RIP Long Island Corvette

[mach2andy]

I've only just spotted that Long Island Corvette is no more. What a shame. They were a family run business specialising in Mid Year cars. Richard the owner had a collection of big tank cars, and his daughter Kim had the most amazing encyclopaedic knowledge of C2 spares, and the cars themselves. Whilst owning a C2 and travelling to and fro to NYC every week throughout the nineties I regularly went out to Copiague on Long Island where they were located. It was a 30 min train ride from the city, and Richard often offered to pick me up and drop me off at the station. The end of the line is a place called Montauk which is the easternmost point of both Long Island and NY state. I discovered this after falling asleep on the train soon after leaving the city!

 

[Nassau65]

Never been there, but have purchased a few bits and bobs from them over the years. What happened? Did they just decide to call it a day?

 

[mach2andy]

I really don't know why they've called it a day. Richard passed away in 2017, and his 36 gallon tank cars were all auctioned in 2018. I think one of them was 1 of only 2 built? The whole shebang [ all of the huge inventory and tooling ] was purchased by ZIP. I only discovered that they had closed when I started searching for a replacement radiator for my car which has become somewhat percolative. I think it may well be the original. I've just been on a longish journey around France and Belgium and had to top up the header tank fairly regularly.

 

[Nassau65]

Yes, I had a read up after your post, didn’t say much about the “why” only that it had all been bought by ZIP. Somebody decided to “cash up” I suppose.

 

[Nassau65]

It seems that the “Big Boys “ of the Corvette parts suppliers are slowly eating up the smaller companies. Soon they will fighting themselves. Looking back through my old Corvette traders most of if not all are no long in business.