Tragedy at the Car Lot

You should understand that I am a car guy. I love the muscle cars and 4x4's and trucks with loads of torque. But of all the 4-wheeled vehicles in the world, it's the Corvette that holds the most prized place in my heart.

Now every so often a corvette anniversary comes around. Sometimes Chevy make a big deal, and sometime they don't. The 35th anniversery, 1988, was a big deal. The Special Edition Vette was all white. White wheels, white leather interior... She was gorgeous. She had a hotter engine than the standard 88 vette, and she came with the super-bad 4+3 tranny. This my friends... was a car to die for.

Now in all the world... there were only two 35th anniversery corvettes that got sent to Mr Callaway for his twin-turbo treatement. This tale that I'm about to unfold is how there got to be... only one of them.

So John had just got his twin-turbo 35th anniversery vette. I don't know for a fact that his name was John... but it's easier to tear your heart out over John's loss, than it is for anonymous victim. So anyway... John had just got his vette. There was only one other like it, in the whole damned world, and girls... This was a car that knocked drool right out of guy's mouths and blew women's skirts up as they walked by. It was that bad.

John was lovin his badass vette. He treated it right. He loved it. The car never saw the rain. It was treated like the precious child it was. Well... I don't know all this either.. but it's reasonable to assume... and it makes the story better.. so shutup.

Anyway... One day John notices that the passenger window won't roll down. It's sticking. Well that won't do! So, he takes his baby and drops her off at the dealer, to get the window fixed.

John returned to the deal a week later and picked up his vette, and they lived happily ever after.

Sadly that's not at all how the story ends, but it makes me feel better to type it that way just once. This is what really happened...

The dealer fixed the window. Then one of their lot boys was called to move the car out of the garage. He did. He parked the car where it would wait for its owner to come pick it up. Cept after about an hour the kid decided he wanted to take it around a little bit.... just in the parking lot to show off some. So he lied to the clerk, and got the keys. Then he proceeds to take one of only two of the baddest vettes in the world at the time, and thrash it around the back parking lot.

of course.. there is a reason God doesn't let 17 year old kids make enough money to buy 700 horsepower cars. Because 17 year old kids total them. The details are sketchy... but the part that is known is that the car was flipped, and utterly destroyed. For what? Why was this work of genius and art destroyed? For some idiot kid's jollies? The kid wasn't hurt... and there is no evidence that John ever killed him. But I for one wouldn't have convicted John if he'd blown that little bastard's head off right there on the spot. We call it the, "He Needed Killin' Defense".

Anyway.. the dealer ended up giving John a brand new 1989 ZR-1 for free. Which is fine, except that there were ZR-1's all over the place... and now.. there is only 1 35th anniversery Callaway Twin Turbo....

Typing this story... makes me thank God for bourbon.