1975 Corvette Coupe
Last weekend, was a busy one. Saturday, we started out doing some tail-gating, then went to the badgers football game. We watched them bitch-slap Northern Illinois 44 – 3. They were playing their 3rd string by the end of the game. It was pretty sad for NIU.
Sunday, I borrowed my buddy Scotts truck, went to Uhaul and picked up a car carrier, then headed down to a little bit south west of Chicago. There I picked up what is almost my dream car. My real dream car would be just a few years older (the 1970 to 1972 range). They had chrome bumpers instead of the federally mandated “5 mph” urethane bumpers. However, those have been going up in price pretty quick, and I really couldnt afford that. Anyways, this is close enough for me….Im not going to be picky.
I have some work to do to it. I am planning on a frame-off restoration. The good news is that there is very very little rust….pretty impressive for a 32 year old vette. One of the unique things about corvettes is that they body is made almost entirely of fiberglass. It has the lowest ever horsepower v8 in a production corvette, 1975 was the first year of smog restrictions. I plan on putting on some new heads and a new cam, etc. That should bump me up to over 400 HP instead of the sad 165 it has now….ouch.
The good news is that it has a 4 speed manual tranny though! I wouldnt have it any other way. All in all, by the time I am done, I will have one special car. I do plan on painting it orange instead of the Dark Red it came with from the factory. For some reason, I just love orange. I am trying to decide if I should do a year correct orange color (technically called orange flame), or just a nice orange. Some people have pics of them with the 2008 corvette atomic orange, and its looking pretty sweet. I might have to find an new vette to see how it looks in person. Interior will change from Oxblood to black.
I have one problem I need to contend with though. Space. I need space to remove the body and store it while I work on the frame. Not sure what I am going to do about that at this point. However, if anyone wants to contribute to the cause, I would gladly accept parts/money to get this ‘75 lookin sharp again 
You can view the full album of my progress here: http://www.charliemaurice.com/?page_id=265&g2_itemId=320