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Well, you met the more pleasant and better looking person of the two of us.....

Thanks for the nice welcome.

Rich

We started in the hobby twenty years ago with a literally all original 66 big block coupe. We loved the car and restored only what was needed such as the engine which was in need of a complete rebuild. After doing several NCRS events we began to better understand what we had and began to drive it less than we had planned. At that point we started to buy other C2's to restore and felt more comfortable about driving those cars.

After nine years though we began looking for a way to broaden our interest in the hobby and decided to build a car the way we wanted. That was our first "Vette-Rod" or "Resto-Mod". We look for cars that are not good candidates for a stock restoration and would never modify a real numbers matching car as we feel those are best restored as they left the factory.

Candidly, we are now having more fun in the hobby than ever and have built three cars of this type. Each one has been different in the approach we've taken which is the most interesting aspect for us in these projects. Everyone has their own perspective of their ideal Corvette whether it's completely stock, modified somewhat or the full-blown Vette-Rod. Whatever your point of view there's always something interesting to see in how folks have gone about building their cars.

For us the key is having a specific theme for the car along with set objectives. Ours is to retain the integrity of the original styling, as that is what initially attracted us to them, but upgrade everything under the skin to improve the performance, ride, handling, braking and comfort. We only make subtle changes to the body and interior and, with any change, we try to blend them with the original styling.

Frankly, it's a bit more involved as you could be undertaking both a restoration as well as incorporating the custom components. We try to use as many current Corvette components as possible to end up with a classic styled car combined with more current components.

We appreciate all Corvettes. Everyone has their own view of what they like and enjoy the most but this has kept our interest in the hobby going.

Rich

Thanks for the welcome and the comment on the last article. It's funny, but when I was reflecting on what we had learned from the project, there was a long list of things that I thought might be useful for other folks on their own projects and many of them were comical. I also have a long list of "never do that again" topics but didn't put those in print....

Thanks again,

Rich

Just ran across this Forum and thought I would join in.

Happy to hear that you have been following our project series in Corvette Fever magazine. The last installment (Part 8) has just appeared in the March, 2009 issue.

We've been surprised at how many folks have been following our progress for the past two years and we've enjoyed putting the articles together. Before we got into this we didn't know how much time it took to do the articles but now have a better appreciation for what the career writers have to do. I'm retired and my understanding with the magazine is that I will only write on subjects of interest and those where I feel we can help anyone considering similar projects. Thus far we've covered several topics besides the 63 project and have enjoyed doing them.

There are links to the first seven articles at the bottom of Page 10 on our web site. We're always willing to try to answer questions anyone may have on their projects.

Thank you for the post.

Rich
p.s. It's not really our "kitchen". :o)) Woodworking is another hobby so we built the garage to be comfortable while working on the various project. Hard to believe that was over sixteen years ago now.