Chaz 'n Gael's 1953 Commemorative Edition Corvette Story

Our 1953 Commemorative Edition Corvette Story

Chaz & Gael Cone, Atlanta, GA

The Pickup..

Tuesday, August 27th

This morning I flew to Indianapolis to pick up my mule C5 from the chap I bought it from on eBay. He graciously brought the car from Illinois to Indianapolis to cut 4-5 hours off my drive to Michigan.

There was a security lockdown at the Atlanta Airport (yesterday was the day a woman went though xray and hand-check with a loaded .357 magnum in her purse...) but the flight went off on time and uneventfully. I arrived at 10:00a and took the courtesy bus to the Adams Mark Hotel to meet Mike Powell (the mule car seller). As the bus drove into the parking lot here's what I saw:

Wow! The car looks perfect. Mike and I completed the deal in 5 minutes. He thoughtfully allowed me to keep the IL tag on the car until I got to Michigan; I hadn't even thought about that. Here's Mike next to his (former) great-looking ride:

I was anxious to hit the road (Rochester Hills is 5+ hours away) and my friend Scott Jarvie had decided to drive down from Toronto and watch this process begin. He also arranged for us to be joined for dinner by John Cafaro (for those who don't know, John was the Chief Designer of the C5 Corvette); I didn't want to miss that! But a few miles up the road nature called so I stopped at a Steak 'n' Shake to get a bite and took these views of what I've been thinking of as the conversion "mule":

This car deserves a better name than "mule". From now on, it's my "donor" car. It drives beautifully and looks unused. I'm very happy with it. There is virtually NOTHING wrong with this car except for a scratch on the hood -- and that's it! It will really be a shame to discard these beautiful Torch body panels -- but that's what will happen. BTW, if you're interested in trivia, this car was built on Thursday, March 5th, 1998.

The drive was uneventful (I use a Garmin StreetPilot III so I always know where I'm going; I heartily recommend it) and I arrived at the Holiday Inn, Auburn Hills just before six PM. Here's what I saw when I arrived:

This is friend Scott Jarvie who runs the CorvetteCanada.Net website. The last time we were together with a photo mission was at the C5 Registry BirthdayBash West in 2000. I'm thinking Scott's Z06 and my "new" '98 vert look pretty good together:

Scott told me that John Cafaro had to bail this evening (getting ready to come to Bowling Green to be inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame on Friday night) but that he'd join us for breakfast. We went to a recommended restaurant for dinner and turned in early; I was beat.

Wednesday, August 28th

Bright and early John called to confirm breakfast. The first thing I saw was Scott ironing my shirt!

I'm going to get him to travel everywhere with me; Gael doesn't iron shirts on the road.

Off to meet John for breakfast:

Afterwards Scott asked John to sign the hood of his Z06. Of course, being John, this was no problem:

Back at the hotel, here's my last photo of me and the donor car; the next time you see me with it, it will be dressed as my 1953-2003 Commemorative Edition Corvette:

OK. Here we go. The GPS gave me detailed directions to Advanced Automotive Technologies; Scott followed me:

When we arrived, here's the first thing we saw:

We knew we were at the right place! More about this great looking car later...

Rachel greeted us and we met Steve Pasteiner. Actually, we met Steve Pasteiner AND Steve Pasteiner:

AAT is a family organization in more ways than one. The company employs fifteen people and all were at work on one of the two 2003 CEs presently under construction.

They begin by removing all the body panels except the doors and stripping out the interior. Here's one of the two under-construction cars with the new front fenders/clip installed:

This will be 2003 CE #10 (#9 is in another part of the shop) and obviously was a MagRed when the project began. Here's another view:

And here's the rear section ready to install:

This shot shows me and Steve in a longer view of the shop. That's a '59 or '60 Corvette (I forgot to ask which) he's restoring for a friend:

Here are the interior parts ready to receive their new color:

After looking through the rest of the shop we sat down in Steve's office and did the paperwork. The agreement is simple and straightforward and we shook on it.

Then I asked the hard question: How long will this take; conservatively, when can I expect the finished product?

Steve and Steve looked at each other, the wheels spun and they said:

"How about by the third or fourth week of September?"

What!?!? I was thinking maybe by November; that's great news! I told them there was no hurry -- but get to work! Both Steves are coming to Bowling Green on Saturday (to pick up Buzz Nielsen's donor car to bring back). Maybe I can't outrun Buzz but I CAN get my CE built ahead of his!