Steve Coffey's Lingenfelter-built Vettes-both the red Twin Turbo 427 (foreground) and the Wide Body (rear)-are the first of their kind. They were built at LPE's Decatur, Indiana, shop under John Lingenfelter's supervision.

How many times have you been tempted to buy that all-new Corvette, equipped with the latest go-fast hardware, as soon as you saw it? Well, you can count John Margiotti among them. Just six days after Corvettes of Dallas rolled out this '07, its first Signature Series car, John bought it. It now calls John's garage in Grand Prairie, Texas, home.

Rumor has it that Chevrolet lost money on every Corvette it made until 1963, but General Motors is pretty cagey about its finances so nothing is known for sure. Whatever the case, when the new 265 V-8 was fitted into the '55 models, the car began to be potentially competitive. However, it wasn't until 1957 that the Corvette became a force to be reckoned with on the track. I got a chance to take a ride in one of these cars recently, and was duly impressed.

Corvette is another word for adventure. That can describe where they've been and who's owned them before, or where you're going with them, and what you have to go through to get them to look as good as Herb Turner's '60.

In many cases, contest giveaway cars tend to be regular-production versions, maybe with an aftermarket add-on or a special color scheme. Our Timber Wolf C2 project car was one notable exception. But what about a car that's built to be more than that-to be "too good to be given away?"

Is the production Corvette the ultimate example of performance or is it just a starting point? many Corvette lovers enjoy the level(s) of performance provided by the standard hardware and optional goodies that the Corvette Team has designed, engineered, and made available since the first C1s of the early '50s. But for a devoted number of Vette enthusiasts, what comes from The General is merely the starting point to transforming America's Only True Sports Car into The Optimum Driving Experience.

Pinning the term "sleeper" to a Corvette feels rather non sequitur, butwhen a once demur '61 roadster roars by you with all the rumble and roarof a tuned, fuel-injection modern powerplant, you'll think twice. A"sleeper," as defined by any car guy, is a stock-appearing, unpresumingvehicle brandishing significant power and punch without revealing itssecret until it's too late for the competition. Chevrolet was at theforefront of the "factory sleeper" trend as far back as the late '50swith the advent of the Fuelie 283 Corvettes and the "Black Widow" '57Chevy--a stripped-down '57 with the aforementioned injected 283, customram-air induction, and tall-geared posi-traction.

In all the history of the Corvette, the cars that have received the least amount of attention for their role in shaping Vette history are the prototypes. That's because many of them were not only thrashed in the name of performance, safety, and durability, but were also unknown to all but the few who worked and/or beat on them daily. The fate of many of them-like all but one of the "1983" Corvettes-was the crusher. Many times, that fate was due to liability concerns by The General about these cars getting loose among the common folk. But many other times, it was because there was not much left of them to save, especially the cars that were crash-test "survivors." This Admiral Blue '95 Corvette coupe escaped that fate and is now at home in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Of the first-generation Corvettes, the '62 is the one that's likely been raced the most, Vette-rodded the most, and restored the most. That's thanks in no small part to the '62s highest-of-all-C1s production total (14, 531) that rolled out of St. Louis Assembly during its thirteen-month-long model run. Some Vette historians say that long run resulted from frustrated would-be Jaguar XK-E and Studebaker Avanti customers going with America's Only True Sports Car when they'd had enough of the competitors' production and delivery delays.

There comes a moment in the life of every Corvette lover when one particular Vette makes a permanent impression on them. The result is a desire to have that Corvette, or one equipped just like it, no matter how long it takes.

The '96 production year was a tough one for Corvette sales. The fast-approaching C5 was on the horizon-threatening to steal potential buyers of '96 Corvettes who were coiled, ready to jump on the all-new '97 Corvettes as soon as they became available. Chevrolet knew it needed something to tickle the purse strings of Corvette shoppers and put a '96 on their must-have list. Not surprisingly, they went to the root of Corvette fanaticism: performance!

This month's cover car is clearly something different, if not only for the occupant seated on the decklid. But Norm Nelson's '67 big-block Corvette is constantly surrounded by excitement, often positioned front and center at Norm's own dealership of high-performance cars in sunny Kenmare, North Dakota. Commuting from his home in Southern California where, for many years, Norm was head craftsman at his exotic-car restoration shop, he splits time between the two locations. The restoration work gave him appreciation for not only high performance, but also the car that got him interested in the business-the Corvette.

There's a special something about the first Corvette that made a lasting impression on you. Maybe it was the combination of color scheme and styled body lines. Maybe it was an exhaust note that turned your head and had you saying Wow for the next month.

Is there such a thing as The Perfect Corvette? For many long-time Vette lovers, the answer is an emphatic YES, as they point to the '67 Sting Ray as proof. Five years of refinement and continuous production had taken a very good car and made it the symbol not only of sports-car superiority, but also of American automotive engineering, styling, and production in general. Starting with an all-new platform that beat its three closest rivals-the Jaguar E-Type, A.C./Shelby Cobra, and Studebaker Avanti-in terms of build quality, availability, affordability, street drivability, and gotta-have-it ability, Chevrolet improved the Corvette each year by adding new features such as four-wheel disc brakes, a four-speed gearbox made by GM's own Muncie Gear Division, optional air conditioning, the Mark IV big-block engine, and side exhausts.

With development engineer Jim Mero behind the wheel, the ZR1 paced the Nrburgring in a time of 7:26.4 besting the lap of a Nissan GT-R if 7:29 run earlier this year.

Having his taste buds tickled by the stylish curves of a '63 split window and the modern angular lines of an '89 coupe, Tony Melillo, of Torrance, California, wanted to find something that would satiate his cravings for both modern amenities and classic break-neck speeds akin to that of the big-block years of the Corvette. That led his focus to the ZR1. Legendary in its track prowess and subtle in its body modifications from the standard packaged late-C4s, the ZR1 was exactly what the doctor ordered in Tony's mind.

Designed after the avian muse for which it was named; the Rondine, or swallow, features a sleek fiberglass skin similar to the aforementioned bird's characteristic slender streamlined body, with long pointed wings, a stubbed bill, and long tail. Based off of a '63 split-window, the Italian-built showcase vehicle crafted by Pininfarina sadly never caught on, and ultimately, slid off into the shadowy annals of historical Corvette obscurity. So ambiguous was the Italian coupe's account, that many, if not most, Corvette die-hard enthusiasts have never even heard of it.

Do you believe in second chances? Robert McNerney does. A few years back, he went to the Atlantic City Classic Car Auction in hopes of finding a C1 that he could buy as a weekend driver and occasional show car. "I was looking at '58s and '59s, but when I saw this car, the color grabbed my eye right away," he says from his Mahwah, New Jersey, home. "And the condition-it was impeccable."

When you look at a Motion Corvette, or any of the handbuilt supercars built by Joel Rosen's Motion Performance in New York, you're looking at a genuine original -a superlative masterpiece as novel, creative, and uniquely American as rock 'n' roll, Times Square, hot dogs, Route 66, the jukebox, blue jeans, and Woodstock.

For many Vette lovers, it was the first-generation Corvettes that kindled their love affair with America's Only True Sports Car. That includes the '62 Corvette that Gerald Copeland, with the help of his son Daniel, took from a well-worn driver to the silver-toned gem you see here.

No sooner had Chevrolet Division General Manager Bunkie Knudsen successfully launched the Corvette Sting Ray in the summer of 1962, he then faced an unforeseen and distracting source of conflict. Entries made earlier that year in his diary show that he had already considered quitting his job; the subject would arise again before too long. As usual, the friction was originating with Knudsen's boss, Ed Cole, who in Knudsen's words, "was on the wild pitches again."

As in past years, we again present you with our annual list of top Corvette shops you can trust. Year after year, this list continues to be one of the most requested (and used) components of Corvette Fever. This really isn't our list-it's yours. We have continued to compile your recommendations over the last year into a directory we hope you'll refer to again and again. This newly updated directory will also be posted soon on our Web site, www.corvettefever.com. Since we published our original list of your favorite Corvette shops six years ago, your recommendations have continued to come in. These Corvette businesses range from full-blown restoration shops to places you can go to for routine maintenance. As in years past, some new shops have been added, along with the sender's comments.

Flashy paint aside, nothing about Ryan Custodio's and Cory Gallus' Corvettes seemed too out of the ordinary as the cars sat waiting their turn for a spin on the dyno at a show last summer. A peek through the windows revealed discrete six-point rollcages, but no other modifications. Things looked to be mostly stock under the aftermarket hoods, except for the nitrous setup on Ryan's car, which also wore a set of CCW wheels. No big deal.

When you see a Corvette that's represented as "restored," do you ask yourself if that restoration was back to the way the car was built by GM, or if there were any "improvements" or equipment upgrades included in the project.

Recently we've brought you stories of distinctively styled Corvettes, milestone Corvettes, and movie-star Corvettes that all spend their days indoors, meticulously preserved in their original (or close to it) conditions. This article isn't about Vettes like that. Instead, this one's about a father-and-son-owned pair that have logged hundreds of thousands of miles between them while seeing the U.S.A.