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Ok, first apologies for a rambling post. It has been a looooong day or two.
Like WOW, OK, so I am a bit excited and tired but RedHot is now mine and I have put a couple of hundred miles on her. Here is a bit of not quite well organized thoughts and impressions from today. To back up a bit I came into Nashville a day early and went with my friend to the Lane auto museum.
If you ever get a chance you should do it. We spent from 10 in the morning to 5 at night with a break for lunch viewing all of the cars and stuff. Mostly European and mostly cars you rarely if ever see. Here I am inside of a motorized mono wheel bike.
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Lots of interesting cars, but wait, this is about Corvettes, so here we go.
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We arrived at 7:45 a.m. for my delivery. My personal guide was Ron, who had 28 years (I think) with GM and was great. We first signed some releases; I gave copies of my insurance, driver’s license, actual license plate, and copy of the paid bill of sale. Then we started the factory tour. They take you in a van across to the factory. No phones or cameras allowed. The tour is absolutely fascinating. You see the C7 being assembled from all of the components. It is really interesting for example to see the dash and windshield assembly from its front and back and still not on the body, or the complete drivetrain including brakes and shocks and then get married with the body. Ron showed the differences between the base and the Z51, such as the beefed up cooling at the rear, the slotted rotors, etc. He pointed out tons of facts (which of course to some degree it is hard to take in since you are anticipating getting your car at the end of this
). One of the interesting things he pointed out that I did not know is we all get two saddle gas tanks, connected across the car and designed to fill and empty from them both equally. As you would expect you see tons of QC checks. Some of the more interesting were the final ones where they take each C7 onto a dyno, hook up a bunch of sensors and follow the machine’s commands such as to take it to such and such RPM. The machine and operator take the car up to 70+ mph and it runs about 800!!! checks on all the electronics while doing this. If it fails then they take it to another area and based on the info correct the problem. They also take every C7 into a heavy duty power wash for several minutes to check the water tightness out. They also take it out for a short test drive before giving it final approval or sending it back for correction. We also saw them going over each car to check the tolerance of the gaps everywhere with gauges and if one was out they would correct it. Oh, I saw two C7 convertibles being checked out. Apparently they are now in the uber low production stage of about 40 that they are putting through the paces. These were definitely not cars to be sold to the public.
So after the great tour you go to the Museum to go through its extensive exhibits and your guide stays with you answering questions and pointing out interesting info (seemingly based on your level of interest). Then you exit through the Museum store and finally to your car. Which has been on exhibit (but behind protective ribbons) since you came in. Your name is on the placard by the car. Your name is also on the Museum plaque on the dash, plus they put (with your approval) a special Museum delivery sticker on the door jam. They go over everything on the car with you and continue to ask if you have any questions. When that is done your guide drives you out with you in the passenger seat through the long Museum hall where everyone (a lot of staff) are thanking you for your purchase and clapping. While in the Museum lots of visitors are taking pictures and complimenting you on your car. Then when you are driven out of the Museum, you are given your keys and they take further pictures of you. Oh, you also get a nice physical plaque for the wall and they send you the insert with your name for it. The car is fully tanked up and of course shining gorgeously.
After I took some additional pics and let my friend take it for a spin I was about to leave when I was asked by Lori from the Museum if I would like to have RedHot be part of an ad they were shooting for the Museum Insurance. I said sure and so RedHot was famous and in the pictures right off the bat. The ad is supposed to air sometime this coming week on the Speed channel I think. When they let me know I will post it.
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Ok, so to my initial impressions in no particular order. The car is stunning in person and really exceeded my expectations on all levels. Fit and finish is beautiful. The performance exhaust is astounding (I set it to be on all the time for now). Power was amazing, even being very careful to keep it under 4000 rpm, and vary the speed (I drove pretty much 70 mph + or – 7 mph most of the time today). I could notice sometimes it dropping into v4 or going back to v8, but nothing objectionable. The back up camera works superbly and is very clear, day or night. I would like to have proximity sensors front and back but will certainly be able to learn where what is. The mirrors when properly adjusted seemed to minimize or eliminate any blind spots. The interior dash lighting when it transitioned from day light to twilight seemed a bit dimmer than I would like (even with the rheostat set to max). The paddle shifters worked very smoothly and effectively. The Bose sounded quite good once I adjusted it, though I was much more intrigued by the performance exhaust symphony. I was able to remove the transparent top myself first try, but did get assistance putting it back—primarily since I was dealing with a bit of adrenaline and less sleep than norm (for some reason ). Lots and lots of cars passing me on the highway gave me a honk and thumbs up. Only one jerk came screaming up on my tail when I was doing slightly over the 70 limit in a truck that obviously had a souped up engine and pulled along side, dropping back a bit, revving his engine and trying to get me to take the bate. I just ignored him and after about 5 minutes he gave up. At the couple of rest stops I took, people came over and took pictures and said very nice things about her (a number were owners of older Corvettes).
You can probable tell (if you have gotten this far) I am totally excited and extremely happy with the C7. Really looking forward to the continued drive back to Vegas. More posting to come and pics...
Like WOW, OK, so I am a bit excited and tired but RedHot is now mine and I have put a couple of hundred miles on her. Here is a bit of not quite well organized thoughts and impressions from today. To back up a bit I came into Nashville a day early and went with my friend to the Lane auto museum.
If you ever get a chance you should do it. We spent from 10 in the morning to 5 at night with a break for lunch viewing all of the cars and stuff. Mostly European and mostly cars you rarely if ever see. Here I am inside of a motorized mono wheel bike.
Lots of interesting cars, but wait, this is about Corvettes, so here we go.
We arrived at 7:45 a.m. for my delivery. My personal guide was Ron, who had 28 years (I think) with GM and was great. We first signed some releases; I gave copies of my insurance, driver’s license, actual license plate, and copy of the paid bill of sale. Then we started the factory tour. They take you in a van across to the factory. No phones or cameras allowed. The tour is absolutely fascinating. You see the C7 being assembled from all of the components. It is really interesting for example to see the dash and windshield assembly from its front and back and still not on the body, or the complete drivetrain including brakes and shocks and then get married with the body. Ron showed the differences between the base and the Z51, such as the beefed up cooling at the rear, the slotted rotors, etc. He pointed out tons of facts (which of course to some degree it is hard to take in since you are anticipating getting your car at the end of this
). One of the interesting things he pointed out that I did not know is we all get two saddle gas tanks, connected across the car and designed to fill and empty from them both equally. As you would expect you see tons of QC checks. Some of the more interesting were the final ones where they take each C7 onto a dyno, hook up a bunch of sensors and follow the machine’s commands such as to take it to such and such RPM. The machine and operator take the car up to 70+ mph and it runs about 800!!! checks on all the electronics while doing this. If it fails then they take it to another area and based on the info correct the problem. They also take every C7 into a heavy duty power wash for several minutes to check the water tightness out. They also take it out for a short test drive before giving it final approval or sending it back for correction. We also saw them going over each car to check the tolerance of the gaps everywhere with gauges and if one was out they would correct it. Oh, I saw two C7 convertibles being checked out. Apparently they are now in the uber low production stage of about 40 that they are putting through the paces. These were definitely not cars to be sold to the public.So after the great tour you go to the Museum to go through its extensive exhibits and your guide stays with you answering questions and pointing out interesting info (seemingly based on your level of interest). Then you exit through the Museum store and finally to your car. Which has been on exhibit (but behind protective ribbons) since you came in. Your name is on the placard by the car. Your name is also on the Museum plaque on the dash, plus they put (with your approval) a special Museum delivery sticker on the door jam. They go over everything on the car with you and continue to ask if you have any questions. When that is done your guide drives you out with you in the passenger seat through the long Museum hall where everyone (a lot of staff) are thanking you for your purchase and clapping. While in the Museum lots of visitors are taking pictures and complimenting you on your car. Then when you are driven out of the Museum, you are given your keys and they take further pictures of you. Oh, you also get a nice physical plaque for the wall and they send you the insert with your name for it. The car is fully tanked up and of course shining gorgeously.
After I took some additional pics and let my friend take it for a spin I was about to leave when I was asked by Lori from the Museum if I would like to have RedHot be part of an ad they were shooting for the Museum Insurance. I said sure and so RedHot was famous and in the pictures right off the bat.
The ad is supposed to air sometime this coming week on the Speed channel I think. When they let me know I will post it.
Ok, so to my initial impressions in no particular order. The car is stunning in person and really exceeded my expectations on all levels. Fit and finish is beautiful. The performance exhaust is astounding (I set it to be on all the time for now). Power was amazing, even being very careful to keep it under 4000 rpm, and vary the speed (I drove pretty much 70 mph + or – 7 mph most of the time today). I could notice sometimes it dropping into v4 or going back to v8, but nothing objectionable. The back up camera works superbly and is very clear, day or night. I would like to have proximity sensors front and back but will certainly be able to learn where what is. The mirrors when properly adjusted seemed to minimize or eliminate any blind spots. The interior dash lighting when it transitioned from day light to twilight seemed a bit dimmer than I would like (even with the rheostat set to max). The paddle shifters worked very smoothly and effectively. The Bose sounded quite good once I adjusted it, though I was much more intrigued by the performance exhaust symphony. I was able to remove the transparent top myself first try, but did get assistance putting it back—primarily since I was dealing with a bit of adrenaline and less sleep than norm (for some reason
). Lots and lots of cars passing me on the highway gave me a honk and thumbs up. Only one jerk came screaming up on my tail when I was doing slightly over the 70 limit in a truck that obviously had a souped up engine and pulled along side, dropping back a bit, revving his engine and trying to get me to take the bate. I just ignored him and after about 5 minutes he gave up. At the couple of rest stops I took, people came over and took pictures and said very nice things about her (a number were owners of older Corvettes). You can probable tell (if you have gotten this far) I am totally excited and extremely happy with the C7. Really looking forward to the continued drive back to Vegas. More posting to come and pics...
