How I Got My Dream Car.
In August of 2001 Stan took me to “Corvettes of Carlisle” in Pennsylvania. Stan and I were walking through the Corvette parking area where cars were displayed by their years. I was immediately attracted to about 6 purple and yellow convertibles. One of the 1998 Pace Cars had a lady standing beside it, so we talked to her for a couple of minutes and I told her I loved her car. As the years passed, whenever Stan and his friends talked about cool cars around me, (both in USA or Canada) I would pick up my iPhone and search for the closest one to us. Jokingly, I would say to Stan “there is one in Indiana for sale, how far is that?
Over the years my children got me yellow and purple flowers, and other gifts either yellow or purple. I proceeded to collect mini diecast cars as well as a 1998 Pace car key ring. About 2005 Stan had a large poster of the car laminated and wrapped it up for me for Christmas. I now had to paint my office yellow, with purple sheers to match the car before hanging the poster up. Then I had to add my diecast models on little glass shelves beside the poster. I even got a Revel plastic model.
In 1997, I opened up my own Real Estate Office, House4you Realty Inc and so the company colours on the business cards and street signs were of course “yellow and purple”. From time to time, I continued to check to see if any were sale, and where they were, and for what price, and so on. Once we were rounding a corner on a country road in Florida and there was one in someone’s driveway. I had to stop and knock on the door to talk to them, but no one was there, so left a note complimenting them on their car.
A month or so later we drove by a second time and talked to them. They were interested in selling it, but it was too used for me so it didn’t “talk to me”. Another time we were driving down the Highway 41 in Florida and Stan said “close your eyes” so I did. He pulled into a dealership where they had a beautiful one for sale. Unfortunately it was standard and I wanted an automatic. It didn’t “talk to me” either.
My Dad, for 15 years kept saying “just buy one”. He didn’t know how difficult it is to find one, let alone the ‘right one”. I wanted to one day surprise him by buying 2 of 2 one, parking it in front of his house and telling him to look out his front window”. I would have loved to have seen his surprised face when he finally saw it.
The end of May of 2020 I was once again on “Auto Trader” with my coffee at breakfast and got excited, and said “Stan there is one for sale in Toronto”. I immediately jumped up, called the dealership and within 90 minutes we were in front the 1998 Corvette Pacecar at the dealership. Apparently it had been traded in on a Mercedes. It didn’t take me much time to strike a deal, leave a deposit , and make arrangements to pick it up on June 1st. 19 YEARS LATER. Under the hood were 2 autographs, on of Ron Fellowes and David C Hill. It also even came with extra brand new GM seat covers, floor mats, full set of decals, shifter knob and a binder with lots of documents like the original bill, window sticker and a few pictures. June 1st, was the pickup date.
We were set to go to Toronto with the check. Stan’s friend Bob was driving us (but I didn’t tell him what I was buying because he knew it was on my wish list for so long and I wanted to surprise him). At 9:00 am June 1st, I got a call from my 99 year old Dad’s caregiver who said he was not looking very good. I called off the pickup, picked up my Dad at his house and took him to the Grimsby hospital. He died at 2:00 that afternoon. He never got to see my 1998 Pacecar sitting in his front yard.
We did bring it home about 9 days later and now had time to look at the binder that was in the trunk. A few of the pictures in the binder had the owner of the car. It was the same lady (Joyce) that I talked to at “Corvettes of Carlisle” 19 years earlier. I knew all those other cars were NOT the right one.
I waited 19 years for hers. I tried to find her to tell her that I had her car but could not find her. I called the dealership where they had work done on it and was told her husband had died but I never found her. I am sure she would have appreciated the story if I had reached her.
There were only 1163 made including the 5 pilot cars for factory use, 616 were automatic. Mine came off the assembly line on my mother’s birthday , January 14 . Only 15 came to Canada.
