I developed my interest in Corvettes while living in the USA from 1963 to 1968, however, it was not until 2004 that I became serious about defining what I wanted in a Corvette, it had to be a 1968 - 1971, convertible with a manual gearbox, definitely not yellow, and it would stay left hand drive.
My search started in South Australia then to Western Australia and Victoria and eventually to Wisconsin USA where I found a 1969 convertible with a manual gearbox, after several phone calls and quite a few emails and photographs we agreed on a price, a few anxious months later my pride and joy finally arrived, and much to my relief the car was exactly as it had been described to me. After having the usual fun and games with the clowns at Regency Park the old girl was finally registered.

I had decided in the early stages of looking for my toy that I wanted a car that I could confidently drive on long trips, so the next step was to bring it mechanically up to scratch. At about this time I was introduced to a group called The Old Farts (which stands for Fine Automobiles Redwine Touring Society). To belong to this group one must own an old car who's manufacturer has been or is involved in motor sport. This group has two rules that must be clearly understood: Rule 1-There are no rules. Rule 2-Refer to Rule 1.

Each year in April we take off for six days on our annual trip, usually into Victoria and cover approximately 3000 km's mainly along less travelled roads (for obvious reasons). There is only one person per car, La Femme Farts (commonly known as Fartettes) are not allowed. If anyone's old piece of junk breaks down we all stop, usually no-one in the group can fix the problem so we open a bottle of red wine, call for help and sit around with concerned and constructive looks on our faces until help arrives (the red wine and the facial expressions are a very important part of the exercise). Once the problem is repaired we attempt to make up lost time so that we can arrive at our overnight stop, usually an old country pub, where we have more red wine and make all sorts of comments about the problem that delayed us!. We get up the next morning (usually not too early) and do it all again!