all had a
very nice time talking about life as a Vette fanatic. Karen and I could
barely stand up because we were so tired from our early morning flight
and lack of sleep for several days before our travels. I will admit that
I was hyped higher than a kite. I still am! Last night is the first
night I’ve slept for more than 5 hours in a week. Boy am I tired.
Monday morning
finally came, thank God. What a glorious day this would turn out to be.
It was the day, finally, that I would take delivery of my first Corvette
and drive a C5 for the first time. Karen and I headed over to the
Corvette plant for the 9:00 AM tour and ran into Mark Turmell and his
dad before the tour started. Mark was nice enough to share his delivery
time with me and I think we were equally excited. The tour was fantastic
although the guide was a total zero. Every Corvette enthusiast should
see how the cars are assembled. It is truly an amazing metamorphosis
that takes place as the parts come down the line. The plant tour was one
of the highlights of buying the Vette, no doubt.
The tour lasted
about an hour so we had to hurry back to our hotel, check out and go
across the street for our 10:30 AM NCM Delivery. DA DA! OH YEAH! UH HUH!
SHHHWIIIING!!! We were greeted outside the door of the Museum by none
other than “da man”, Adam Boca. It was great to finally meet Adam
and he was hyped about the delivery also. It was the first dual Forum
Member NCM Delivery that they had ever done. Mark’s dad, Mark, Karen
and I were soon walking down the hall to the delivery area where our
cars were set up. I could see it as we approached! There it was! It was
mine. All mine! My baby! Oh Yeah! It sat next to Mark’s beautiful
Nassau Blue/ White topped Roadster. Talk about two beautiful cars. OH
MY! Mark and I had these, size of the earth, smiles on our faces that
would not go away. Adam handed me the keys to my car and told me to get
in, start her up if you want to. Do you think I hesitated for even one
second? I was in that car, pushing in the clutch, cranking the ignition
and after letting it idle for a moment, gunning the throttle as the
sounds reverberated throughout the Museum. YEEEHAW!!!! Sitting in those
comfortable light oak sport seats, revving the engine and looking over
the most beautiful color of blue hood that you have ever seen, in the
middle a museum filled with the cars that are the history that is
Corvette, was absolutely awesome. The energy level of Mark, his dad,
Karen, myself, and Adam was really high. Did I mention that I thought my
Navy Blue Metallic Coupe with those polished 2000 wheels and light oak
interior looked positively breathtaking? Did I?
Adam went and got a
lift and I was under the car installing my CAGS Eliminator right away.
COOOOOOL – My first C5 Mod! We took lots of pictures of both cars and
all of us together, etc. Adam brought in a lift and we took pictures of
the cars from way up above. I can’t wait to see these photos. We did
some paperwork, bought some jackets and shirts that you can only get if
you do Museum Delivery and then Adam showed us how everything worked in
our cars. The cars are amazing and have more features than I had
realized. It was nice having someone teach you the proper way to remove
and install the targa tops. It is a very easy procedure if you follow
Adam’s little ritual. The things Adam showed us went well beyond what
a salesman at a dealership could show you. Unless, of course, your
salesman was the Chuck Hutton Salesman of the Year, Karl Johanson.
Let’s hear it for Karl. Not to digress too far, but Karl was an
absolute joy to work with during the entire ordering, financing,
waiting, delivery and post delivery experience. Why anyone on this Forum
would buy from anyone but Karl is something I cannot comprehend. He told
me that this was going to be the best car buying experience I had ever
had and he made sure that his words came to pass. My experience with
Karl was another one of the highlights of buying my Vette.
END
OF PART ONE!
Museum Delivery –
Part 2
Adam
spent a lot of time showing Mark and I all the features of our cars and
then it was time for Adam to take the cars out of the Museum. As soon
our car was outside Adam asked e if I wanted him to take me for a ride
down this back road that has been mentioned before on this Forum. I told
him that would be great but I wanted him to keep the car on the ground.
Adam hauled ass down this road and kind of scared me. I wasn’t worried
about his driving my C5 because he obviously has the skills to handle
the car. It just made me nervous having my car out on the road-hauling
ass. He asked me if I wanted to take the car over the road but I
declined because I wasn’t ready to have my Corvette Virgin Driver
Cherry broken at speed on a twisty road. When we got back to the Museum
I headed off for my virgin ride. I put it in third at first and stalled
it. I didn’t realize it was in third but played with the shifter and
somehow put it in first the second time around. I fed it a lot of
throttle and let the clutch out very quickly because I didn’t want to
stall the car again. Holy Molly! We’re talking burning rubber out the
NCM driveway. I drove the car for a couple of miles and then brought it
back for Karen to drive. She wanted to drive it by herself the first
time. When she came back she had the biggest grin on her face. She was
more hooked than ever. I drove the car around to the back and Adam
installed the snaps and the bra that Steve Hummel had so kindly loaned
to me for the trip. Thank you Mr. Hummel. The people I’ve met on this
Forum have been great and Steve and Karen Hummel are extremely nice and
represent Corvette owners very well. While Adam installed the bra, Karen
and I toured the Museum. The Museum is really well done. You can really
sense the history of the car when you walk through and look at the
exhibits. For a fairly small operation the Museum is top notch. Judy
Yanko treated Karen and I as if we were very special. She does a great
job trying to accommodate everyone’s changing schedules and greatly
added to our delivery with all her assistance.
That was it. We said
goodbye to Mark and his dad and to Adam and then we hit the road for
Memphis and our dinner date with Karl Johanson. It took me about 30
seconds to get used to the heads-up display. I love the HUD! It wasn’t
long before we started hitting some rain. We were very tired and had a 4
hour drive ahead of us. We were in a part of the country where we
didn’t know where we were really going. I also wanted to break the car
in correctly. Am I complaining? Hell no! No of those factors bothered me
because I was driving in my very own C5. Not any C5 mind you, but a C5
that I had custom ordered with the help from Karl Johanson and all the
people on this forum. The car not only met my expectations but far
exceeded them. WOW! WOW! WOW! Can you say torque? What about
acceleration? How about tight handling? Comfortable seats? This car has
it all. I love my car. It is beautiful – more on that later. We got
our first wave from a Viper and several honks and waves from some Big
Rigs. We had a lovely dinner with Karl and his wife Chris and readied
ourselves for our first full day on the road with our new toy. We got
out of town early and I continued to drive until we were in Arkansas.
Then it was Karen’s turn to drive. She drove for hours on Tuesday. We
raced a big storm that was hitting the Panhandle and we missed most of
it. I did my first speed run in the middle of Texas somewhere. I
took it up to 115 MPH for a couple of minutes and it was rock steady.
The car felt great but the scenery was moving by quite fast. Karen
didn’t say a word but later in Texas did her own run at over 100 MPH. WOOOHIE! We drove for 16 hours on Tuesday and met Dittohead_nm and his
son Sean for dinner. Dittohead found us this great bed and breakfast
just outside Albuquerque and we had it all to ourselves. It was great
meeting another Forum Member and sharing our experiences with him. He
had just picked up his car last Thursday at the NCM and was still quite
high on the entire experience. We drove down to Albuquerque for a very
late dinner. After dinner dittohead(AKA Cy) Dry-washed my car. That
stuff really works great! It was midnight and he was out in the parking
lot washing our car. Karen and I could barely move but he was doing such
a great job we couldn’t stop him. We then drove back to our B&B on
old Route 66. After being up for 22 hours we fell into bed and finally
slept. Cy and I had been talking over the Internet on Firetalk for
several weeks before our delivery and we followed each others waiting
periods and deliveries very closely. It really added to the fun. Karl
Johanson called me several times on the rip home and told us where we
were based on info Cy had posted on the Forum. That was cool!
On Wednesday we
headed to Phoenix Arizona. We stopped at an Indian Blanket store and
bought a blanket to wrap the clear top in and cruised to the Painted
Desert, topless. Our C5, with the top off, is sooooo much fun. The coupe
is such a versatile car for a world class performer. I put sun screen on
but that desert sun still got was able to give me a little sunburn. I
learned that we should always have some baseball type hats in our car.
The Painted Desert was very beautiful as was Sedona. I loved the twisty
roads heading down into Sedona. I basically shifted the car into second
and powered through all the twistys all the way down 189A. Karen got a
little nervous but with the Z51 suspension the car wasn’t even at 50%
of its capabilities. The car takes almost every corner flat and feels
like a go cart or slot car. I love that feeling. Combine the suspension
with the torque, HP and great trans and you have one fantastic canyon
racer. By 5:00 PM we were in rush hour Phoenix traffic, on our way to
spend the night at Karen’s sisters house. Only one day from being
home, in our own bed and with our pup, Noli. We were so exhausted we
were both getting kind of dizzy.
Karen’s
brother-in-law came home and I handed him the keys. This guy has no fear
and drives like a maniac. What was I thinking? I cautioned him and he
told me that he would not be able to constrain himself. I let him drive
anyways. Hell – I was so tired I didn’t know what I was doing (I am
still running on fumes). He drove out to this Canyon and powered through
it, tossing the car around like it was a Frisbee. Then we headed to the
freeway where he decides to race by these guys in a Trans Am and another
guy in an $85,000 Lotus. Both cars are all over this and accelerate to
keep up with us. I don’t believe in street racing but I was too scared
to say anything. The C5 pulled the other two cars by quite a large
margin and the guy in the Lotus seemed very miffed. I was glad when that
was over but it did show that my Corvette was a very strong performer
compared to those two cars. What a rush!
END
OF PART 2
NCM Delivery –
Part 3
We woke up at the
crack of dawn on Thursday and said goodbye to the in-laws at about 5:00
Am. I burned rubber halfway down the street as we left their house. It
was a waste of good rubber but it was still kind of fun. You could smell
the rubber for about 30 seconds. Karen and I were ready to be home and
we powered our way towards San Juan Capistrano. We arrived home at about
11:30 and Karen went to pick up Noli from her moms while I proceeded to
check my email and get the “I love You” virus. We had heard no news
and I run the most updated virus checkers but I still got infected. I
wasn’t home for more than 5 minutes and I had a crisis on my hand. All
my friends and family would be getting that email attachment from me
just like I got it from someone I knew. I didn’t know this at first. I
just knew that virus like activity was happening on my computer. I shut
it off and booted back up into DOS where I found the .vbs file that
contained the virus. It also had erased all my mp3’s and jpegs. I had
stored them on one drive and backed them up on two other drives. I had
hundreds of jpegs that I had scanned from my own photos. I will now make
CDs of all my data files on a consistent basis.
We decided that no
one would see the car until it was cleaned up. Karen and I were beyond
exhaustion but we went out and washed the new car anyways. She looked
really good with all the dirt off and the bra removed (I’m talking the
car here although the same would apply to Karen also). Karen sprayed the
car as I did the clay bar treatment. The car was smooth as ice after the
clay bar treatment. That was very easy and took no time at all. I
applied Z1 on the entire car as Karen Meguired the tires and Z1’d the
rims. The Z1 went on in a couple of minutes. I followed the advice of
Steve Hummel and put very little Z1 on the car. Because I had swirl
marks and some spiderring I applied Z5 next. We let the Z5 dry for about
an hour and then went and wiped it off. WOWIE CAZOWIE! That Zaino is
easy to use and really works great. With just one coat of Z5 almost all
the swirl marks and spiders are gone. AMAZING STUFF! It also does not
show fingerprints like the wax that was on the car when we picked it up.
When the car was all-clean we just stared at it and were astonished at
what a beautiful car we were finally in possession of. Karen installed
the luggage shade and I wiped down the interior. The car was ready to
show off. I showed some of my very jealous neighbors and then my niece
came over to check it out. I took her for a drive and then let her drive
it. She was all smiles! She called her brother in Chicago to tell him
all about the car and how fast it was and how beautiful it looked.
I got up Friday
morning and went to my largest client’s office . The owner of the company was beyond buried at work
but decided he could take a couple of minutes to get behind the wheel.
We came out of the driveway slowly and then he mashed the gas pedal. For
those of you who have C5s, you know what this does. It throws your head
back and takes off like a rocket. All he could keep saying was “Oh my
God, oh my God”. His entire staff came out to check it out. One of the
employee’s wives was inside the office when we first drove by and she
hit her husband on the arm and said, “Look at that beautiful Vette”.
He looked out the window and told her that it was my Vette and she
didn’t believe it. Everyone gushed over the car like it was a $200,000
Ferrari. I then accidentally burned out of their parking lot leaving
quite a long patch of rubber. I went home and picked up Karen and we
took the car to her parent’s house. I tossed her mom the keys and they
were off for a good twenty minutes. When they came back they were
smiling and raving about the car. It had exceeded their expectations by
a long margin. They had owned a couple of C4s and couldn’t believe how
far Chevy had come with the C5. It was time to bring the car back home
and for me to stare at it a little longer. We would be doing pictures on
Saturday and showing it off to friends. We may drive her down to my
mom’s on Sunday and bring the Hummel’s their bra back. Anything is
possible now! It is here – in my garage – I have the keys and I can
look at it and drive it whenever I want. I love driving this car. There
is nothing I don’t like about it. I have not stopped smiling for a
week. I have trouble walking away from it.
The CAGS Eliminator
works great. The gas bib works great. I like the stereo. The Valentine 1
detected radar and laser on numerous occasions on the trip back from
Bowling Green. We would get the warnings and before too long some
trooper would be locking on us with their radar. I was amazed at how far
away it gave us warnings. I love the cruise control on the C5. The top
is very easy to remove and buffeting is not bad as long as you lower the
windows about a half an inch. The trans feels very good to me and the
Z51 suspension is perfect. Not too harsh on the open road but nice and
tight around corners and twistys. This car feels planted at all times.
I love the HUD and all the instrumentation. The memory function is great
for Karen and I as is the Dual Zone Air. The sport seats were very
comfortable for our 2300 mile trip. The car hauls ass! That is the
bottom line. It has power everywhere you want or need it to. I love the
sound of the engine. The pipes sound fine but I need the Indy’s – I
know that. They will have to wait for awhile.
The
bottom line is that I enjoyed the whole buying, delivery, travel and
driving experience of my first Corvette. Fido and Fidoswife are very
happy campers.
The
End - but then again - only the beginning
