She's Gone

Me with the car shortly after I bought it.

I did it. I sold my 2007 Corvette Z06. Did it over the weekend. The guy paid in cash so I was nervous until we got all that money into the bank.

I had that car for almost exactly thirteen years. I bought it in April of 2007 and sold it in late March of 2020.

I loved that car but due to my health issues, I couldn't drive it enough to justify the cost of owning and insuring it. It was a blast to drive. I drove it on a racetrack when it was new and got up to 155 mph (if I took turn 10 perfectly, other wise I would get up to between 145 and 150).

Once, on a back road, I managed to get it to 165. That was scary fast. The car had a top speed of 198 according to Chevrolet. It's speedometer went to 200.

It had 505 stock horsepower. And you never floored the gas unless you had a lot of straight road ahead of you. A lot. It cornered really well. It came with Goodyear run-flat tires but they only lasted

Me with it the day I sold it

about 5,000 miles. Later I put on Michelin tires and it cornered even better and they lasted 15,000 miles, about. The Goodyears also leaked air badly. The Michelins didn't.

The first time I had to put on new tires, I had to go to Seattle because that was the only place in the whole state that could and would do run flat tires. Now there's a place a few miles from my house that does it.

But I loved driving this car. It was low and hard to get in and out of. But once you were in it, that didn't matter. It had a manual transmission and I loved to row the gearbox. Now I don't own any cars with a manual transmission. At one point, I owned three. Make that four (forgot about my son's car).

One of my favorite things to do was take it on a back road around here that is curvy and go as fast as I dared. It was so fun. And with my radar detector, I didn't worry....much.

Or just go to the interstate and go down the on ramp and up the off ramp as fast as I could. I'd go up a curvy off ramp at over 65 mph. It was a blast.

But now she's gone. The new owner promised to take care of her. I hope so. He had a 67 Corvette that he showed me a picture of. It looked oxidized.

And my wife is happy because she can now park her car in the garage. But I'll still miss my 'Vette.