Good Story Wayne...now here is my long winded story
I always considered myself to be a car guy. In my younger years, I owned a a 67 Ford fastback, a 68 Road Runner, and a 75 Firebird, and lastly a new 77 Trans Am.
After the T/A, I married, bought a house, had kids, etc. I kept that T/A in my garage for 17 years.
I bet for the last 12 years I owned it, I put maybe 1000 miles a year on it. Needless to say it was mint, when I sold it. Yes, I regretted that sale for a long time.
Fast forward the next 11 years. We put our kids through school, paid off the house, and started to travel the world. The last thing on my mind was getting back into a sports car.
I retired after 32 years service for the same company at age 51. My wife was still working, and I was enjoying golfing and other fun things in my retirement.
After 3 years on easy street, I took a contract job that lasted for 4 years starting in 2008.
My wife was still working, and we enjoyed travelling, so this contract would put some extra $$ in our travel account.
While at work, a fellow employee, who had also retired, started talking about buying a sports car. He would come in after every weekend, and detail the test drives on the vehicles he had tried out.
One of these drives was of a 2007 Corvette. He gave it rave reviews, liked the styling and he was amazed at the truck space on this coupe.
His other favourite was the Mercedes SLK, which was a 2 seater hardtop convertible. Of the 2, his wife liked the SLK the best, so I no longer have to tell you which one he bought.
I was impressed by both the SLK and the Vette. I casually mentioned to my wife of maybe getting a nice 2 seater for us to make road trips to PGA tour events. I was somewhat surprised that she was more than OK with that, and left it to me to pick the car I wanted.
I have a buddy that works as a salesman at a local Chevty dealership, and put a bug in his ear about trying to find a specific vette for me. A 2006 or 2007 Coupe, loaded with all options available. I mean really, if your going to use it as a road trip vehicle, it has to have all the creature comforts, don’t you think?
He called me up whenever they got one in to their lot, but more often than not, it was a colour that I didn’t like, and also bare boned stock options.
After a few attempts, he just didn’t get that I would not buy a non optioned car, so we tried out an SLK, but I just found it too small, not much trunk space, etc. I guess I was going for the vette all the way.
I had now decided on the colour, which would be VY. I search Canada’s internet sites for a fully loaded VY with glass top and NAV...had to have Nav.
After a few months of searching, I could never find a match in Canada, so I got asking about buying and importing a US vehicle. After weeks of research, and talking to people that had done this, I decided it was not too hard, and my search widened to the US market.
After lots of searches on various sites, 3 hits for a 2006 came up. One was actually in SK, Canada. The price was high, and mileage was a bit high as well. One in Florida had both tops, solid and glass, but although it had all the options, the one missing was NAV. The price was really good, but I just couldn’t get past not having the NAV. The other, was in ST Mary’s Ohio, at Bud’s Chevy. The price was higher than the Florida car, but only had 11K miles on it. I called the dealership, talked to the salesman, asked for tons of pics including the under carriage. These were sent within a day, I made an offer, they countered, and we settled on a price we were both happy with. I sent a deposit, then a few days later a bank transfer.
In the week that followed, the paperwork, title, registration was put in my name, faxed to the US Customs, and I was making plans to fly out by myself on a Monday to Toronto en route to Dayton OH. My poor wife was working...what a shame
I flew out on Monday morning, from a different airport (hurricane winds) landing in Dayton at 5:30 PM. The dealership had a car pick me up and drive me to St Mary’s. Once we turned the corner into the dealership, I saw it for the first time. It was beautiful. My salesman gave me a tutorial of the car, set up the Nav for my trip back home, and at 7:30 PM, I was on the road heading for Erie Pennsylvania. I landed in Erie at 12:30 AM, went to the casino until 3:30 AM, and in bed by 4AM. I was on the road by 8AM, and drove all day, stopping for lot’s of coffee along the Interstates. Every time I stopped for gas or food, I got a lot of positive comments on the car. I drove for almost 16 hours, and stopped in Bangor Maine for the night. The next morning I crossed over into Canada, and had no issues at all at either the US or Canadian border.
The next day, my son and I drove up to the airport to pick up my other car. I let him drive the vette on the 1.5 hour drive back home. I offered him the vette for his date later on that evening, and when he got back home, he was all smiles. The thing I remember him saying was: “Dad, you sure get alot of looks when driving that car”
My wife and I really enjoy the vette. It is a great highway cruiser, with lots of place for luggage. We do one long road trip every year, usually to a PGA golf tournament destination, and other shorter trips like the Gaspe, PEI and Cabot trail during the summer months.
We have done the Masters in 2010, Memorial in 2011, the Players in 2012, which also included a drive across the Overseas Highway to Key West. This spring we are going back to the Masters in April. Can’t wait till Spring.
As an added bonus, I added a link to the trip to Key West. Enlarge the first pic to get the details of the trip on the right hand comment section.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/mem...012-atlantic-canada-to-key-west-fl-25966.html