A Drive to Quebec: May 28, 2016

The Chevrolet dealership in Brossard, Quebec, south of Montreal, hosted an event for Corvettes in 2015 to raise money for charity and there clearly was such a demand that they decided to repeat the program in 2016.  The Capital Corvette Club included this as a club outing and early on Saturday, May 28, under sunny skies, we headed east en masse for the South Shore of the St. Lawrence River. It was an easy drive of 2 hours, covering just over 200 kms.

Upon arrival at the very large dealership, we went through registration and were given some coupons and a nice high-tech shirt.  We arrived a bit later than the others from our club so we parked in a separate area from them but the parking spaces were filling quickly and soon a massive gathering of Corvettes was in evidence.  There were well over 300 cars and they covered all the generations of Corvettes, with a particularly good representation by the mid-year (1963-1967) iconic Sting Rays as there was a club devoted to them that had arrived.

But there were probably  more first generation cars than I had seen at a local gathering like this, which speaks highly of the enthusiasm by Quebecois for vintage Chevs.

The C3 was also present in various forms, including a very rare Baldwin Motion Corvette with a giant motor, as well as attractive green roadster.

Here are some additional photos to give an idea of this wildly successful event, which raised a significant amount of money for the Montreal Children's Hospital.  It was such an undertaking for the staff that the next show has been scheduled for 2018!

The Capital Corvette Club getting down to business!

There were prizes given for various generations of Corvettes but perhaps the most outstanding car was one that arrived fairly late at the show.  It was a C1 that had been resto-modded to the ultimate as it was basically a C6 with a C1 body.  The interior was beautifully done.  The people at GM in St. Louis would have been astonished that they car they built in 1962--notorious for its slapdash assembly--could have turned into such a beautiful swan.

Considering it was the end of May, the temperature was exceptionally warm and walking around the asphalt parking lot for hours had a very dehydrating effect.  Nonetheless, we took advantage of the sunny day to take off the targa top for our trip home but I could feel the effect of too much sun for a day or two afterwards.  Anyway, it was great fun to hang out with the Corvette enthusiasts in la Belle Province!

And of course no posting here is complete without a photo of our car:

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Wicked Garage Open House, May 22, 2016

After our first experience with the Wicked Garage Open House shortly after bringing our Corvette to Ottawa in May 2015, we were keen to return for the next iteration of this low-key but interesting event.  Once again the weather was superb and the selection of cars very entertaining, although there was not much going on in Wicked's own garage this year.

Living large in a 1954 pink Cadillac Coupe de Ville

1923 Model T Speedster, a typical modification in the days before dedicated sports cars

1948 Ford F1 pickup truck: the beginning of the F-Series, the longest-lived model nomenclature in automobiles

Excellent replica of the Ford GT40; perhaps by CAV?

1967 FIAT 850 Spider, with is rear-mounted engine producing 49 hp

1955 Ford Thunderbirds

Our friend Brian's excellent Superformance 427 Shelby Cobra replica

Seriously resto-modded C3 Corvette Roadster

Aston Martin Vantage in the Wicked Garage

In terms of automotive entertainment, this year's Open House was very good, with the usual diverse representation.  Interestingly, I noted for the first time how low our Corvette is compared to other cars when I had to parallel park between two 1955 Chevrolet Bel-Airs and realized I could see nothing ahead over the trunk or behind over the hood!  The second Bel-Air was later replaced by a Nova of more normal proportions, as you can see here.

On the Road Again: the 2016 Drive Season Begins! CCC goes to Massena, New York on May 21, 2016

I had originally planned to have the insurance back on the Corvette on April 1 after our usual long, bleak winter but the roads were still such a mess with salt and sand debris and massive potholes to be filled that I changed plans and left the car cover on and battery charger plugged in until May 1.  The insurance and the satellite radio subscription were renewed and we were ready for a new season with some big plans.

The first outing of the Capital Corvette Club was to the Northern Car Show in Massena, New York, located on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River, about 140 kms from Ottawa.  Massena was first settled by French lumberjacks around 1792 and subsequently named after one of Napoleon's more able commanders, Andre Massena.

A goodly group assembled on this beautiful day at the Tim Horton's off the 416 and we set out together for the border crossing at Ogdensburg.  This is one of the less busy ports of entry and we were through pretty quickly.  There was a minor incident--I had added a set of red plastic rim protectors to the car and discovered that the adhesive was insufficient to keep them on.  One of the other club members had noticed the strip on the left rear tire slapping the ground so while we waited to get through border controls I pulled off the two remaining strips--two had already disappeared. Well, one more thing to add to the list of useless accessories!

From Ogdensburg it was a short drive east to Massena.  As we approached the main street and Frenchies' Great Northern New York Car Show we had to navigate around some extraordinarily big potholes.  We also noticed that some of the houses we passed were not in the best condition.  Looking it up, Massena, with a population of around 10,000, has 30% of its population living below the poverty level, the fifth-highest rate in the state.  Major employers such as General Motors and ALCOA have shut down operations in the last decade and the unfortunate effects can be seen.

We pulled into the parking lot of Frenchie's Ford dealership en masse and as we rolled in I heard a bystander say: "It must be nice to have money."  Of course, he just had to look around at Frenchie's parking lot to see all the new Ford pickups worth far more than my car...

Anyway, we walked down the main street and registered and were awarded with a nice t-shirt to mark the event.  The rest of the day we wandered around and looked at a lot of interesting cars, ranging the whole gamut from muscle cars to custom pickups and drag racers.  Here is my photo selection from the day:

This gentleman comes to car shows and does pinstriping and graphics freehand.  Nice work!

New Roush Mustang for sale at the dealership

The Capital Corvette Club momentarily at rest...