My father purchased this Corvette shortly after he got the 1980 Corvette for me. Mine was mostly up on jacks under repair, so this was the one that got driven most often. They were even nice enough to let me take it to prom!

My Dad purchased the car in 1990 with only 19K miles on it. He was the third owner. The original owner was the president of Billet Specialties. My father knew the second owner of the car as well. A nice, low mileage car with all original paint and a traceable history. For as modified as my Corvette was, this one has remained incredibly stock.

The Cross Fire Fuel Injection gets a bad rap, but it's probably because most people don't understand the workings of the system. Aside from the fuel line issue below, the car has always started right up and run strong. Since this Vette was built in Bowling Green (as opposed to St. Louis), build quality was much better than mine - the doors always had a much nicer sound when they shut!

Here is my Dad with the car at the Bloomington Gold Corvette Show. This year took place in Champaign IL. Most of the time the car is driven, it ends up at one car show or another.

Back in 2011, I was driving the car and it started to studder and hesitate. We traced the problem to a ruptured hose between the in-tank fuel pump and the hard line. We had to drop the tank to access, which increased the scale of the project. We ended up discovering pinholes in the tank (caused by condensation between the metal liner and inner plastic shell). We replaced the tank, and the mufflers which were also too rusted to re-use.

Here is the completed work on the car, with new tank in place. Also visible are the new mufflers and the reconditioned y-pipe, painted with high-temp paints from Eastwood. Has been holding up very well ever since.

Ready for another adventure!

Stop monkeying with that moped muffler. We have Beetle sheet metal work to attend to!

Another shot of the car at Bloomington Gold. This year was in St. Charles IL.

The Oles Family fleet, together with our 1978 Beetle and my Uncle’s 1957 Mercedes 190SL.

In 2015, we attended Bloomington Gold in Indianapolis IN at the Indy Track. The Road Tour included a trip around the track.