Corvette Summer

I’ve mentioned my mental incapacities a number of times here on The Jalopy Journal (here and here). To put it simply and frankly, I’m a sick bastard and there just isn’t anyway around it. I thought I was getting a little better, but last night proved to be damn near fatal to my quest of culturalization. I’ve been working on a new project and didn’t get to bed until around 4am. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

That’s when the weird shit went down. The dream started in a freeze frame. I was looking down at my shoes, a pair of black penny loafers with perfectly polished pennies in tow, and pondering the question of their origin. Penny loafers? Really? At least they seemed to match my pressed black chinos and my awkwardly preppy v-neck sweater. None of this was making sense to me.

The freeze frame was snapped when an equally pressed blonde spoke up, “Ryan, get into the car. We’ve got to get up the coast.” I looked up to see her flop down into a wonderfully customized Corvette. She looked at me expectantly and then pointed to the passenger seat.

Confused, I complied. Like she had done it a hundred times, the blonde fired the Vette, steered it out of the parking lot, and stabbed it onto the freeway. She cruised at around 85 mph and seemed to talk just as fast in an annoyingly high pitched voice. And then, her voice begins to fade and my vision begins to focus on the traffic around us.

“Holy shit, there’s the Hirohata Merc… And there’s the Doane Spencer Roadster… And check out that bitchin’ shoebox Ford.”

Every car on the highway was a car that I had fallen for in the past. It was like a rolling car show of the likes I’ve never seen.

It ended as quickly as it started. The blonde squeaked something about a birthday party and began to take an exit off the freeway. It was at that point that I got highly annoyed. Why the hell is she driving?

In any case, I woke up and began to wonder about the Corvette. I didn’t remember ever seeing it before, but the whole dream was shot in that kind of saturated color found so commonly on color photographs of the 1960’s. I dug all morning and about shit myself when I found the photo included in this post. The November, 1964 issue of Hot Rod Magazine claims this car belonged to Tony Riviera and apparently the annoying blonde was Jo Anne Summers.

I’m one sick bastard.

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