A Corvette surprise

While planning a "field trip" to see an Iola resident's barn-find '70 Road Runner (featured in the May 7 issue of Old Cars Weekly), I met up with Dennis Bickford of Vintage Woodworks. Dennis' Chrysler Town & Country work has been featured in OCW several times, but few know he's also a Corvette guy, and has been for years.

Dennis was the one who told me about the Road Runner, and he was going to escort John Gunnell and I over to the shop of the Road Runner's owner. When I pulled in Dennis' driveway, I surprised was to see him dusting off a 1970 Corvette. (I was aware that he owned a '65 roadster, as I'd seen him drive it to
our local Wednesday night cruise-in on several occasions, but the blue
'70 shocked me.)

Apparently, Dennis and his equally wonderful wife had bought the car slightly used in 1970 while Dennis was stationed in Hawaii.

Dennis gave me the "low-down" on the car, but one of the most fascinating stories of his experience with it was when he shipped the car to the U.S. mainland after his stint in Hawaii was over. He said that, while in California to pick up the car, they stopped at his wife's relative's home in LA for a visit. Knowing 'Vettes were the most stolen cars of the time, Dennis was more than a little worried the car would be robbed while in LA. To disable the car from starting, Dennis removed the rotor from beneath the distributor cap. But he also knew it could be towed away in the night, so he tied a string to the car, then ran the string across the yard and up through the bedroom window, tying it off at his toe. If the car was going to be stolen, Dennis (and his toe) were going with it!