My wife June & I went to the Chelsea Cruise in 1989 (re-living our separate younger years of 15 years earlier!) with a view to hot-rod-shopping. But, looking around the cars in the park we began to think that a Corvette might be a tad more practical. I'd had a bit of a "thing" about them since parking behind one regularly on South Bank at Brands in the early 70's. My favourite magazine of the time, Street Machine, had an add at the back for Claremont Corvette, only about 5 miles from where we lived, but unknown to us at the time. We went down one week day and spent a few hours vainly trying to get any info out of Tom Falconer- until he realised that maybe we weren't "tyre kickers" an may actually be real buyers!
June fancied a C2 vert he had at the time, but I wasn't so keen. We looked a 74 (I think) convertible that he had, but it was a little more than we wanted to pay. Our '78 was actually for sale in a garage in Maidstone. When I sat in it I realised that it was a lot more comfortable than the earlier C3s - nicer steering wheel, slighter better seats, a proper glove box etc.... It was in our price range, but needed a few things. I knew little or nothing about Corvette mechanicals, so I did a deal with Tom, whereby he bought it, did the jobs, then sold it to us. The price was what we wanted, so we went ahead.
In the meantime I'd discovered the '78 was an "interesting" year, and that the larger rear window gave us a lot more luggage room and a lighter cabin.
Once it was ours it took two weeks of evenings and much of the weekends for me to polish the "pink" car into the red it should be and for June to transform the "light tan" interior to the Oyster that it was! When we called into to Claremont with the refreshed car, Tom realised he may have undercharged us! But he has been a great help over the years.
June is still a fan of the earlier cars, but the '78 shape has "grown" on her. It'll be 31 years in our ownership in April this year, so we must have a liking for it!
