You’re a single male, you’re fifty, and your nest is empty. It’s time to order a red convertible. Right? Actually, when those conditions were first met, I ordered a silver coupe. For the first time in fourteen years, a totally new Chevrolet Corvette was introduced for 1997 and I ordered one in June. The car was initially in short supply and the dealer I chose was not a strong believer in the FIFO system of order fulfillment. As details of the next model year began to emerge with my car still unscheduled and my deposit check still uncashed, I canceled the order and went elsewhere to signup for a 1998 model.

A convertible had been added to the lineup for ’98, and by then I’d seen enough ’97 ‘Vettes to get hooked on the Light Carmine Red Metallic color. That’s what I ordered along with the 6-speed manual, Z51 suspension, and museum delivery I’d checked off on the coupe. Thinking of starting the summer off right, I asked for mid-March delivery. As you can see by the time stamp on the museum delivery area photo, they nailed it.

Museum delivery was not nearly as popular or as finely choreographed then as it is now. Today you are introduced to your car as it sits in a line of others scheduled for delivery on the same day, then a museum employee drives it outside before handing it over. In 1998, a day with a scheduled delivery wasn’t all that common, and a day with two was almost rare. My delivery was the second of the day, and the other car was still in place during my guided museum tour. I’d fortunately been told about this before the tour began so that I didn’t go into complete shock when it was time for the big reveal. My car was rolled in after the tour for photos and hand-off.

Back in the last century, new owners drove their new cars out of the museum if desired. The fellow ahead of me chose not to which is why his car was still there during my tour. I, on the other hand, wasn’t about to miss this opportunity. I’d ordered the car without so much as a test ride and the first time I was ever in a moving C5 was when I drove mine out of the museum with my girlfriend in the passenger seat. In the nearly empty lot, I “christened” the car with no name with a few drops of the champagne John had brought along before the bottle was emptied by the three adult members of the Vehicle Acquisition Team.

A fairly recent blog post touched on the cars I’ve used in my documented road trips, and pointed out that the My Wheels series of posts was closing in on them. This is the car that carried me on the first thirteen of those trips, and it actually has a lot to do with this website and that documentation even existing. When I started compiling a list of cars and the trips they’ve been on, I expected this car to have the highest count. I owned it longer than any other of my “road trip cars” and, even though there was another car in the stable during all of those eight and a half years, for the majority of that time the other car was not exactly road trip worthy. Of the 150 trips documented at the time of this writing, fifteen used a rental car or no car at all. Of the remaining 135, the 1998 Corvette was involved in thirty-three. That’s a respectable number but it’s not the highest. In fact, it was topped by two other cars that will eventually appear in this series.

So most of this car’s story is already on this website in the journals of those thirty-three trips from my very first documented trip, when I drove it into a canyon in Arizona, to the car’s last trip, where I discovered that I had no reverse after crossing the Chain of Rocks Bridge.

Those might sound more like low-lights than high-lights but, as John said after the canyon episode, “That’s how you get stories.” This car helped me get a lot of stories. And a lot of pictures. One picture, taken five days before that Arizona off-road excursion, has been a key part of this website ever since. It shows the Corvette on the Route 66 “sidewalk highway” near Miami, Oklahoma. With variously levels of cropping, it has constantly been the primary image on the site’s home page from the day it first appeared. It is also the basis for the site’s favicon (), and it’s been in a movie.

In 2005’s Elizabethtown, Kirsten Dunst surprises Orlando Bloom with a binder filled with maps, brochures, and general tips for a cross country road trip. My 1999 photo is pasted on the cover and appears on the big screen for a second or so. Guess I’m still due 14:59 of fame.

My Previous Wheels: Chapter 32 — 1986 Ford Bronco II
My Next Wheels: Chapter 34 — 2003 Pontiac Vibe

The Camaro was great fun to drive — mostly. On those fairly infrequent Cincinnati snow days, it was not. Well, maybe it was sometimes fun in a perverse slip-sliding-away sort of way, but it sure wasn’t relaxing. After one winter with it as my only vehicle, I went shopping for something a bit more winter friendly. The result was a very experienced V6 5-speed 1986 Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Bronco II.

The Eddie Bauer package included several amenities that made it a near luxury vehicle. It was instantly recognizable by the tan (regardless of base color) lower body trim. Seats and upholstery were special and a premium sound system and power windows and locks were included. My new acquisition had once been a rather prestigious ride. The operative word in that sentence is “been”.

The odometer showed a little more than 10,000 miles but no one would have even briefly thought that accurate. In those days of five digit odometers, this one had clearly passed through its full range at least once. The description that quickly developed was “Everything you absolutely need works. Anything you don’t absolutely need doesn’t”.

When I first got the car, the power door unlocks worked. The lock side of the option had already quit functioning but I could initially unlock both doors with the push of a button. That didn’t last long. Lights for the speedometer and some other gauges worked but other dashboard illumination, such as that for the radio, did not. The dark radio dial was hardly an issue since the premium audio had pretty much quit functioning before I ever saw it. It wasn’t entirely dead, though, and a friend who borrowed the car (It made a good loaner.) described turning it on and listening to a faint but clear broadcast with the volume cranked all the way up. The system’s full capabilities were miraculously restored, and the car filled with ear piercing music, by a bump in the road. It didn’t last long, and another bump soon silenced things completely.

In the photo, the rear door is kept from dropping onto Chris’ head by a wooden dowel as the struts had stopped doing their job long before. I was somewhat surprised and extremely grateful that the power windows fell on the “absolutely needed” side of the great divide. Since air conditioning was apparently not “absolutely needed”, and therefore not working, I appreciated being able to roll down the windows in the summer but it did make me nervous. Having them fail while open and a monsoon approaching seemed almost inevitable but it never happened.

The starter failed a couple of times but even there I was personally lucky. Not so Chris. For me, it failed on pavement within walking distance of home. For her, it happened on a narrow road bordered by snow and mud.

The Bronco was key to making the hundred mile drive to my parents in the winter and as Dad’s health deteriorated its reliability became a concern. I replaced it in 2003 and gave it to my daughter. She had another car but the Bronco’s four wheel drive helped her get to work when snow hit. She lived and worked in town so there was no risk of being stranded on an isolated country road. As I recall, she junked it after one winter.

My Previous Wheels: Chapter 31 — 1994 Chevrolet Camaro
My Next Wheels: Chapter 33 — 1998 Chevrolet Corvette

In the previous My Wheels chapter, I mentioned that the price of the Lumina was improved by the dealer’s need to “make room for the ’93s”. These included an all new fourth generation Camaro and I was instantly smitten by what I still consider one of the most attractive automotive shapes ever. The extremely clean wedge reminded me of futuristic dream cars my friends and I would sketch in the margins of our note books in high school. A new Pontiac Firebird naturally appeared at the same time and many were attracted to the performance oriented Trans Am model but not I. As was common with Pontiacs of the time, the Trans Am distinguished itself with various bits of cladding. There was also what I considered an awkward looking spoiler. In contrast, the Camaro’s simple blade-like spoiler was smoothly integrated into the body. I irritated some Trans Am admirers of my acquaintance by describing the car as “Camaro meets Mr. Potato Head”.

When, two years after buying the Lumina, the time came to “make room for the ’95s”, I was back to buy my third car from the same dealer. Ideally I’d have found a leftover green manual 6-speed Z-28 but I settled for a black 4-speed automatic. It was a Z-28, however, and a test drive of the 275 HP V8 told me that this would be a fun car even with the automatic transmission. It was also great looking. When clean and shining, this was one of the best looking cars I’ve had the pleasure of owning. But, as is well known, black cars are dust magnets and its clean and shining periods were usually rather short lived. This is — and I’m sure it will remain — the only black car I’ve ever owned.

As seen in the photo, I autocrossed this car quite a bit. It was much better suited to the job than the Z-34 Lumina and I did considerably better with it although I was never a real threat. I sure had a lot of fun, though.

Of course I still had some daughter chauffeuring responsibilities. The Camaro wasn’t as roomy as the Lumina but neither was it as confining as the Storm. Hauling two, and on occasion even three, flexible teenagers, was never much of a problem. Maybe the kids like the tasteful rumbling. I know I did.

My previous Wheels: Chapter 30 — 1992 Chevrolet Lumina
My Next Wheels: Chapter 32 — 1986 Ford Bronco II

In the previous My Wheels chapter I mentioned that the motorcycle it featured passed through my hands  sometime in the period around my second divorce. The same was true of the subject of the chapter before that. The Mazda, the Yamaha, and the wife all came and went while the leased Acura remained. Eventually, however, even it went away. In the fall of 1991 I found myself in need of a car with nothing to trade-in and with credit not all that good in light of the recent divorce.

I’d enjoyed driving the Mazda and, with the family down to just me and my daughter, thought I’d go for something sporty. The Mitsubishi 3000GT had recently been introduced and I really liked its looks. I picked out one I wanted, took it for a quite satisfying test drive, then quickly discovered the credit issue. I simply couldn’t afford the car.

The Isuzu based Geo Storm had appeared at Chevrolet dealers about the same time. It was kinda sporty, kinda fun to drive, and a lot cheaper than the Mitsubishi. My credit was good enough for a blue Geo Storm GSI 5-speed coupe.

Even as I closed the deal, I considered it something of a stop gap. The Storm was a step down from the Acura I had been driving and, more importantly, from the Mitsubishi I wanted. I intended to move on just as soon as the smoke and ashes from the divorce cleared a little. I became more serious about doing that as I quickly realized how wrong I had been about my transportation needs.

Sure, there were now only two of us in the household I headed, but I hadn’t considered the fact that teenage girls hardly ever go anywhere alone. My chauffeuring duties weren’t all that heavy but when I did need to deliver or retrieve my daughter, she was usually accompanied by a friend or two. The Storm could handle three teens and me for short distances but that was its limit. In hindsight I was better off realizing this for the price of a Geo rather than the Mitsubishi I’d targeted.

The worst of the impact of the divorce on my credit was over about as quickly as the marriage. I was able to up-size in less than a year. As a result, I really have no stories about the Storm. It did its job even when overloaded with teenagers, and I really had no problems with it at all. My problem free experience made finding an article titled “Famously Unsafe: Geo Storm” a huge surprise.

I found the article (It’s here.) as I searched the internet to refresh my memory for this post. I dived into it expecting to learn of major flaws or failures that I had somehow miraculously avoided. Turns out that the car wasn’t particularly fragile or uncontrollable but supposedly had a reputation I was unaware of. The only hard fact I saw to support this is, “The NHTSA actually rated the Storm as having the most aggressive drivers in its class.” In other words, the “unsafe” reputation came from the car having more than its share of owners who overdrove their and the car’s capabilities. The article ends by referencing the Storm’s “tendency to attract morons”. Nolo contendere.

My Previous Wheels: Chapter 28 — 1978? Yamaha 400
My Next Wheels: Chapter 30 1992 — Chevrolet Lumina