69 Vette birthday

[Jim M.]

How wierd is this. I was checking the C3 registry last night and of course checked out my own car's listing to possibly add a couple more pic's and noticed that my cars birthday was coming up on Monday January 9th (can never seem to remember that). But what I never really paid attention to was that January 9, 1969 is also the day I returned from Vietnam. Is that wierd or what?

[Alan S.]

Re: 69 Vette birthday

Hi Jim,
You were fortunate to come home alive, and to have a Corvette in your future. Fortunate enough to have marked that day in your memory!! When did you buy your 69?
Regards,
Alan

[Jim M.]

Re: 69 Vette birthday

Hi Alan, The day a soldier heads off to war and the day he returns, are a couple dates you never forget although, for some reason, I never put the vette's birthday and the day I returned together until last night. What is interesting, when I returned I wanted to purchase a new Corvette but hadn't saved enough money to make the purchase, a little week of R & R in Hawaii reduced my savings account quite a bit. So I purchased a used Triumph TR3 and that began my life long love of British sports cars which finally ended last year when I sold my 55 Jaguar XK140 OTS to a collector in Russia. I have owned a couple of Corvettes over my working career but new ones, a 79 and a 92. When I retired about eight years ago, I was looking for a project and my daughter who is a State Farm agent, told me about a client of hers that had this old Corvette in his garage and last time she saw it had firewood and boxes of junk piled on it. Called the guy and asked if I could take a look at it and needless to say it was going to be a major project but he was willing to part with it. Original color tuxedo black but it had two re-sprays of orange and the last one apparently the painter hadn't heard of masking anything off. So to answer your question, I purchased it in 2005, took it a part, stripped it down to fibreglass and spent a few years restoring. So I haven't had it that long but 42 years after returning from Vietnam, I finally own a 69 Corvette. Jim

[Alan S.]

Re: 69 Vette birthday

Hi Jim,
Thanks for filling in some of the details.
I remember some of those dates along with my 1966 draft lottery number very well too. We had no idea how very young we were!
It sounds like you're pleased with your 69, and I believe that's a very good feeling.
Regards,
Alan

[Floyd B.]

Re: 69 Vette birthday

>> So I haven't had it that long but 42 years after returning from Vietnam, I finally own a 69 Corvette.

And apparently the one built specifically for you! A match made in heaven perhaps?

[Roy V.]

Re: 69 Vette birthday

Thank you for your service
Regards
Roy