Corvette C3 of the Week

Larry writes:

Greetings from Hamilton, Ontario!  A very nice site you've put together indeed.  I'd love it if you would add my 1981 beige/bronze beauty to your line up.  I read your bio and broke out laughing a couple times, either I'd been there too, or you were just darn funny.  I could tell you many stories about the '64 289/4sp Mustang, '66 Mercury Maurader 390 convertible, '69 Firebird 400 and many more that I had in those young crazy days when we drove like we knew we would never die.  Luckily for us, well me anyways, I believed it because there were times....ah forget about it.  In 1971 our steel making plant here in Hamilton hired me at 19 years of age and I was there up to 2007 when I thought enough was enough and I retired.  Like you, the muscle cars were traded in for Dodge caravans and such because life and mortgages and kids got in the way.  Not that I minded, it's been a great life.  But in 1978 when the Corvette pace car came out, I just about crapped my pants.  I needed that car more then anything in this world.  Of course, the closest I ever got was posters and magazines out in the garage I shared with a 3-4 year old son.  As life got easier (money wise  in the mid 80's I picked up a '70 Buick GS /ram air, a gorgeous '74 Monte Carlo landau which I custom painted with Kenny Kay.  But the car that was not the fastest, nor the most comfortable was the 1979 corvette I 'stole' from a guy who was broke.  That car did the same to me, it stole away my soul.  Never before did I ever drive a car that drove like that.  The virus caught my now 10-11 year old son and he's been addicted ever since.  BUT...life gets in the way again, a daughter arrived, a brand new house apparently was more important to the wife then a 'hot rod' so, from about 1989 till 2007, the pace car posters went back up in the new garage and SUVs and 4x4's were the cars of the day once more.  The kids, now adults in 2007, and my wife encouraged me to get the 1978 pace car I had always wanted when I retired.  Believe me or not, I just wasn't that crazy about going after one anymore.  But then, my good buddy and neighbour brought home his C4 crossfire.  I told him what I thought of it (looks like a pregnant Mazda RX7 to me!).  I now have come to respect the C4's upon closer observation.
But watching him drive up and down the street for a half summer got my juices flowing again I guess.  After telling (asking) the wife I was going to get a Corvette, off I stomped (tip-toed) to the computer to do my vette hunting via internet.  I looked at a million '78 pace cars.  Many, after wasting time and money to travel to see them were either NOT what the seller had said or worse, they were '78's decorated up to be a pacer clones.  I became frustrated and bogged down and the ones that were real and nice were just way too expensive for me.  However, one vette kept popping up quite frequently, a 1981 beige/bronze two-tone which I did not like at all.  But, it grew on me the more I seen it and did some info checking on it.  I learned it was a rare color combination, was 168 th off the Bowling Green line and belonged to a woman in Ohio who bought it new at 19 years of age and had just traded it in at the original dealership for a 2008 vette.  After a thousand phone calls I made it down there, liked what I saw and bought it.  The car finally got to Canada last February with 50,340 miles on it.  I have driven it this past summer more then I should have (approx 5,500 miles but I just couldn't help it.  So my friend, just a short note to say I enjoyed your site and I would love to have you include my beige beauty on it.

Binnie writes:

Larry is a member of the Stoney Creek Corvette Club in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada.