It’s Tuesday. Today I have a story of a reader seeking automotive goodness of the muscle kind. After losing his BMW 328xi to a wicked hail storm, he decided that it was time for a replacement, something with a substantial amount of power that would qualify as a proper mid-life crisis vehicle. Don’t recognize his choice pictured above? Read on and be sure to check out the gallery below!
-keep
Hello Keeper! LONG time fan… We traded some emails a while back and reminisced when I ran the Midnight Magic BBS back in the late 80’s…. Ahhh the good ole days of dial-up US Robotics Courier HST 14.4k modems purchased via the Sysop program! Lol.. Anyway, I’m back with a car story. My BMW was recently totaled by the insurance company after a freak hail storm. RIP 328xi you were a great car… Anyway, I decided I wanted a “muscle” car replacement. I’m in my late 40’s so clearly it’s time for a mid-life crisis car! My only requirement was something with a V8. So while on vacation in SC, I started doing research and narrowed my choices down to the typical suspects: Audi RS5, Alfa Romeo, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, and the Dodge Charger. My insurance guy helped me quickly rule out the foreign muscle. The Challenger just looked way too big for me… and the Charger (485HP Scat Pack edition of course) was simply awesome but too expensive to purchase new and insure. So talking with the Chevy dealer about a Camaro the young sale kid tells me to “wait right here” when I asked him to show me a Camaro with a V8.. He pulls around this 4 door sedan with badges I don’t immediately recognize.. As I see it I told my son, “that must be for another customer”….but the sales guy waves me out. Expecting to see a 2 door Camaro, my very first reaction was “get that piece of shit Peugeot out of here!”. He tells me one of the regional Chevy big wigs just traded it in and to check it out. So I start walking around it and listen to it growl. Then I took it for a ride.
Long story short. What I was looking at was a 2017 Chevy SS. Not a Malibu, not an Impala, but just a SS. These were built from 2014 to 2017 in Australia by Holden Ltd. which is/was a GM Subsidiary. The car was built as a Holden Commodore VF and re-badged as a Chevy SS when imported to the US. It’s one of the few 4 door sedan with a [Corvette LS3] V8 motor. Anyway, the car I drove in SC had 24,000 miles on the clock and the dealer held firm at $43k. They told me I would never find one that mint and really pressured me to make a deal. I’m glad I didn’t.
Being an IT guy and well versed in the ways of the interwebs and the google, a day later I purchased a 2017 2 hours from my home in PA sight unseen for less than the one in SC… I got mine with 3,300 miles on it. She was a [heated] garage queen a guy was keeping as a collectors piece……until he saw a new Corvette in December of 2018 and re-fell in love and traded in the SS. Lucky for me.
The Chevy SS had four options when ordered new. Exterior color, Auto or Manual transmission, Sunroof or not, and full size spare or an inflation kit. As optioned, including the must-see-in-person Regal Peacock Green Metallic paint, mine is one of only 7 built. Depending on the lighting, the car sometimes looks black and sometimes a brilliant green metallic.
What an awesome car and motor. My first mod was to tint the windows, then I re-badged it as it was built using the Holden badges. The car is a real head turning sleeper when I get on it. Cool car, cool story.. Just what the mid-life doctor ordered. -Troy
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Nice day, until…
It’s Wednesday. It was such a nice day yesterday that I took the day off and jumped into the Vette with the girlfriend. She had some realtor stuff to do that took us out to a variety of the western suburbs. We went through cities like Aurora, Wheaton, Batavia, and Glen Ellyn. In all we were out for a total of 4 hrs. The Vette ran flawlessly as always… until we got home. When we went to turn it around and back it into the garage, it wouldn’t move. The shifter was extremely lose, gliding between gears but not engaging. At first I thought it was just reverse, but it soon became obvious that I had nothing! It was right about then that I had this horrible sinking feeling in my gut. It didn’t make sense, I’ve never had a single issue with the transmission and it always goes through the gears beautifully. So there it sat, stuck in the middle of our cul-de-sac in park, with no way to move it. We couldn’t even push it. I placed a call to my cousin who came right over and started looking over the situation. He first thought was that the cable connecting the shifter to the transmission came loose (the trans is in the rear of a C5). After removing a few of the interior panels surrounding the shifter, we found that the cable was still connected. That left the possibility of the cable being detached in the rear. After coming up with some creative ways to jack the rear up, he was able to get close enough to see that it was detached. Hot damn tamale baby, it’s not a transmission failure! He was able to manually put in first gear and we limped it back to his shop. In the morning it’ll get a new cable installed and not a new transmission! (whew!)
Okay, enough about my Vette, check out this very fine 2014 Z51 Corvette owned by Mike, a reader from Indiana. He recently traded in his C5 for this stunning Velocity Yellow C7. That’s a damn good upgrade! Thanks for allowing me to share it with the rest of my readers!
-keep
Keep, I have submitted my 1994 corvette and my 2004 corvette to your site. And now after careful consideration, I traded the c5 for a 2014 z51 corvette. What an awesome car. Here’s a pic. Cannot wait until the corvette funfest. Let the summer toys begin. -Mike in Indiana