[Hog]

One of my Dad friends had a brand new 1985 TPI Vette. He let my Mom take me for a ride to the small rural store. There were some of my friends from school on their bikes as Mom and I got back into the Gold coloured Corvette.
Mom starts it just fine, but somehow gets the windshield wipers turned on and cant get them turned off. We sat there for what felt like an eternity while she attempted to turn the wipers off.


2nd memory A different friend of my Dad named Ross was a district manager for Snap On tools. He had a brand new 1987 TPI Vette with the 700r4 trans, it was black with the plate that said Clyde-1. So Ross had me hop in the passenger seat and buckle up. We drove the same paved 80kph roadway from our shop to the same rural store. There is a straightaway that's about 2 miles long with a highly fences forest on either side. With no traffic its an ideal area for supervised acceleration runs.
On the way to the store he drove conservatively, I assumed he was warming her up. We turned around at the store and took the final lefthand curve before heading into the straightaway section. On the curve he had slowed down and then he nailed it, we got some 1st gear action, bark into 2nd and then the shift into 3rd. I remember seeing about 210kph from where I was sitting. The car sounded great and that ride was what got me hooked on GM performance. I was about 11 years old for that ride.


Fast forward to 1995 and I'm test driving a new 1995 dark red metallic auto convertible. IIRC the sticker was around $60,000 but my GM discount brought that down to just over $40,000. I remember that while the car was quicker and felt tighter, the 4l60e didn't have that wild 1-2 shift that the 1987 L98 car did. I'm so happy I didn't buy that car because a year or 2 later I was in the Infantry and certainly didn't need, nor could afford that car.