My Favorite Sport Car: The Chevrolet Corvette

Is there any other car that is as powerfully recognizable, and highly symbolic of the American automobile as the Corvette? Has there been any other car that inspired as many songs, movies, TV episodes and boy's fantasies?

Since the earliest models appeared in 1953, the car has been an icon on the roads. The earliest Corvettes were powered by the Blue Flame 6 cylinder engine. Not exactly a robust power-plant. But as the years progressed, the car became famous for tire screeching road burning power from various V-8 fire breathers.

The 1963 Corvette was the first year of the new Stingray styling; this really put the car on the map, as the rakish look was way more exotic than sported by previous year models. The Route 66 TV show popularized the car even more, as the two guys in their 'Vette traveled around the country having interesting adventures.

By the late 1960's and onward the Corvette became known as a true muscle car. A 427 fuel injected engine with side mounted exhaust and huge red line tires was my fantasy car for a long time.

I never got to own one, but I did get to drive one. Wow! It was nothing short of breath taking. With 0-60 times less than 5 seconds, the car would snap your head back with tremendous torque. The sound of the exhaust rumbling and the tight handling made it an amazing ride, right on the edge of being scary.

I later got to own a 1959 model. This one had been a race car, but the engine was replaced with the more standard 283 V-8.

My Corvette was no road burner, yet it still retained the look of the race heritage it carried. Huge for the day 15" tires and wheel at the back end with 14" at the front gave it a rakish look. The silver paint was accented with a white cove on the sides, and a light silver blue interior. It came equipped with both a hard top and soft top, so the car was ready for any season. Driving it was interesting. The look of the car brought other machines up to many red lights to challenge it in the initial acceleration blast off. Due to the lack of real horsepower under the hood, it probably made the GTO and Dodge Hemi drivers feel really good when they blew by my Corvette. Meanwhile the car was great looking, sounded cool and was my favorite sports car for a long time. Once too many speeding tickets piled up with my name on them though, the Corvette had to be replaced. That was a hard move to make, and to this day I wish I had that Corvette in the garage, ready to take a quick spin and turn some heads.