Recently
the New Zealand Corvette Register in association with Capital Corvettes of Wellington
hosted the 18th annual Corvette Convention, over the Waitangi long weekend of the 5th,
6th, & 7th of February. The turn out was brilliant with some 76 registered entries at
the hotel. At the display on the Saturday morning it was said to be 85 Vettes on show,
definitely the biggest gathering we have had to date. It was absolutely fantastic to see
that many Vettes together, having not been to the States myself, yet, and experienced the
likes of Bloomington and Carlisle and seen the hundreds of Vettes there I was blown away
to be surrounded by so many beautiful Corvettes.
The organization was great with everything flowing nicely, not over organized with plenty of spare time to relax, recover from the previous night, and just hang out with the cars and owners. Upon arriving and registering we were all given a goody bucket which was supplied by Mothers car products complete with sample bottles of their wash and polish. Also in the bucket was Mid America catalogue, Shell wipe cloth, name tags and information.
Friday was just the gathering day with nothing organized, its great to be there and see each car as it arrives, meet up with fellow Vetters whom you only see once a year at this meeting and of course meet lots of new people and see their Vettes for the first time, as well as the friends you see more often at the more regular club gatherings. So with the Vettes washed from the travelling and rooms sorted it was drink in hand and lots of talking and joking as I wandered from group to group catching up. Once the hunger pangs hit at about 9pm a group of us headed up town to hit the night spots of Wellington, of which there are plenty with lots of lovely sights to occupy us singles, I vaguely remember crawling into bed (alone) at about 03:30am.
Saturday morning arrived, much to my annoyance, heralded by the starting of big and small blocks, I was sure they were in my room, but no they were still in the car park beneath the hotel. We had to move our cars across the road to the Museum car park for the display which was to last until midday. Because of traffic congestion we left the car park in groups of ten led by a local Vetter, for a short cruise around the coast to a tavern for lunch, the rest of the afternoon was free with some continuing to cruise around, others visiting Southwards Car museum and others just relaxing back at the hotel. The evening was for the dinner together followed by prize giving of the annual trophies along with some really great stuff from Mid America as fun prizes and quiz. There were a few speeches about future events with Queenstown in the South Island to be the venue for next year and Auckland for the 2000 which will be interesting as the Americas cup will be full on at the same time.The function finished about 10:30pm so it was off to town for a repeat of the previous evenings escapades.
With most people going home after Sunday lunch it was pack up the car for the trip, though there were some 25 or so staying on another night which is what I normally do, but I decided to stay a couple of nights with my parents on the way home. We left the hotel in convoy with a stop at a Shell station for refueling, then over the ranges to park for awhile amongst the trees of the small town of Martinborough. Here I had one of the highlights of the weekend with the meeting up with fellow VetteNetters Gary & Elaine Michaud from Corvettes of Sonoma Ca. whom I had been corresponding with about their trip to NZ and our Corvette weekend. It was so fantastic to actually meet people from the VetteNet, we exchanged gifts, I gave them a couple of our event tee shirts, saw photos of their beautiful 64(?), walked and chatted to other owners, but with time against us we had to head off to Featherston for a leisurely lunch before heading off in small groups to various destinations.
Copyright 1996 Barbara Spear
