My 1993 Anniversary Edition Corvette.

I guess like most American men I have been fascinated with the "muscle cars" of the by-gone days. If you have visited my home page you can see that I am heavily involved in water sports. I had my own boat when I was 8 or 9. I bought a boat that would pull a water skier when I was 15. I never owned a car until I married my wife at age 22. I remember the time when we were engaged and she sent me a letter while I was in Viet Nam. She said she was going to by a car from one of her neighbors. It was a 1965, and it was a Corvair or Corvette. I never saw the word Corvair. My mind immediately flashed to me driving a 1965 Vette. She even wrote that it had fancy wheels. This had to mean a 65 Vette with mag wheels. Needless to say I was more than a little let down when she sent me a picture of "her car", and it was a 1965 Corvair. Anyway, this car served us well as I returned to the states, we were married, and we hauled all our worldly belongings around in that 65 Corvair.

In the late spring of 1996 we took a trip across the US. While driving through Bowling Green, Kentucky, we stopped at the National Corvette Museum. In late summer of 1996 I mentioned to my wife that I wouldn’t mind having a Corvette one day. Her response was why? I was currently driving a Nissian 300ZX that has been a great car and was fun to drive. Little did I know then that less than two years later I would own a 1993 40th Anniversary Edition Corvette with less than 16,000 miles on the clock.

Here is how I got my vette.

	I picked this car up on December 22, 1997. What a Christmas present! It has all the options except select ride and low tire pressure warning system. I have the original window sticker and the build sheet.
	I like the Ruby Red color that was only available on the 40 th Anniversary Edition.
	Here is the LT1 power plant. It's rated at 300 hp, 340 ft. lbs. of torque, has aluminum heads, and has a compression ratio of 10.5:1. The car is stock except for a K & N air filter, Borla Performance mufflers, which my current wife says are too loud, open air lid, throttle body by-pass, and a custom EPROM. What amazes me is the fact that it gets over 25 miles to the gallon. At 60 mph the engine is only turning 1500 RPM's because of the 2.59 rear end.
	It looks great even sitting still.
	Since God provided this car and since He has also forgiven me of my sins the moment I made Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour, I thought this plate was fitting.

Here are the details of how I found and purchased my vette.

When I first started looking at Vettes I wanted a 69-71. I liked the looks of the Shark body style, but mostly it was the power offered by the older small block Chevy’s before the Feds got involved and the smog control killed the horsepower. I had planned to spend around $8 K for a car, because that’s all I thought we could afford. As I continued to look in magazines and on the internet, I came to the decision that I really didn’t want a C3 but early model C4 Vette. Several projects around the house convinced me of this. I thought these projects would take 1-2 months and they quickly turned into 4-6 months. I realized I really didn’t want an older car that would require work. I didn’t feel I had the experience to repair or restore one, and I knew I didn’t have the time to work on one. After several months of reading anything that had the word corvette in it, I thought that a 86-88 would fill my need to own and drive the American sports car.

In February 1997 I had the gaskets replaced in my wife’s Toyota to stop a persistent oil leak. One thing led to another and I had spent close to $900 getting miscellaneous small things repaired. Although the car had 145K miles, I now thought it would be good for another 100K. Within two weeks the transmission started slipping. Since it was not safe to pull out into traffic with the transmission problems, we elected to purchase a 94 Acura with only 29K miles. I felt that this had probably set back my Vette acquisition about a year or more.

In March of 1997 I was in the Chicago area to attend the funeral of a relative. I had been looking at cars on the internet and talked my wife into stopping by D & M Corvettes in Downers Grove, IL. They had at least 25 cars in their showroom. What really caught my eye was a 1993 Anniversary Edition with just under 30K miles. It looked like it was fresh from the factory. We looked at this car twice over a two day period, but lacked the down-payment, plus I really didn’t want to take on another car payment at this point in time. I guess we were lucky that the dealer didn’t offer me a test drive or I guess I would have been eating a lot of tuna helper for the next several years. During the next several months I visited a corvette dealer in southern NJ, and stopped at any car dealer who had one on their used car lot. I read anything that might have an ad for a used vette in it.

Up until this time my wife had not been too enthused about me getting a corvette. She did say the 93 Anniversary Edition with its ruby red color was the prettiest car she had ever seen. If you have read any of my home page, you realize that I put a lot of faith and trust in God. My wife and I would never make a purchase like this without asking for His blessing. In late August 1997 my wife was praying and God told her why I wanted a corvette. Up until this time when my wife asked me why, I had to say I didn’t know, I just wanted one. It was an impractical car for me to own, it was expensive, and I really didn’t know why I wanted one. Remember that at this time I had progressed from looking at an early seventies, to a mid eighties, and now I wanted a 1993.

In late August of 97 I took a day of vacation and went fishing with my wife. We were pulling the boat across the eastern shore of Maryland and she told me she knew why I wanted a vette. I wanted to hear this, since I wasn’t sure myself. There is a verse in the Bible in Psalm 37:4 that says, Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. As she was praying the day before, God said, "the desire your Husband has for a corvette is from Me, I put that desire in his heart". Her immediate response was, why Lord? He told her to turn in the Bible to, II Kings 6:15-17 It says, {15}When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked.
{16} "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
{17} And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

The Lord told her, "that He wanted me to have this car to be a witness for Him. He wanted this car to be my firey chariot to open the eyes of people just like He opened the eyes of Ilisha’s servant. He wanted people to know that when a man or a woman delights their self in Him, or serves God, that He will give them the desires of their heart". As I looked over at her as she was telling me this, she had tears of joy running down her cheeks. I wanted to jump up and shout right then, because I knew that she would now be in agreement with me when we prayed and asked God to provide this car. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 18:19 "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven". My wife and I were now in total agreement over this car, and as far as we were concerned it was a done deal! We received it by faith when we ask God for it.

Here is the prayer that we prayed on August 24, 1997, and the specific details about the car that we asked God for. I wrote it down just so I could marvel at how God would answer this prayer. Below the details of the car are the scriptures from the Bible that we based our prayer upon.

Want body and frame in mint condition with the car having been garaged, and very little use in the rain. Want interior in mint condition as well as. Want all mechanical systems in mint condition, including engine, drive train, electronics, etc. Want the remaining mechanics to be mint in order to pass Maryland inspection.

Want mileage to be 30,000 miles or less.

Want it to be a local buy or at least easy to get to the car to purchase it. Want all the original documentation including the window sticker. Want detailed maintenance records.

Want the price to be God's price, with God supplying the finance. Want favor with a bank, if a loan is required, and a low rate of interest. Want a good low rate for insurance.

One of the strangest things about this whole deal is the way we actually bought the car. I had called several dealers within a 100 miles radius of where we lived on December 15, 1997. One told me to call this dealer on the eastern shore of MD who specializes in vettes. When I called on December 16th , he wanted to know how I got his name, as he normally only sold vettes wholesale to dealers. I told him how I got his name and what I was looking for. He said he would make some calls and get back to me that evening, within a couple of days, or a couple of weeks. Twenty minutes later he called and said he found the car I was looking for. My wife and I met him in a local Wendy’s that evening. We signed the papers committing us to purchase a car we had never seen, from a guy we had never met. All we had was a document from the state of MD saying we were agreeing to purchase this corvette from this dealer, the credit application we filled out, and his business card. We also gave him a $5000.00 check as a deposit. On the way home from Wendy’s my wife said, "this is the strangest thing we have ever done. We gave a perfect stranger a check for $5000, bought a car we haven’t seen, and yet I have a perfect peace about it. This has to be God". We picked the car up 3 days before Christmas. Even the dealer was surprised at the interest rate as he said it would probably be between 9% - 12%. I like to tell people that I bought two chicken dinners and a corvette at Wendy’s!

You may think the above is a strange way to get a car. To me and my wife it just shows that it pays to put your faith and trust in God, and that as "we delight or serve Him, He will give us the desires of our heart". Besides, parked in my garage, under a cover, is my 1993 Anniversary Edition. To God be the Glory!

The 40 th Anniversary Edition Regeristry Page

Maintenance Tips and Mods I've Done to my Car

Corvette Links

Pictures from the 40th Resistry Reunion at the NCM April 2000

Bayrunner's ( that's me) Home Page

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