One-Owner 66
From Father to Son
BY: Keith Cornett
As they say in the movies, this is my
story.
My involvement in the Corvette hobby
actually began two
years before I was born. In 1966, my father was working
in sales for a
Johnson and Johnson medical company, Ethicon. That year,
Ethicon awarded
a 1966 Ford Mustang Convertible to its top selling
salesperson. Low and
behold, my father was the winner. But, my father being a
Chevy Man, said
to his wife, "What would I want with an old Ford?"
Answer: Trade it in
on a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette.
In 1982, my father passed away, and the
car was driven
very infrequently because my mother, Carole, who drove a
Cadillac Eldorado,
thought the car rode too rough and besides, it didn’t
have air conditioning.
In 1985, the car was put into storage, if you call
sitting in a barn in
Indiana "Storage", where it remained until 1993.
My wife and I drove up to Indiana on
Thanksgiving weekend
in 1993 and towed the car back to Tampa. We actually
didn’t begin working
on it for nearly a year. But on Labor Day 1994, the
Vette roared to life
once again.
You would be surprised how easy it was
to get this car
back on the road. The Chevy 327 is one durable engine.
We drained the
fuel tank, cleared the fuel lines, and bolted on a new
fuel pump. A new
distributor cap, points and coil were installed, as well
as new spark
plugs, wires, and a new battery. The oil was drained and
refilled, and
a new oil filter was put on. We then took out the car to
have a lube job
and drain and refill the positraction fluid. Four new
tires were bolted
on, a complete muffler system was installed, and a
personalized license
plate from the state of Florida was ordered...COMET
66.
The 1966 Chevrolet Corvette was
available with many different
options including engine combinations. The base engine
for the Corvette
in ‘66 was the 327 V8 rated at 300 hp. This is the
engine in Keith’s Vette.
The other engines available included the L79 327 V8
rated at 350 hp, the
L36 427 V8 rated at 390 hp and the big boy, the L72 427
V8 rated at a
whopping 425 horsepower.
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