Tar River Cruizers
Member's Cars
Michael Garrett - Henderson, NC - '71 Corvette 454
I purchased this car on September 30th,
1986. The current owner had rear ended a car and cracked the fiberglass on
the front end of the car. Each year there after me and friends would go to
the Knoxville Corvette Show in March, the Carlisle Corvette Show in August
and the Greenville SC Show in November and look to purchase parts to begin
the restoration project. This is something that I wanted to be a part of.
Then in June of 1994 I started the restoration project with the owner of a
local body shop, We took the car apart and sent the motor out for a rebuild
to a local machine shop. After a complete frame off restoration, on a
limited budget, I got the car back on October 30th, 1996. The
only things left to do were the instruments. Anxious to drive the car, I
did not proceed to do the instruments and later became less interested in
the car as it was not “show car” perfect.
Then came the expensive part, I set out on a quest to find the one restoration company that would take my car as it was and give it back to me better than it was the day it left the factory. I started going back to the show in Carlisle and in August of 2000 I met Dick Ferrando out of Gillespie, IL who owns D & A Corvettes, Inc. He was displaying one of his cars that had been restored and I knew that was who I wanted to restore/build my dream car. Well, Dick came down and picked the car up on November 9th, 2000 and took the car back with him. He informed me that the project would take a couple of years once he got started on the car. On October 17th, 2001 I got a letter from Dick saying that the car was now disassembled and the project had begun.
From this point forward, many decisions had to be made. I decided to have the engine sent out for a rebuild again, this time blue printing and balancing it. The car was already a numbers matching car and I wanted it right. Everything went back on the car new.
Pictures were sent regularly to show the progress of the restoration work. I made the decision to go back with a tilt-telescopic steering wheel and power windows. These items did not come on the car but were options. I also elected to install a “Be Cool” radiator in the car because history says big block corvettes tend to run hot. I still have the original parts that were not put back on the car.
This process went on with monies for installment payments regularly going out until the car was completed and delivered back to me around 10:00 PM Wednesday October 15th, 2003. On Friday evening I began to polish the car and get it ready for the Show, Shine, Shag & Dine Car Show that Saturday which the Vance County Tourism Department puts on each year. To my surprise and great satisfaction, the project that had taken 17 years to complete produced a Best of Show award in the Corvette Class on its first outing.
Yes, It was all worth it.
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