Introduction

My name is Greg Guditus, I was born in 2000 and I have grown up around, under, and in cars, trucks, ATV's, bikes, boats, heavy machinery, and anything else with an engine short of planes, trains, and helicopters. My dad was raised even more so in the shop than me, so he has been the main source of my knowledge; my other wells of information include my uncles and family friends. If memory serves, I cleaned and rebuilt my first carburetor at the age of 8 (with some guidance, of course). I have always enjoyed the feeling of using or driving something that I built or worked on. That satisfaction is only comparable to coding, where you can make something from scratch and actually use it for something, but in the shop you can actually hold what you made so there's an extra level to the satisfaction.

I loved all cars growing up, I can't remember having a specific favorite when I was very young. Around 9 years old is the youngest I can remember having a favorite car, it was probably inspired by a car my neighbor had. He had a white 1970 Chevrolet Corvette with an L88 big block hood, fender flares, and sidepipes. I didn't know much about Corvettes (I suppose I didn't know much about cars in general at the time), but that car sitting on the hill looked like it was going 200 mph just standing still. Around the same time, I had started playing the 50th anniversary Corvette racing game on the Playstation 2. I spent hours racing the different generations of Corvettes, but always came back to the early chrome bumper C3 cars (1968-1972). Also at the same time, my dad found a great deal on a charcoal gray 1981 Corvette, so he bought it.

We decided we were going to drive that car to Corvettes at Carlisle, about 2 hours away from us. We loaded every tool we would need, just barely enough clothes for the weekend, 2 chairs, and plenty of water into the car. We drove down with 2 of my dad's colleagues and friends from work who both had Corvettes. However both of their cars were resto-mods, one a 1966 with a procharged LS6 and C4 suspension from Street Shop and the other a 1959 with an LS and C4 suspension from Corvette Correction. Both were absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous cars, so our stock 1981 car was the ugly black sheep of the group.

At the show, we began searching for a car for me. My plan for the car was a resto-mod 1968-1972 Corvette with not many more details at the time. I loved black and red paint against the chrome bumpers of the cars, so those were the colors we focused on. There were some cars for sale at the show, most way out of our price range, but there was a very rough car in the corner of the Carlisle fairgrounds that we were seriously considering. There was not much paint left on the car, but it had been red at some point in its life. There wasn't much left to the car besides the main birdcage, but the price was "only" $5,000. Obviously, that car would have needed everything, bodywork, paint, bumpers, trim, interior, drivetrain, suspension, frame, and all of that before it could ever see the road. We decided to pass and left the weekend empty handed, but had a great time.

The Car

Fast forward to 2013, we had continued searching for a chrome bumper C3 and had continued to go to Corvettes at Carlisle and other car shows. We had found a couple of cars online and went to look at them. Most were duds, but we brought money and our trailer anyway. Finally, we found a 1969 Corvette convertible, it was perfect. From the pictures, I was convinced that it was red, but the Craigslist ad said it was orange. Regardless, we went with a trailer and money to look at it (I was happy because it meant being "sick" from school and maybe getting my dream car). The previous owners were an older couple who had just bought a used C5 Corvette after all of their friends had sold their C3's for C4's, so they were the cool kids in their group, but needed to sell their old C3. The car was beautiful, it was indeed orange, Hugger Orange to be exact. (From the previous owner we learned that the Corvette color Monaco Orange was actually identical to Hugger Orange.) I wasn't in love with the color at the time, so I was still contemplating repainting it black or red when we were looking at it, but eventually I did fall in love with the color on that car.

The car had a small block from a 1976 Corvette with a 4-speed manual so neither were original to the car, same with the paint. Which was perfect, we didn't have to feel bad about tearing apart an original car. We bought it at a great price, and while the owners were sad to see it leave, they were happy to see it go to a young owner (and his father); a sentiment echoed from most sellers we found.

I learned how to drive a manual in the car, I loved the extra connection that the manual added to driving. We took it to Carlisle and we searched for all of the parts that the car needed, which weren't many. We bought new bumpers and other chrome bits, as the old ones had started to pit, and a new driver's side door panel. After those were installed the car was a stunner. The only part that was lacking was when it was driving, the car rode great, but the engine sounded lame and it was a bear to drive on the highway. We installed a Tremec tko-500 and a Magnaflow exhaust, and it transformed the car. I was in love driving it now. I drove the car to Carlisle in 2017 rat her than trailering it, and the car won a Celebrity Choice award. I'm not huge on awards, especially at car shows, but it was cool to win. I go to shows to see all of the other cars, so I rather the awards go to the people who go to the shows for that purpose.

To Chassis or Not To Chassis

We were still planning on resto-modding the car, but weren't sure on which direction to go. A full chassis would be best, but also the most expensive. Adding coilovers and custom suspension to the existing frame would be the economical choice, and the direction we were leaning. Not long after the 2017 Carlisle show, we found a great deal on a Street Shop chassis, but it wasn't like any we had seen before. The chassis had the suspension and FULL drivetrain out of a C5 Corvette, not just the LS engine. This meant a torque tube and transaxle rather than the typical front mounted transmission and driveshaft. All of that for half of what it would have cost to build the same setup, so we called to ask when we could go pick it up, but another buyer was lined up... Until he fell through and the seller contacted my dad. So he bought the chassis and had it shipped, without telling me, for less than it was advertised for. When it arrived I was at school, but when I got home he somehow convinced me to go down to the garage without spilling the secret. I was dumbfounded when we opened the door and saw the chassis there and very excited.

The chassis had components from a 1997 Corvette, so the lowest power LS1 with a Tremec t56 transaxle, QA1 coilovers, C6 ZO6 wheels and tires, and a rack and pinion. The rear cradle from the C5 had been narrowed and the torque tube had been shortened. We quickly began researching what would need to be done to fit the chassis to the body, but kept running into a wall regarding the transaxle. We could not find any documentation of it being done in a C3 before. Eventually I found the website of a group of brothers in Hungary* who had swapped the drivetrain from a C6 into the original C3 frame. It looked like the front of the transaxle was right where we feared, right in the hips of the driver and passenger. It really can't be in a worse spot, but that's the only way to fit it. The brothers from Hungary had done it, so it must be possible, but it seemed like a whole lot of squeezing for not so much juice.

* That website was called Hardcore Engine Builders Online, but unfortunately as of now the site has none of the pictures or information it previously had.

The vision for the car is being a driver's car first and foremost, since that's what we will be doing with it mostly. Keep the LS1, but build it up to have plenty of power to have some fun. Keep the transaxle because it will make the car even more unique than "just" a C3 with C5 suspension. We want the car to be impressive to see at a car show, but at the same time not a trailer queen. I likely will never find the time or opportunity to actually race the car, so I am not factoring in any rules or regulations from bodies like SCCA.

That's cool, but what tires fit my 1987 Corvette? Google? Never heard of it...

Other projects came up and pushed the C3 resto-mod further and further down the line, but we are finally making progress on the car now.

I wanted a way to document the progress of the car, but didn't like any of the options out there. YouTube would be too time consuming with the videoing and editing and any voiceovers. Social media as a whole isn't really my thing, and you're limited to how much you can write or how many photos you can post at once.

The tried and true build thread on a forum was actually quite apealing; I had grown up reading forums and following build threads of cars that I liked. However, it seemed like without fail, there would be some turkey who would come into a perfectly good build thread and hijack it, and take it way out into left field with random questions.

It's one of my biggest gripes with forums: the people on them. That said, the biggest benefit of forums is also the people on them. The amount of information on the forums is astronomical, but that brings another gripe. The search function of these forums is atrocious, I can never find what I want, even if I know the exact thread I am looking for, I can't find it.

That lead me here, to my own website where I can make it exactly how I want. The idea of this blog and the website as a whole is to document the cool things we build and share them. I am not sure how effective the sharing part will be, but maybe I can put a QR code somewhere on my car that leads people here...