[GTOger]

This one hits close to home for me. 10 years ago, my step-grandmother parked her 86 Trans Am at my aunt's farm. She had run the life out of it. It sat there for a year, then I dragged it to my garage, where it continued to sit. We pulled it out of its slumber last June, which involved replacing nearly every gasket, seal, bushing, and other soft bits. The gas tank and heater core were thoroughly shot. I've been daily-driving it for the past few months, and have also taken it on a couple interstate road trips.

One of my Corvette buddies has just shaken his head at the prospect of me actually driving the car at speed, but I'm here to tell you that old bucket feels surprisingly solid up past 115. The LB9 5-liter leaves plenty to be desired, but that's another matter.

Fact is, yeah, it takes a good bit of care, attention and money to do it right, but I wanted the car to be safe first, then we can concern ourselves with performance.

To that end, I'm going to pick up the ZR1 from Corey Henderson's shop tomorrow. In addition to some tasty little performance upgrades, we're going to be sporting redone FX3 shocks under a new coil-over setup, fresh bushings and even some HID lights for better vision. Our cars are aging, but that doesn't mean they have to get old and fat.