The Summer of 1978 was a summer worth remembering, (but any Summer as a kid was spectacular!) and that was a CORVETTE SUMMER.
The film starred Mark Hamill and Annie Potts, and had a CUSTOM VETTE that was off the chart! By today’s standards, it’s pretty tame, but the Summer of ’78… eyeballs were popping and ear drums bouncing.
I was 13 and still too young to drive, but I knew that this was what I wanted. A COOL CAR, GROOVY CHICK and an OPEN ROAD with the Sun on my face. Life wouldn’t be better. Of course in the film, the car was stolen so that would suck bigtime, but it made for an exciting 2 hours. And although I wasn’t a builder, I knew I loved designing cars in the back of class and that someday I’d be that for sure. And I did…
“Ken loves to design and build exotic cars. When the High School shop class project car, a fully tricked out dream Corvette is stolen, he begins searching for it. His search leads him to Las Vegas, where Vanessa, a teenage prostitute wannabe, helps him try to track it down.”
It was a unique idea that no one had ever seen before… with the star of the BIGGEST MOVIE IN HISTORY, Star Wars. The Vette was a ’73 and only two were built for MGM by Korky’s Kustom Studios in New Jersey. Korky was known for a lot of Movie Car builds and he was the right guy. I spent my childhood running around the Barris Shop and I knew what Korky went through to bust this Vette. It was awesome.
*Today, we celebrate our LOVE OF VETTES with Fireball’s CORVETTE SUMMER SKETCH! Check out the all-new swag in the Garage with SHIRTS, MUGS and CANVAS ART!!
DID YOU KNOW?? The Corvette was Stingray was converted to right hand drive so that Mark Hamill could hang out of the curbside window… checkin’ out the ladies.