About a year ago my wife suggested we get a “fun” car in a couple of years. To me that meant, “lets buy a C3 vette” The kids would be out of college and things would be paid off. I thought I would start looking right away so when the time came I would have a good idea of what was out there. Before I knew it I was reading about Corvettes every day, and I became obsessed. Last week… I bought a corvette. Life is full of odd twists.
Here is the strange story of how I got to where I am now...
In the beginning all I knew about Corvettes was that I loved them as a kid, and they had a fiberglass body. I read everything I could on them and learned a ton on the internet.
When I was searching, I kept coming across a black 69 convertible named “killer”. The more I saw that car the more I loved it. I stumbled across
Chris’s website (the guy who originally built Killer) and I sent him an e-mail. Keep in mind this is the only time in my life I have done that, which makes the ending of the story so unbelievable. I told him that my wife and I will be looking at 'vettes and he has ruined it for us because nothing we ever find will compare to that car. He was really nice and replied, but told me that he had sold it when they moved from Florida.
The more I read, the more I liked the idea of an LS in a C3 ‘vette. I had no idea how underpowered C3's were during the smog era until I started reading up on them. 165 hp in 1975? Really? I looked around the area and did not find any speed shops that might be into that sort of swap. So I went on the forums each day reading up on it. I noticed a guy named "superpowers" seemed to know everything you needed to know about that kind of swap, and he was very helpful answering people’s questions. I wished I had a guy like that around here. Then one day I looked at his profile and realized he lives in Iowa City, as I do. Then I googled his name and found out he lives around the corner from me. HOLY COW! (I am paraphrasing there) I figured out he runs
Custom Image Corvettes and found that website. One of the first pictures I saw was that same black 69 convertible, now named “Kaos” being backed off of a hauler in front of a restaraunt. I recognized the place as I eat there a lot. I yelled at my wife, “KILLER IS IN IOWA CITY!”
Yea, I was pretty blown away.
A few days later I walked around the corner to Josh’s house to introduce myself. There was “Kaos” in person. I was blown away. Pictures do not start to show how damn cool this car is.
I visited with Josh and he was very happy to talk to me and talk about cars. I could not stop staring at Kaos as I told him that my wife and I are looking to find a ‘vett in a couple of years, but nothing anywhere near this cool. He asked why not and I told him this was way out of our league. He said, “It doesn’t have to be.” I thought .. yea right.
I am just an average guy with a socket set and an oil wrench and thought how cool it would be to go over and offer to sweep the floors or whatever needs done just to be around this stuff and pick up whatever I can learn. I thought my wife would hate the idea. Then my wife said, “you should go see if you could do an intership kind of thing with that guy” -best wife ever!
He welcomed the idea, and I started my internship with “fiberglass 101”. Now here we are months later finishing up what turned out to be a massive build on the same car from Florida that I had fallen in love with. I even got to meet Rob, who now owns Kaos, when he flew up from sunny Florida to check it out.
I have learned so much from this experience already. Especially toward the end of this build, Josh has been so busy working on the car while taking phone calls all the time. Yet he will stop what he is doing and say , “hey, do you know how to read the stamp marks on bolts?” or some random thing like that.
So I guess to complete my internship I am going to build my own ‘vette. It is a year earlier then we had planned, but sometimes you just need make things happen when you have the opportunity. A year from now Josh will be in South Dakota. He offered to sell me one of his extra ‘vettes and I could not refuse.
The car is kind interesting as it is a 76 that was featured in a series of “Vette magazine articles starting around 1999. It was a one owner car that was purchased by Bob Wallace as a project car. Somewhere in the build process Bob was contacted about putting an LS1 and 4L60E into it. This was unchartered territory since the LS1 was pretty new at the time. A few of the articles are on like and here is one of them: http://vette.automotive.com/130163/vemp-0205-1976-chevy-corvette-stingray-ls1-engine/index.html I have a stack of 'Vette magazines that came with the car that feature the build as well as an owner's manual that somewhere along the line was signed by zora duntov's widow. I have to get the full story on that.
So the plan over the next few months is to do a body off, replace the tranny with a Richmond 6speed, and do killer flares and rear and rear on it. It will look like an bad ass-LS1 powered '73 for the most part. Josh sells exact reproductions of those flares and the rear end and I will be adding them to the '76. The car had gotten a c4 zr1 looking butt and an 80’s style front somewhere along the way. Personally I did not care for either so it is a perfect candidate for this make-over.
I am keeping the LS1 pretty much stock with just the addition of some headers, a good exhaust, some cold air intake, and a tune. That setup with the rebuilt Richmond should have plenty of power for me, but also cruise on the highway with ease.
The frame on this car is amazing. I am from Iowa and am used to having 3 year old bolts rusted tight. I have been pulling off stuff underneath the car and I just laugh at how easy they come loose.
.....And so the journey begins. A year ago I was admiring a car in Florida, and today I am doing what I can to help finish a major overhaul of that same car Iowa. Then I will build my car and it will have the exact same flares as the car I thought was soooo out of my league. Like Josh said, "it doesn't have to be"
