Mad About Vettes in Norway

by Tore Klerud, Norway

My story? Well, it goes a little like this:

Back in 1978, as a 10 year old, I sat in my uncleīs room in my grandparentsī house, reading every word in his many car magazines. This was shortly after he moved out, and the mags were stuff he had left there.

Somewhere in the pile I found a Swedish mag, not one of the big ones, but a mag that didnīt usually write about exotic sports cars. Anyway, this issue contained a multiple page test drive report of the new and redesigned 1978 Corvette, with some mighty overwhelming photage of the white or silver test car ripping up a highway in the California sunset. I had allready been reading car magazines for a year or two, but like most other boys at my age, I considered the Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am - especially the black on tan version - to be the coolest thing on wheels.

Until that very minute. I had heard the Corvette name, but hadnīt had no idea of what the car looked like. The magazine article - the photos, actually - made me realize that a car like this one would have to be mine some time in the future. (Bet this explains what I have said about the Shark styling earlier...?). If I remember correctly, the writer didnīt even like the Corvette much, but that didnīt matter. Maybe thatīs when I decided to be a journalist, sorta to make up for other peopleīs bad judgement?

At that time, I couldnīt even afford to dream about one (still did, of course...). Both īcause I was 10 years old, and because those cars were even more rare in Norway than they are today. (In 1982 there were still less than 100 Corvettes in Norway, so you can imagine how many there were in 1978). Would have taken some 250.000 Norwegian crowns to buy one at that time, and I only got 15 crowns per week to buy candy and magazines... (Had to choose between car mags and Donald Duck. Disney lost that one...).

A few months later, I was beginning to learn a bit about the Corvette, thanx to a friend of our family from Worthington, Ohio. He thought this 10 year old Corvette nut was kind of an oddball, and went straight home from a visit and bought a Corvette book, which he sent me. By the time I was in sixth grade, and the rest of my class were learning words like "apple pie" and "school bus" in our English lessons, I was more into terms such as "cruise control transducer" and "fiberglass". I even insisted on speaking American English, even though we were to be tought "the Queenīs English".

My poor teacher never figured out how to cope with that...

The 1978 Pace Car became my dream car, until the day I saw the first pictures on the 1980. Loved the changes to the front that made the car look a lot lower and more "mean", and I liked the integrated rear spoiler a lot better than the huge glued-on thing from the stock 1978 Pace Car / 1979 option program.

Prices that made these cars out-of-reach - even for dreaming - made me kinda loose the dream out of sight in the eighties. Iīm sorry to say this, but I think the release of the 1984 also contributed a little to this: The new Corvette just didnīt have those unique looks that I had grown to demand from a Corvette, even if I must admit I admired the looks of the 1986 Roadster, when that one came around. Instead I started dreaming about a 1972 Cadillac Eldorado convertible, most of all because of itīs unique features (a size that would take two Norwegian parking frames, the worlds largest displacement engine, and the thrill of a convertible in a country where such cars barely existed). Enough about that, but I must say I still dream about one of those... as a SUPPLEMENT to my Corvette, of course.

Somewhere around 1990, prices fell dramatically on special interest cars in Norway: Many had been imported during the economy boom in 1986 - 1988, and now the times were getting tougher again. At the same time I had finished school and done my military service, and I actually started making money. I worked a lot, and actually had a decent income. At that time, the old dream popped up again, and I decided to go for it. Started saving money in 1991, and was allmost there two years later. Then my old daily driver Audi decided to start falling apart, and anyone who has ever paid for Audi parts knows thatīs something you wonīt want to be doing for long. Sold the piece of shit, and had to empty the Corvette savings account to get the most reliable used car around; my Mercedes. (Gotta hand it to those Mercedes guys, they have their own definitions of the words "quality" and "durability"). Started from scratch again, and you know the rest of the story: Finally became a Corvette owner - basically a piece of crap, but anyway - on December 12th, 1994. Even the year was right - a 1980.

Now, Iīm actually going to be driving it on public roads for the first time in 16 months, after replacing the old engine. No lights, no hood, no interior except from water temp and oil pressure gages, but Iīm still looking so much forward to it, I suspect I wonīt be able to sleep much tonite. Itīs still in several colors, and the body is covered with lots of grease and dirt from the storage period, but Iīm still excited to look out between those huge front fenders raising towards the horizon - reminding me of that wonderful photage in the magazine article from 1978. The one that got me hooked...

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