Posted on 03/28/2025 9:34:50 PM PDT by Red Badger
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Thieves took eight Corvettes from the lot of a Kentucky automobile plant where the legendary muscle car is built, but officers recovered the vehicles and made an arrest, police said.
The cars were taken from the GM Bowling Green Assembly plant in southern Kentucky, the home of the Chevrolet Corvette since the early 1980s. The eight cars were valued at $1.2 million, police said.
Police said the thieves cut a fence at the plant to get the cars out. A man later arrested and charged with the theft of three cars said while being booked into jail that if he “would have made it back to Michigan, I would have been paid big,” according to a police report.
The first car was located Saturday when a woman at an apartment complex in Bowling Green called police to say she saw a man park a new Corvette with stickers on it at the complex and then walk away.
Police contacted the manager of the assembly plant, who checked the inventory and reported that eight Corvettes were missing, according to a Bowling Green Police report.
Police later located four more Corvettes at different locations
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Agree had a 1990 C4 it was a high maintenance issue why I got rid of it.
Wouldn’t own another Corvette unless it is a 1963 or 1964 coupe.
ZR1 hit 233MPH at a test track in Germany last fall. Depending upon aerodynamics, 400HP should get a sporty car to around 180MPH.
https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2024/oct/1015-zr1.html
Was he in the grease man legion?
When I first opened the hood, the rubber strip fell off and there were extra screws on top of the engine.
The L48 engine was plenty powerful enough, but we had a current gas crisis again - and Jimmy Carter had our top speed limited to 55 miles an hour, so it was less than fun and got 16 miles per gallon anyway.
The light switch - the pull on type - heated up pretty ferociously when the lights were turned on.
The very expensive glass roof cracked spontaneously.
When I got a flat in my left rear tire, they had to machine off the rear wheel to get the thing off and I had to buy a new aluminum wheel.
Just about a year after I bought it, every seal in the car failed at once: I had a pool of engine oil and hydraulic on my garage floor. The Exon Valdez of cars. Needless to say, Chevrolet didn't cover that under warranty,
I sold to some poor sucker and years later saw him driving it and he said "it's a great car".
It Figures.
The only other car I owned that was less reliable was a '58 4/4 Morgan. I had a sticker on the back my car that said "all of the parts falling from this vehicle are of the finest English workmanship". I never went anywhere with it without a tool kit and cans of fluids.
called police to say she saw a man park a new Corvette with stickers on it at the complex and then walk away.
My X1/9 was a terrific car when it ran. I spent more time under it than in it.........
Thieves took eight Corvettes
if could have made it to Michigan would have made money.
Wonder what the end game was.
Ship to foreign country........................
Just asked SIRI and both Presidents were mentioned for the 55mph change.
I went to a ‘Vette show last year, Vettes on the Beach in Pensacola Beach. That was awesome; tons of decorated, shiny Corvettes in mint condition. owned mostly by wealthy old White dudes and wealthy Latinos.
We used to refer to slowly driving cops as "Carter Enforcers".
Respectfully, Doug, a fiberglass tube with a V8 at one end is not a sports car. All the horsepower does is win drag races - it isn't fun to take on twisty roads to Ensenada and back, like a classic MG or a Morgan, or a Triumph TR-6 or an Alfa Romeo "graduate"- or a Fiat 124 or an X-19.
Take your 1,000 horsepower beast to the quarter mile and enjoy - but that's not a sports car.
SIRI is wrong, Nixon signed it January 2 1974
I know the feeling mine had a warning light for replacement about every 2 months the EGR valve died early (have to remove the intake to replace it ($$$$$$) and a number of others to list.
When I bought parts from GM dealer the boxes had MADE IN CHINA like I didn’t know that.
I should have had a sticker for finest China workmanship.
It’s been a long time since I heard of/thought of Fiat X1/9.
Way back when I was supposed to be working hard on my PhD in biophysics. Took time off to drop a Chevy small block in my ‘75 FJ40 LandCruiser ‘cause I couldn’t locate the diesel offered in Canada.
A work-study student showed up around ‘76 who had some of my same interests. Unusual reptiles and fish, and more money than common sense (he went on to work for Lockheed’s Skunkworks.)
I dropped a full Abarth race engine into his X1/9 and did the body work for fatter tires, etc. Custom air cleaner and modified his tach to accomodate the much higher RPMs.
Had my first and hopefully last battery explosion. Was using a motorcycle battery to power his distributor, chucked in a lathe so I could calibrate a new gauge face. Clip leads and points too close to the battery near the headstock.
I did his body work with fluxed brazing rods - I was that good. Didn’t learn how to stick weld until 7 years ago. Only bringing this up because university security got to the point they’d just shake their heads and walk on when they saw oxy-acetylene torch run coming out of the lab window...
He rallied that car, I had fun with a stock ‘71 MGB I bought with my ‘mustering out’ pay.
Now we're talking! THAT would make an X19 really interesting. When I was a kid, working at the Fiat dealership, one of the mechanics dropped a 124 Spyder engine in his 850. It didn't handle but it would pull the front wheels off the ground. Too much weight in the back.
I had a 1960 MGA that I dropped a high compression Buick 215 aluminum V8 into. With sidepipes and rollbar it looked like a baby AC Cobra. The V8 was lighter than the original four-banger that was in it. I also got my hands on a stripped Abarth Fiat 500. Boy it was ugly but it's monocoque body was all aluminum. The rolling chassis didn't even weigh a thousand pounds. I was planning to put a 302 Z28 motor mid-engine in that one but never got around to it. Probably just as well. :) Then there were the Alfas, plus a few hot rods along the way. Good times!
The Small Block into the Land Cruiser was a great swap. I wanted to do one of those.
Chainmail, I am sorry that your only experience with Corvettes was with a ‘79 model. That was not much of a car. Detroit had kind of lost their way in the late seventies. You should go take a new model for a test drive. The new ones are engineering marvels with bodies made of carbon fiber composites and aluminum. They will corner at well over one G-force while the cars that you listed would be lucky to pull .75 Gs. A trip to Ensenada would be fun in the cars you named but it would be heart pounding exhilaration in a new ZR1. No comparison. Not even close. You could remove most of the sparkplugs from the Corvette and it would still beat all of the cars you listed simply by cornering ability alone. The new Corvettes would probably be considered supercars if not for the stigma of low price and mass production.
NICE!
Okay, so I am sticking with my theory :)
BTW, hard to imagine but a brand new Stingray back then was 'only' $5K.
That's amazing!
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