Love of Vintage Corvettes Never Seems to End

Young, single and a car-lover living in Southern California, Patricia Parks had her heart set on buying a Corvette.

Gary Hom’s cherry red 1971 ‘Vette with the 327-cubic-inch engine and T-top removable roof panels was on the market.

She spotted his ad in an Auto Trader newspaper in 1986. They met. They haggled over price. They made a deal. They fell in love.

The San Diego couple has been married for five years, has two sons--and the same ’71 Corvette. It’s painted white now and on its second engine.

“That was our first baby,” Patricia Hom said.

“Yeah, and I never got all my payments for it,” her husband added jokingly.

Families like the Homs keep alive their romance with America’s first true sports car by attending Corvette shows and meets.

Family affairs with older Corvettes are increasingly common, said Gary Mortimer, the society’s membership director.

Buyers of the vintage ‘Vettes often are older men and women who fantasized about owning the car in their younger days. Their passion is passed along to spouses and children.

Most new Corvette buyers are single, college-educated men and an average age of 43. Most often, they are business managers and executives, according to Harry Turner, who tracks demographics as part of his job as sport car segment manager for Chevrolet, a division of General Motors Corp.

Turner’s research shows one in four Corvettes is bought by a woman. Average household income is $85,000 to $90,000. Men and women both say they bought the Corvette mostly because it’s fun to drive. Styling was the second most-given reason, and the prestigious nameplate was fifth.

Chevrolet spends millions advertising its array of cars and trucks. It doesn’t have to put much of that into Corvette, which has a following as knowledgeable about the car as some of the engineers who design it.

“We’ve had the luxury from the beginning of not having to commit very many dollars on it,” said Ralph Kramer, Chevrolet’s chief spokesman. “The car’s been so newsworthy over the years that we never had to go out and buy the space to talk much about them.”