Having fallen in love with Corvettes on his first trip to America in 1965, he says these cars now dominate his work and leisure time. He's presently restoring and driving a '64 327-250 air-conditioned barn-find convertible. Tom has written seven books on Corvettes. Corvette 1968-1982 was published in 1983. He also wrote Corvette 1953-1962, Corvette 1963-1967, and Corvette 1968-1982 in the prestigious BayView Original series from 1997 to 2001. His most recent book is Complete Corvette 1953-2003. Because of his business, he drives at least three different Corvettes every working day.
A columnist for American Car World for more than 10 years, he's presented television programs about the '63 Corvette coupe and the body-off restoration of a '77.
Tom's Righthand Drive column will begin appearing in Corvette Fever in the February '05 issue.
National Corvette Museum's 10th Anniversary Labor Day ShowRichard Sigler and his wife Mary had just retrieved their prizes: 10th anniversary wine glasses. They would go in their "24x14-foot toy room" back home in Elkhart, Indiana. Mementoes seem to be an important part of any of the NCM's shows, and the annual Labor Day weekend celebration is their biggest. This year's 10th anniversary pin (for shirt or hat) and metal stick-on dash plaque were in every registrant's goodie bag.
What did they like best about the National Corvette Museum's latest Labor Day weekend celebration? "Everything," Richard offered. "We come here two, three, four times a year."
"Everything" referred to the Corvette assembly plant tours, seminars inside the museum (such as "Launch of the C6" presented by Ron Storzbach and John Spencer this year), a car show, fashion show, and much more. Mary said the fun part was talking to the other Corvette enthusiasts.
Dan Gale would have been proud. For the sake of such Corvette owners, in 1992 he left behind family and business in Massachusetts to move to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he opened the Museum Annex on Scottsdale Road.
Although many of the 1,800 or so Corvette owners who trekked to the big NCM Labor Day show 2004 did not attend the Hall Of Fame Induction banquet on Friday night, unofficially, the 10th Anniversary celebration was a time to reflect on Dan's accomplishments and those of a select group of four other museum founders: Ray Battaglini, Darrel Bowlin, Jon Brookmyer, and Terry McManmon, who worked for no money on their own time for the better part of 10 years, 1984 to 1994, to create the National Corvette Museum.
Gale and Bowlin are deceased. Their wives accepted for them at the banquet. Bowlin was an "inside" man, working for Bowling Green Assembly. He helped bring about the plant's payroll deduction program that raised $170,000 for the museum.
McManmon's involvement goes back to the beginning in 1984 when he had the idea for a nonprofit foundation dedicated to the preservation of Corvette literature. He says, "Letters, phone conversations, and discussions at various NCRS events led to July 1986, when I sought the approval of NCRS officers to form the NCRS Library, Archives & Museum Committee."
Battaglini's major contribution was his professional fund-raising expertise. He served as president of the NCRS Foundation and later as chairman of the NCM Foundation, overseeing the registration of the foundation in his home state of New Mexico.
Brookmyer, a professional tax accountant, served on this original committee and served on each successive committee that eventually brought the NCM to birth, providing leadership and financial stability.
For many people, Gale's induction was long overdue. Ben Labaree, whose wife Sandy died of cancer in 2000, now travels across the United States in his C5 on the Corvettes Conquer Cancer tour. He told us he held off buying a lifetime membership to the Museum until it inducted him.