They Call Them “Survivors”

Last week we touched upon how "original" cars are only original once. Then, I went to the big Bloomington Gold (www.bloomingtongold.com) Corvette show over the weekend and got the surprise of my life. Instead of featuring only perfect, 100-point Corvettes, the show had its share of original cars with scratches and blemishes. In the Corvette hobby, they call such vehicles "Survivors" and it was refreshing to see so many of them and to see so many show attendees paying homage to these battle-scarred veterans of automotive history. A special indoor exhibit honoring 1957 models 50 years later featured a number of survivors from that vintage year. There was the historic race car owned by John and Sally Ness, the fuel-injected ex-factory race car owned by Joe and Mary Beth Trybulec and the wonderful original-owner car that John Luther, of Palm Coast, Florida DROVE to Illinois for the show! To hear Mr. Luther telling how he had used his car for drag racing, oval-track racing and road racing over the years was "worth the price of admission" as they say. The car had wrinkles in the paint, aftermarket mags, fat modern tires and bolt-on side pipes the factory never installed (he said his wife hated them). Luther's car sure wasn't immaculate, but it was what the old-car hobby is all about. 

By the way, those of you who are into Corvettes will want to check out our two new Corvette books. Corvette Bible by Mike Yager and Corvette Masterpieces by Jerry Heasley will both be available soon. Visit www.krausebooks.com for more information about these exciting new titles.