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!

2009 Corvette Production Numbers

The final numbers are now out for the 2009 model year production of the Corvette (I got this info from the Corvette Action Center) and thanks to the recession it was one of the lowest production years in recent history. Production has typically been about 35,000 cars per year lately, but the total production for 2009 was only 16,956 :( Here is the breakdown:

Total coupes: 8737
Total convertibles: 3343
Total Z06s: 3461
Total ZR1s: 1415

It's interesting that they made more Z06s than convertibles!

Here is the breakdown by color from most produced to least:

Black: 3665 (21.6%)
Cyber Gray: 3104 (18.3%)
Victory Red: 2231 (13.2%)
Crystal Red: 1987 (11.7%)
Blade Silver: 1642 (9.7%)
Velocity Yellow: 1370 (8.1%)
Jetstream Blue: 1367 (8.1%)
Arctic White: 863 (5.1%)
Atomic Orange: 726 (4.3%)
Luxo Blue: 1 (it was the ZR1 auctioned off at Jackson Barrett for 1 mil)


Atomic Orange has been dropped from the lineup, which typically happens to a color that ends up being less than 5% of total production (unless that happens with white, as they'll probably never drop white, it's the only color that has been in production for every single year since the beginning of the Corvette in 1953)

Here are more numbers:

Manual Transmissions: 8396
Automatics: 8560
Z51 package: 4515
CSC package: 72
Hertz cars: 375
GT1: 125
Canadian cars : 315
Museum delivery: 392
Chrome wheels: 5649
Comp gray wheels: 1028
NPP: 6238
F55: 3520
Mexico: 8
1LT: 3271
3LT: 5230

Trying to keep a positive attitude!

I truly believe that good things happen when you keep a positive attitude in life, but you also need to be realistic as well. With all the bad things that have happened to me this year it has been difficult to be 100% positive, but I'm surprisingly more relaxed than I ever thought I would be. I've always been the type that had more of a negative attitude, even when things were going relatively well for me. So it is shocking to me that I've been able to keep my sanity with all the hardship I've seen this year. I guess that my brain is telling me that things can only get better for me, and that dwelling on the bad things isn't going to be very productive at all.

I still have to be realistic though, and realize that I may not easily find a job as a Photoshop retoucher again. The printing prepress industry is dying in the Toronto area, many of the high end shops have now closed down and the ones that are left aren't hiring. So I might just need to focus on how I'm going to earn a living for the next 15-20 years until I can retire. Maybe this layoff was the kick in the butt that I needed in order to get out of this silly business and into something that will make me a heck of a lot more money.

Save A Blade update

I'm disappointed to report that the Save A Blade unit doesn't live up to it's claims, even though I reported last time that it does work. According to the TV ad, you can use the same blade 200 times, but after 19 shaves on the same blade I had to throw it out as it was just far too dull to comfortably use it any longer. The unit will definitely still save me money since I only used to get 7 shaves from every blade, but it's not as good as the hype. It'll take me a lot longer to recoup my investment in this thing now, and if this unit ever fails I won't buy another one (unless Walmart ends up selling them for $10 or something like that)

Trading is not that easy!

It wasn't that long ago that I was bragging about having tripled my fake investments in just one month, and now through a series of bad choices and bad timing (getting out of many stocks way too early) I have now seen my fake portfolio go from over $30,000 down to just over $14,000. :( It's a darn good thing I'm not doing this for a living, I'd be in big trouble! But at the same time this experience has taught me a lot and I look forward to building up my money once again, and hopefully will not make too many of the same mistakes of the past.

Save A Blade works!

I'm happy to report that Save A Blade actually does work! I normally cannot use a razor blade more than 7 times, but I've now used the same one 11 times and it's still going! I'd say it's about 75% as sharp as new, so it's not keeping it quite as good as a brand new blade, but this little device is definitely going to save me money on blades! I just hope the unit itself lasts long enough to get my money's worth, as the searches I've done on the net have led me to believe that this thing isn't quite as well put together as it should be and often breaks down. It certainly looks pretty cheaply made when you open it up to look inside. And it sure is noisy! Don't use it when other family members are still trying to sleep! :)

Tripled in value in one month!

It's been exactly one month today that I started my fake portfolio, and it now has tripled in value! I started out with $10,000 and as of today it's now worth $30,604! So far that proves that I could live off of the income generated from day trading, at least so far anyhow. If only I had an extra $10,000 set aside that I could afford to play with. Maybe one of my contest entries will win me some money that I can use?