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Sunday, May 21, 2006

Building a Corvette in Your Driveway






The day started innocent enough - we were invited by Melissa and Josh Gross over for brunch at their place and also a chance to shoot some clay pigeons behind their home. They have a lovely home along the shore of Lake Jackson north of town. Melissa is a fellow library professor of Nancy's and also a fabulous cook. Josh - her husband - is a true renaissance man. He loves guitars - cars - boats - toys - and literature. He is a psychologist by trade.

After the lunch - we shot clay pigeons - I used my stainless steel pirate shot gun. To my surprise I hit the first 3 and shot maybe 20 of 30 total. Not bad for a "sawed off" shotgun shooting 12 gauge with No. 8 shot.

But the highlight of the day - besides Melissa's apricot scones - was meeting Bare and Connie Schenk. Bare is a forensic arborist - he decides which trees live and die in town. But his first love seems to be cars. Bare built many cars - but the most impressive one to me is his daily driver - the Z-53.

Right in the driveway - under a tent - he built this car from scratch. He took the body of a wrecked 1953 Corvette - you recall that Chevrolet only made about 300 of them. Then he mated it with the chassis of a new Corvette to make the world's only Z-53. Words can't describe the quality and detail in this 500 HP daily driver. Here are some pictures - the fit and finish rival a new Mercedes.

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