It was in mid 1962, that I became infected with a fever.  I was unaware how powerful it could be.  All I remember, it was a sunny afternoon and after work decided to visit my cuz at Dailey Chevrolet in San Leandro and hang out with him until he got off work and have a few beers.  But as I walked towards the work area, a red car caught my attention.  It drew me like a magnet.  It was a customers car and was waiting for pick-up.  Standing alongside this red machine, I marveled at the flow of it’s lines, the quad 

headlights, a chrome roll bar, and most of all it’s cut-down race car windscreen. 

     I rested my hand briefly on the race car, and that’s  when the fever took hold. Although I didn’t know it yet, I was hooked, couldn’t get that car out of my mind.  It was a Corvette.  So I say to all you that love cars, be careful, this could  happen to you.    There’s only one way to cure Corvette Fever..........A delightful way !

      The smiling salesman said he could have one here in five day’s,  red with black interior.  Friday afternoon , after work, I parked at the curb in front of the showroom. There was no red corvette in sight!  The smiling salesman came out of the office and reassured me it was here, and then the paper work began.  Just sign the papers, never mind you can’t afford it.  Never mind you already have a nice car, just sign here please.  You know I bought the car without even seeing it.  ( fever clouded my mind ) Buyers remorse?......  Not for a second.   

A  red and a white drove side by side all around town.  How often could you see that?

  Factory mufflers ha ha..... just a little too quiet.   A nice set of mellow glass-packs

rocked on.  The next thing (the only thing) I hated was those original hub caps, to me 

they resembled garbage can covers.  A simple chrome “peak” wheel cover complimented the car.     And now there was one thing left to make this Corvette my own.  I had this idea for open exhaust on each side close to the engine Right off the exhaust manifolds.

Something that could be remotely opened and closed from the drivers seat.  Two short pieces of tubing,  hand fit butterfly throttle, my machinist training  has served me so very well with many projects.  With a 24 volt aircraft solenoid connected to a toggle switch hidden under the dash.  I could have open exhaust at any time I wanted.   A GTO chose to race getting on the freeway. There wasn’t a car in sight.  Rolling at about 15 mph in low gear, we both punched it and as the tach’ swung up to about five grand, I switched  the cut-outs open. The built up pressure, suddenly released, sounded like a bomb!    It was quite a shock for the other driver, his eyes popped open wide, not sure what happened.                

    The Corvette pulled ahead blasting sound as if the dogs of war have broken their leash!

   Coming back from Tacoma Washington, I opened them up as I was passing a truck

on a long hill.  There must have been cop hiding somewhere and he heard them. But I had shut off after I passed that truck and there was a string of cars following me.

In my mirror I saw a highway patrol car working his way past all the cars behind me and I was doing the speed limit.  The CHP followed me for a few miles, suspicious, but he couldn’t hear anything.  Then he slowly passed, checking out my car very carefully. 

And you know........ Even though he didn’t give me a ticket,........ I sure did drive the speed limit all the way back to California!  

        Waiting at a signal, I think it was downtown Hayward......... Some cars in those days liked to rev their pipes at Corvettes, and this Jalopy came up beside me at the signal revving up like crazy with four guys inside laughing and jumping up and down.

Well, I wasn’t going to race him, It was beneath the Corvette to race a jalopy!!  

 But what I DID do was.....   just before the light changed, I switched open the cut-outs and drowned him out.     You could not hear him at all!!   When the light changed, 

I switched off the cut-outs and drove quietly across the intersection.   The jalopy went blasting ahead of me, sure that he was in a race........ But he was not.  Soon after that,

     driving along peacefully, I was surprised when a cop passed me and then turned on his blue lights. He went screaming ahead and soon he pulled a car over.  And guess who it was?  The Corvettes mellow glass-packs were playing sweet music as we drove by.   

     Yes, I  did get a few tickets.  How could you not........ Driving a red Corvette.

One officer, (when writing the ticket)..... kept asking me how fast I had been going,       and his patrol car smoked as if on FIRE!   Officer, I think your car is on fire.  He casually looked over his shoulder and turning back to me said, no, it’s just not used to going that fast.  Couldn’t tell him I was around 140 mph. He could have put me in jail!

    

      I am so grateful that I got this “toy” when it was new.......... and I was young.  They say youth is wasted on youth.  But I say nothing was wasted in mine except my brain.

         It was a nice evening for a ride until a carload of drunk Mexicans tried to spin the corvette off the freeway. They kept trying to get ahead of me and I couldn’t let them.       

A touch of the gas pedal and I could easily pull ahead.  Yelling and cursing they tried again. I felt the car twitch a little, I didn’t realize that I was hit. 

 Checked my mirror and saw his headlights,....... then taillights,.........then headlights spinning around........... He went off the road in a cloud of dirt!

      Before the police knew how to do the pit maneuver... this carload of drunk mexicans deliberately tried to spin me off the road at sixty miles an hour.                It might have worked if they had been sober. When I got the car back in it’s garage,

I found a  small mark proving what that twitch was, they HAD tried to spin me!

       In a tight right hand turn merging onto the freeway in San Leandro, I dropped down into low gear and checking traffic, floored it, (full throttle) as I had several times before.

It was a great place to unleash three hundred horsepower and open those straight exhaust cut-outs.  And the loudness was magnified by the underpass I was going through, I was having great fun, passed all the cars and had an open road ahead of me.

But something had caught my eye in that underpass, something black and white.

The speedometer was swinging past 105 when I checked my mirror and realized it was a CHP!  OMG! I passed him with the cut-outs blasting and already over the speed limit!

 The noise alone could wake the dead.  He had been lurking in the shadows of the underpass!  Now I’m doing over a hundred, a sure trip to jail!  And he was coming, Oh he wanted me!  All of a sudden my mind was scrambled eggs  and I dropped the speed down to ninety five, unsure of what to do.  I was trapped on the freeway and up ahead there would be traffic and signals of Castro Valley, I could not get away.   But there was a exit ahead to Lewelling Blvd.  I kept my speed at ninety five and nervously checked my mirror, he was gaining, but quite a distance back.  Then I noticed

The freeway was going slightly down hill and there was a chance!  I lost sight of him in my mirror just as I approached that exit. Hopefully he couldn’t see me turn off.   Slammed on the brakes and took the exit, hoping to find it empty as usual.     Bad luck!  There were several cars there, and no way around them.  Adrenaline pumping, I sat in the little red Corvette feeling vulnerable, helpless.  My eyes were glued on the red signal light, was it ever going to change?  I don’t remember a signal taking that long!  I could see the empty freeway in my rear view mirror, then...............

 The black and white flashed by, doing over a hundred, red and blue lights blazing!  

I’m sure he was looking, and I imagined I could hear him swearing as he saw the little red Corvette stopped in that exit as he flew by.    Only when the garage door was closing did I feel a relief, and decided not to drive it for a couple of weeks. He would be looking for that car, and there weren’t that many around.  My work car was a beat up old British Austin four door.  And I would like to share with you something about peoples attitudes. In the days when there were “service” stations, an attendant would come out to your car and not only pump gas for you, but clean the windshield, check the oil, and put air in the tires, while you, the important customer sat in your car all cozy.   

 The attendant came out of the office all smiling looking at my junky old Austin. What will it be today? How about we take off the radiator cap and drive a good car underneath, ha , ha, ha.  And I would joke back with him saying; Oh no! its a classic.  Then one day I stopped in the same station driving my beautiful red Corvette. The same attendant walked over without a smile or conversation, put the gas in silently, and I thought that was strange.  But I forgot about it until I pulled in with the funky looking Austin again, and he was all smirky with that car. And he never mentioned my “other” car.  He was not the only one, people chose to ignore you ( I’m not gonna give him any satisfaction)because of what you drove.    Part of my youth was never ”wasted “  on a Corvette.

   The Corvette was sold to a dealer.  The money went for a down payment on a duplex.

Life goes on without it, but thank God I took the opportunity when it was brand new and shared my life with the little red Corvette.

True Hot Rod stories..................... Ron Francis........(c) 2010