In high school, I had a good buddy by the name of Jim. Jim had an older brother, by 1 year, who was a Corvette aficionado. He was on the hunt, nation-wide, for his perfect Corvette. What was his perfect Corvette? It was a 1980, with the Gymkhana suspension, and a manual transmission. The only way to get a manual on a 1980 was to have the less powerful L-48 motor in it, which was rated at about 190bhp, if memory serves me correctly. Jim’s brother made mention of a particular Corvette roaming around town – a 1980, low mileage, black on blue L-82. We’ll get back to this later.

One late fall/early winter evening, I am sitting at home not doing anything in particular. The year was around 1987. The doorbell rings at my parent’s house, and it is my buddy Jim. He tells me that he has his brother’s newly arrived Corvette that he had finally located on the other side of the country. It was beautiful! It was red on red, and in exceptional condition. I wasn’t overly familiar with the 1980 model year, but I can say that I fell in love with it. My passion  up to that point had always been the 2nd generation of Corvettes, 1963 – 1967. Anyways, with much excitement, we hop in the car to go for a drive around our quiet little town. I remember there being a light film of snow that was covering the roads.

We are coming around an almost 90 degree, lazy right hander, and the back end starts to do its impression of a pendulum. I turn to Jim to tell him to stop messing around when I realize that he has lost control of the car. There was a parked car on the other side of the street that we were headed straight for. We plowed into it, head-on. The ‘Vette hit it so hard that after impact, momentum swung the ‘Vette completely around the hit car only to end up on the lawn. Luckily, I walked away without a scratch, and Jim had hit his head against the steering wheel, and had a small scratch, but otherwise was okay, at least for now. I say at least for now, because now he had to tell his brother what had just happened with his cherished Corvette. Let’s just say that holes were punched in an unlucky wall, much expletives, and so on and so forth. I don’t think his brother ever forgave him for that, sadly.

Not long after that, I am scanning the classifieds. I come across a for-sale ad for a 1980 Corvette, black with a blue interior, with the ever-so-rare L-82 motor. This was it! It was the car that Jim’s brother had been talking about. I went to look at it, and fell in love. I had to find a way to own it. I put my beloved 1980 Z-28 up for sale. It sold fairly quickly, and for pretty much what I had paid for it 3 years earlier. I still did not have enough to buy the Corvette. Thankfully, my parents were always there to help my sister and I, and extended a “loan” to me. I put quotes around the word “loan” because it was one of those loans a parent extends to their children with not a whole lot of emphasis to pay it back.

I was on cloud 9 when I took possession of it! I kept the car for about 10 years before I needed to sell it to start exploring responsible adult-hood, meaning moving to a new city to find a real job. That car, as well, sold for nearly what I paid for it. Living in a climate that had real winters, I always stored my sports cars in my parents’ garage during the winter. The nice thing about that is the mileage usually stays low, and when springtime approached, you got all excited again almost as if you just got a new car.

The L-82 from 1980 produced 230bhp. I removed the catalytic converter to get a better sound out of it, but the car remained bone stock aside from that. That was good power for the day. I thoroughly enjoyed that car, and had a couple of white-knuckle moments in it.

Over the course of the decade of Corvette ownership that I enjoyed, another buddy of mine decided to look for more of a classic ‘Vette. He ended up finding what I suppose would be considered a ’63. I say that, because it was more of a “Frankenstein” car, where the engine was not original, nor were the seats. The look was a real head turner, as my buddy had it painted in Ferrari’s most well known hue of Rosso Corsa (red). It was an exciting car to be seen in, but holy crap, was terrible to drive. Ever drive a car with 4-wheel drum brakes? Plan your stops to be about 3 times the length of what you would normally expect. Emergency braking? Just cross your fingers and hold on for dear life (luckily, I never had to do that in his car). I remember the clutch pedal being fairly high off of the floor, where your foot actually had to leave the floor to depress it. That doesn’t sound like much, but I remember how tired my left leg would get in any kind of stop-and-go traffic. It was an incredibly cool car, but a really unusual choice for basically a high schooler to choose. It was very much a car to enjoy being seen in rather than drive.

I was fortunate that I had such wonderful parents who were willing to help facilitate my sports car “disease” Having a relatively recent model-year Corvette at the age of 21 was not the norm, at least not in my neighborhood..Those early years in my career of auto enthusiasm spawned some memories I will cherish forever.

I sometimes wonder what had become of my 1981 Z-28 and the ’80 Corvette. I wonder if they are both not only still in 1 piece, but if they have been maintained the same way that I kept them. Perhaps my path will cross one of them again one day.