THIS IS THE STORY OF MY 1976 CHEVROLET CORVETTE STINGRAY
"THE GREAT RED SHARK"
Since I was a kid, I'd always loved outrageous machinery. Choppers, dragsters, hot rods, custom cars. If it wore chrome, had a wild engine and made people stop and stare - I had it on my bedroom wall. Someday....I was gonna own some of this stuff. Not vehicles to get you from A to B, vehicles to make you grin, and blow your blues away.
A long while later, at a petrol station in Leeds, I heard a huge rumbling sound, which got closer and closer. Everyone stopped filling up their cars, and watched as a 70's Corvette appeared - flared out front, nipped in at the waist - the classic design based on a shark. It growled up to a pump, and the engine coughed into silence. The guy filled up, paid for his fuel, and started it up again - we all nearly burst into applause. That was it, I'd heard the sound of V8 thunder, and I wanted a Corvette.
Forward to 2002. I'd been looking through Auto Trader classifieds on the net for a while, and then I found it - "1976 Corvette Stingray, 12 months MOT, auto, £5000"......the magic words.
Why an auto? Because I'd pushed my abilities a bit too far on a Welsh border road riding my Honda 750 bike back in '98. Went head first through a Merc van. I ended up shaken, quite stirred, and with a paralysed right arm. So with the help of a steering knob and a wheel-mounted control panel for the electrics, I can still drive auto's. Sorted
Me and my Dad wrestled the '76 Vette back from Derbyshire to South Manchester.....and discovered how 'tired and emotional' it really was.....