DIARY OF A MUSEUM DELIVERY ========================== by Imre Olajos, Jr. 2002. July 16. Day -185 "I'd like to buy a Corvette." It's amazing how much is represented by this simple sentence! A mere five years ago I would've laughed at the idea of buying a Vette - I couldn't afford it! Yet, today there I was, not only sitting in one and test driving it, but actually seriously considering buying it. To be honest, my dream car was always a Ferrari, but as time passed by I realized that I'll probably never have enough money to buy even a used one. A few years ago I saw one for a reasonable price - except it had no engine in it. And even if by the ripe age of 120 I finally managed to save enough money to buy one - what's the point of having one at the doorstep of death? Why not enjoy life while I still have a chance to enjoy it? So, I decided on the next best thing: a sports car that is affordable and looks just as good as a Ferrari (if not better!). I was ready to buy either a red or a metallic red Vette on the spot at the dealership. But the 2002 model year was nearing its end and the dealership had trouble locating one that satisfied my specifications. (Because I did my homework before I walked into the dealership and I knew exactly what options I wanted in the car.) So, I said I'll think about it and left. Call me stupid, but I found out only afterwards that the Vette is gonna be 50 years old next year and that GM is honoring that birthday with special badges on all Corvettes and a special 50th Anniversary Edition car! I decided to wait... 2002. September 23. Day -109 I bought a 50th Anniversary Edition Corvette today. I paid $4000 over the MSRP after some pretty nasty negotiations - the guy wanted to sell it to me for $10k over the sticker! But obviously I thought it was well worth it even at this ridiculous price. I was debating between a nearly fully loaded red 2003 Vette and the 50th AE one, but when I realized that the price difference between the two (when configured to my liking) is only $2000, I figured that's a small price to pay for something even more special - and for something that has a really cool color! So, my order was placed: a 50th Anniversary Edition Corvette with body-side moldings, manual transmission, roof package - and museum delivery. I thought, as long as I am getting a special edition car, I might as well get it in a special way. Plus I was really curious about how the Corvette assembly plant and the museum looks! 2002. September 30. Day -102 I saw that somebody bought a 50th AE Vette for $15k over MSRP on eBay today. Maybe spending "only" $4k over the MSRP was not a bad deal at all... 2002. October 10. Day -92 After repeated calls to the dealership the only thing they can tell me is that they still don't know when my car will be manufactured. So, to ease the pain of waiting, I ordered some 50th anniversary items from the Corvette store, all of which arrived today: a cap, a keychain and a mousepad. Yes, I finally have something in my hands that has the 50th logo on it! 2002. October 25. Day -77 The sky was grey today and as I drove to work I thought "a grey Vette would blend into this environment perfectly!" It was a funny little thought, nothing more, but I was rather surprised when a few miles later I did see a silver grey convertible Vette on the other side of the road! 2002. October 30. Day -72 My dealer called me today: the tentative production week for my (MY!!!) Vette is December 1. I might get this car before Christmas! Yay!!! Let's see, my delivery is gonna be dead in the middle of winter, so I will need a trailer to bring it back home: I don't want all that snow and mud dirty my car on its very first voyage! Then I'll also need to practice my stick shift driving a little, because it has been a while since I last drove a stick shift. So, I'll also need to rent a car for a day or two that has manual transmission. 2002. October 31. Day -71 Today I was told that I will be laid off from work a month from now. The entire department that I was a part of was let go. This sucks!!! Why are the happiest days always followed by the saddest days?... I can't back out of buying the Vette now. I already put down a significant amount of non-refundable downpayment on it. And what irony: today was a perfect day outside for cruising in a Vette... 2002. November 8. Day -63 I'm trying to convince my dealer to have my Vette put on a truck after my museum delivery - after all, they must be shipping Vettes out of the plant every day, so what's one more on a truck? To no avail. Gary at the National Corvette Museum convinced me that it would not be a good idea, anyway, since due to my museum delivery the car will be stripped of every packaging material and the trucks leaving the plant do not have enclosed trailers. Fine, I'll find a trailer myself... It sounds unbelievable, but there isn't a single car rental place in the US that carries stick shift cars! It's gonna be interesting refreshing my knowledge of manual transmission on my very own Vette... 2002. November 24. Day -47 Vette Fest at McCormick Place in Chicago - this is pretty close to being in Vette heaven! Got a ton of great ideas for mods, got to talk to a few Vette owners. What a great day! 2002. December 2. Day -39 My Vette is probably being born as we speak! Now I'm starting to regret that I didn't travel to Bowling Green, KY to see this great occasion. Why couldn't they schedule my museum delivery for this day? They must be really backed up with all those 50th AE owners asking for museum deliveries... At least I got a delivery window today: it's after Christmas. Between December 27 and January 10... I can hardly wait! 2002. December 6. Day -35 Signed all the papers today, got the 0% financing, got 6 year/ 72,000 mile GMPP. I am poorer today, but a Corvette richer! As luck has it, one of my friend's father-in-law has his own company which owns a trailer. So, we are gonna drive to BG together and pick up the car. But since Bob is still employed (unlike me), the delivery date has to be adjusted to his availability. We decide on a date: Friday, January 10. 2003. January 1. Day -10 Marci, another friend of mine, was vacationing in Hungary with his wife during the holidays and he was very kind to give the keys of his new VW Beetle to me so I can practice driving a stick shift car. I did that today - I think it went pretty well! I am surprised how much I still remember. I guess, to reciprocate his kindess I'll have to let Marci drive my Vette, too. Hmm, maybe this was the reason he let me use his car?!... 2003. January 4. Day -6 I got to see the trailer today. I can't believe I'll have my very own Vette sitting in it less than a week from now! The Chevy Silverado pickup truck that we'll use to pull the trailer looked a little beaten, but I was assured that it has a new engine and suspension in it. The trailer is pretty long with two axles in the middle and it's enclosed - it looks great! The only problem we could see was with the wheel humps inside - it's gonna be a tight fit there. But a quick measurement proved that I gonna have about 4 inches on both sides of my Vette. (Yes, I do know the measurements of my Vette by heart! I had plenty of time to learn it while I waited for it...) Plus those hooks protruding from the floor in the trailer are also gonna be troublesome - we'll have to cover them with wood or something. It's gonna be one interesting ride... Bob's father-in-law has a very nice 1963 Vette. It's red, it's convertible and it's not a trailer queen, either. What a nice car! Drove the stick shift VW Beetle again today. I'm now a pro. Sort of. 2003. January 8. Day -2 Cleaned the garage floor today. I can't believe I'll have my very own Vette sitting in here in just a few days! Okay, so I cleaned only one half of the garage floor, because the other half is occupied by my brother's '67 Lincoln Continental that is still more or less in pieces. But my half is definitely ready for the Vette! 2003. January 9. Day -1 I packed some stuff for a few day's stay, then my brother and I drove to Brad, who is my brother's friend and is also coming with us to pick up my Vette at the museum. We had a quick dinner at a nearby McDonald's and then we drove to Bob's. We picked up the trailer that was already ready to go and off we went! As soon as we hit the road we all heard some kind of squeaking noise coming from the Silverado's engine compartment. It sounded like a belt having problems, but it didn't last for more than a few seconds, so we didn't even stop to check it out. That turned out to be a mistake. Bob did complain about a low voltage reading after we crossed into Indiana and he even called his brother-in-law to ask him whether this is normal behavior from and aged truck, but he deemed it not too serious and Bob continued driving. We were still way north of Indianapolis and about 30-40 miles south of Chicago when Bob and I smelled burning rubber. The smell persisted, so Bob started to slow down. Suddenly the headlamp went out. Bob stepped on the brakes and we stopped on the shoulder. We looked under the hood - it was pretty obvious that the alternator belt was nowhere to be found... Bob shut off the engine and called his brother-in-law. It turned out there is a replacement belt behind the seats inside the Chevy. Great! Before Bob started to put it on he found the missing alternator belt: it was wound up on the fan... He scraped it off then put on the new belt. It was way too loose. Luckily, we found another belt behind the seats. That was a tight fit - perfect! Alright, let's get this show on the road again! Bob tried to start the engine - nothing. The battery was dead! Great. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, about half a mile south of the nearest exit with no sign of civilization around except for the cars and trucks zooming by. It was late at night, it was damn cold - and on the top of it it started snowing, too. After some attempts I got connected with Indiana State Police via my cell phone. "I gonna send somebody there." After 30 minutes still nobody showed up. Called the State Police again. "Somebody's gonna be there in 15 minutes." After about 20 more minutes two cop cars showed up. I have no doubt that one of them was responding to our very first call... By this time we were freezing our butts off in this awful weather. The cop was pretty indifferent towards us. In fact, he left as soon as he called a tow truck for us! It took another 20-30 minutes for the truck to show up. He finally got us jump-started. Yay, we are moving again! Due to this 2-hour delay we were dead tired by the time we arrived to Bowling Green at 5 AM in the morning. Bob insisted to do the driving himself all the way, so he was even more tired than the rest of us. The room I reserved was at the Country Hearth Inn in Bowling Green - I was surprised to see that the hotel was really right next to the Corvette Museum! Literally! Bob parked the Chevy and the trailer in the museum's parking lot and we checked into the hotel. I asked the receptionist when they will start serving breakfast. She asked, "What time is it?" "About 5:30." "Then we are starting to serve it right now", she answered with a smile... We all went to bed, not surprisingly everybody fell asleep really fast. 2003. January 10. Day 0. I don't think I slept more than 5 hours. First of all, I was very excited because the museum delivery was scheduled to start at noon. Second... there's no second! I was just that excited to finally see my new car! After the continental breakfast I went outside and took pictures of the museum from the outside. Walked around a little in the freezing cold to wake myself up. At least the sun was shining! There were hardly any clouds on the sky. Most everybody woke up by 11 AM, but nobody had more than a continental breakfast. In retrospect, we really should've had a nice big lunch instead - the delivery took all afternoon and then some. We walked into the museum at around 11:40. We were pleasantly surprised to see all of our names on the greeting board, not just mine. Shortly we were greeted by an NCM staff member, then a bit later by Thomas McFall, who was our guide for the day. First he made us watch the assembly plant safety video. It's a good thing my brother recorded the whole thing with his camcorder, because no cameras or camcorders were allowed into the plant, so we have no other recordings of the inside of the plant. Then the four of us got into a minivan and Thomas drove us to the back entrance of the assembly plant where I gave my digital camera to Brad to take pictures of me at the entrance when my name was flashed on the display above it. (BTW, the plant is only a mile or so from the National Corvette Museum.) The plant tour was really interesting for all of us. First of all I was amazed to see how organized the whole process is. The plant workers didn't even have to think about which part goes into which type of Vette (i.e. whether a part is needed for a high-end Z06, a 50th Anniversary model or a regular Vette) - the parts were coming exactly in the same sequence as the partially built cars on the assembly line! Second, about one third of the cars on the assembly line were 50th AE models and about 75% of those were convertibles. Third, we were surprised to see how many of the workers were smoking - although truth to be told, the plant was pretty clean in general. Fourth, we saw the preliminary (?) assembly line for the upcoming Cadillac XLR. Indeed, at the end of the line there was a fully assembled XLR and a couple of GM engineers were standing around it with notepads in hands, scratching their heads... What I didn't get to do was a first start on a Vette. When we got to the point where this could've been done, an automatic car was in front of me and due to some problems up the line its transmission was dry, void of any fluids - it couldn't be started. Waiting for the next car with a 6-speed transmission on it would've taken over 20 minutes and I decided I rather not wait that long for it. Another thing I missed was getting the build sheet of my own car. Since my car was actually built over a month ago, the build sheet was no longer retained in the plant. Bummer. On the day we were there the assembly line was stopped rather frequently: sometimes for union mandated breaks, sometimes because problems were found on the line. All in all, Thomas told us that the plant was about 20-30 cars behind target production at around 2 PM. Somehow they still made 150+ cars that day as I later found out on the plant's website. Towards the end of our tour we saw the brand new Vettes rolling off the assembly line straight into a place where their suspensions and wheels were aligned, then to the dyno where they are put thru their paces for the first time. Next to it was a temporary repository of Vettes where we saw a European Vette. It was quite interesting to do a direct comparison and pick up the subtle differences between that and the regular US version. What I envy most are the red brake calipers! From here Thomas took us to behind the plant where the short testing ground is. Here every Vette out of the plant goes through a quick shakedown. From our minivan we watched a Vette go through this testing. Then Thomas drove us to the main entrance of the plant. There was the one-off golden Vette parking in front of it in bright sunshine. This car is a "regular" coupe with Z06 front grilles and rear brake ducts - and, of course, with a special color. For now every day a different plant worker gets to drive it home, but later it will be raffled off by the museum to some lucky person. From the plant we went back to the musem where we watched a short video about the history of Corvette, then we got a very interesting guided tour of the highlights of the museum. Thomas had a story for pretty much every item in the museum! He also took us "behind the scenes": we saw future exhibits being prepared, even more historically significant Vettes waiting for their turn inside the museum, a mockup of a C6 prototype, etc. The end of this museum tour was a big surprise for me: it featured my very own 50th AE Vette! I did my first start of my very own car - it was very exciting! Then Thomas proceeded to explain everything about the car to me. I was grinning all the time... In the meantime, Rob and Brad went to look around inside the dome (which we didn't see during our tour). After my car's introduction was over, we did the paperwork, then some pictures were taken with me and my Vette in the delivery bay. By the time we were done it was 6 PM and the museum was closing: the lights were being turned off... Bob pulled up the trailer to the delivery bay and I drove the car into it. This sounds rather simple, but we were all rather surprised that I could do it on the first try. I was even more surprised that I didn't stall the car during the whole operation... We proceeded to put the car cover I brought with me on the car. Then Bob drove to the nearest Shell gas station where we also had some fast food and off we went! We already left Kentucky when I realized that I left behind the brown folder I brought with myself that contained all the important papers I had to bring to the museum! Thomas and I both completely forgot about it. As I mentioned, it was rather late by the time we were done, plus the four of us were very tired, hungry and still sleepy because of last night's events. So, we forgot about it. Luckily, I got the folder back via UPS a few days later... The plan was to get home the very same night, which gave us an ETA of 3 AM in Chicago. Bob insisted on driving the pickup (and thus, the trailer) himself, even though I offered to take over several times. Bob tried to limit his eating and drank lots of Mountain Dew to keep himself awake, but to no avail. It was past midnight when we got into Indianapolis and by that time he could hardly keep his eyes open. So, in Lebanon, just north of Indianapolis we decided to stop. We got a room at a Ramada Inn and we went to sleep. 2003. January 11. Day 1 We woke up at around 10 AM our time, although it was 11 AM in Indiana at that moment. (I gave up on figuring out what time it really is in Indiana - they have a really confusing system with at least 3 timezones and no daylight savings time!) We had a quick breakfast/lunch at a nearby McDonald's then we were on our way again. Earlier Marci called me: "is the car here, yet, huh, huh, huh?" Obviously, he was eager to see it. He was rather surprised when I told him that we were still in Indiana. The rest of the road home was rather uneventful. Three things indicated to us that we were back in Illinois: the roads were suddenly full of potholes, we had to pay toll shortly after we crossed the state border, and the drivers on the road were suddenly more aggressive than everywhere else during our entire trip... I called Marci when we were getting near so he had could observe the momentous occasion when my car rolled off the trailer. He was there in time. We unwrapped the car, then I climbed into it. I left the side windows open for this purpose, but it still required gymnastics worthy of an olympic performance to get into it. I started it up and started to back out. When the front wheels hit the protruding eyeholes - I stalled the car. General laughter followed. But I did manage to get it down. I pulled into the driveway with it where we had a nice photo-op: the sun was shining very brightly that day and the 50th AE looked really beautiful in it! Then I pulled the car straight into the garage - where I stalled it again. At least it was already stopped! I invited everybody inside the house, but instead somehow everybody preferred to stand around the car staring at it in the freezing cold... Marci and I went with Bob to bring the trailer back to his father-in-law's shop. Here I thanked his father-in-law for letting us use his company's trailer (it was really, really nice of him!), then I dropped off Bob and I drove home with Marci. 2003. January 12. Day 2. Well, I just had to do it: in the afternoon I ran out to the nearby Target to buy a lamb-skin cleaner, a California duster and some 100% cotton polishing clothes for the car. At home I cleaned the car (the new car cover left quite a few pieces of small white threads on it!), then I took it out for a drive with Marci. I took it very easy and I was extra careful: without any license plate I was driving it only around the neighborhood (since my temporary license plate was in the brown folder that I left in the museum). I was slow throughout, but in front of our house I couldn't resist and pressed the gas pedal a little harder. It went up to 50mph in a blink! Wow, what awesome power! During my short drive the CAGS (Computer Aided Gear Selection) also kicked in once - it was the most annoying thing! That's it, I am buying that CAGS plug right now!... EPILOGUE It would've been nice to drive my Vette home instead of putting it on a trailer, but who would've thought it's gonna be dry during our entire trip except for a couple of light snow flakes? Of course, I am absolutely convinced that had I decided to drive my Vette home, I would've encountered nothing but snow storm all the way. Our original plan called for a one day trip for the entire tour which in the end turned into a three day adventure. I'm glad it did, because a one day trip from Chicago to BG and back would've been very cruel. All in all, I really enjoyed the plant tour, even my non-Vette enthusiast friends liked it. I would've liked to spend more time in the museum, but this way at least something was left for next time, too. Even now when I go out to the garage I can't believe that I have my very own Corvette sitting there - and it's a 50th Anniversary Edition on top of it! Unfortunately, so far neither the weather, nor the road conditions were kind enough to provide an environment for relaxed cruising, but spring is just around the corner...