5 years since I got my Corvette!

Today marks the 5th anniversary since I got my C5! I still remember that day like it was yesterday! I woke up to perfectly sunny skies on that Saturday morning, although "wake up" is a term I use loosely because I don't think I slept very well that night I was so excited! It wasn't my first Corvette, but it had been almost 13 years since the one I had before (which was an 84 that was a nightmare, but that's another story) and I wanted a C5 so badly, ever since I did the Bowling Green plant tour in spring 1997 (and again in summer 1998) Back then I couldn't afford a C5, so I got the next best thing, a new 98 Firebird Formula with the LS1 and a 6 speed manual. That car was a ton of fun, but I always considered it a stepping stone to the C5.

I remember in early June 2004 when I initially started looking for a C5 I was so excited, and figured I'd find one right away as I had been looking in the Auto Trader for years and in early 2004 I finally started seeing C5s priced at under $40,000 for the first time. But as luck would have it, as soon as I started looking, none of those cars were around anymore! So it took me almost 8 weeks of searching before I found this one. It was exactly what I was looking for except for one thing, IT WAS BLACK! That was the one thing I kept telling everyone, I want an automatic coupe in any color but black. Oops! This one was too good to pass up though, it was posted on Auto Trader by Oakville Infiniti/Nissan, the original owner had just traded it in on a new G35 coupe. This C5 was perfect though, never driven in rain or snow, only 51,276 km on it, and didn't have the ugly wagon wheels but instead had the chrome thin spokes instead. So that was a major bonus! The $33,000 price tag was even more incredible to me, considering how most C5s with that mileage were just barely under $40k at the time. I had figured all along that the only way I was going to find a C5 around $30k was to get one with 200,000 km on it.

Since I bought this car I've used it as my daily driver, in the rain, in the sun and (gasp!) even in the snow! I now have 171,813 km on it and I find the car just as exciting to drive now as I did on August 7th 2004! It's been very reliable too, the only repairs I've needed in all these years have been an ECM in January 2006 (first one died due to corrosion from the battery combined with road salt from a poorly sealed off compartment), and in February 2005 I had to change the head unit for the climate control (the first one went dim and I didn't know about the easy fix back then, as it wasn't posted on the forum yet)

I know that a lot of you have heard me talking a lot over the years about how I want a C6 but that in no way reflects how I feel about this car, as I totally love it! Even when I get a C6 someday (and it's a LONG way away now with my financial situation), I can't imagine ever getting rid of this one. (and my wife absolutely LOVES it, so I'd keep it for her to drive) This car is just so much fun to drive, it really doesn't feel like it's got 171,000 km on it, it still runs as smoothly as it did with 51,000 km on it!