National Corvette Convention - 2 ~ 5th April 2010, Perth, Western Australia
Five Qld Corvette members and their
wives arrived in
Ernie and I arrived 2 days early to
have a look around. Did the tourist thing
with a Swan River Cruise and tram ride around Freemantle. Wonderful day with
perfect weather (no humidity!), good company and scenic surroundings.
Heard a great story in Freemantle
about the famous “Postcard Bandit”, Brendan Abbott.
He was incarcerated at the jail there and made his
escape just two years before the facility closed. It
was reopened for tourists soon after and while Brendan had snuck home to
visit his sick mother in a
We all stayed in the Rendezvous
Hotel at “
Apparently
this hotel is one of the infamous Mr Bond’s (not James) little “Projects” of
the 1980’s and there have been no others built along the ocean foreshore
ever since! He must have had influential
friends!
Friday night’s welcome bar-b-que was
relaxed and friendly and gave old friends a chance to catch up. Only 47
Entrants were registered this year, so it was a small, intimate gathering.
Two of the NSW couples had come across on
the Indian Pacific and reported it was a wonderful trip, though pretty
expensive. Only one Sth Australian member,
Ollie, drove across the salt flats in his Vette and so he was adopted by the
Queenslanders for the week-end, there being a close friendship between our
two Clubs.
Saturday’s Show/Shine was open to WA
members who did not attend the whole Convention and we had about 60-70 cars
on show in a beautiful park, right on the banks of the
A DJ provided great music all day
and Performax were swamped with eager Corvette fans, asking a million
questions about the ZR1. Both Glenn and Kevin later remarked that Club
members “really know a lot of information about Corvettes!”
Sandy & Sally were lucky to get a
ride in the red beast on Saturday and Ernie & Brad both had a turn on the
Sunday cruise. Not much chance to put it
through its’ paces on the streets of
Sunday cruise was up the coast north
of
Sunday night’s Gala Dinner was in
the ballroom, where we enjoyed a sumptuous Buffet dinner with unlimited
prawns, before getting down to the serious business of trophy presentations
and the Charity Auction.
No Queenslanders won any trophies,
mainly because we had no cars there!
The exception was the ZR1, a late
entry in the show/n/shine. I t won the “Elite Car
of the Show” trophy and Glen & Kevin were happy to take it back to Gympie to
display in the factory, for all those who worked so hard to get the
conversion completed in time. Apparently it
was a very close call!
Our table
centerpieces were model Corvettes mounted on a polished timber base.
Very classy and our table
had the concept Corvette from the Transformer Movie.
It sold for $500!
Tom Vanderreyden bought the
official Convention Jacket for a song and there were some real bargains to
be had amongst the other auction items. Brad
& I snaffled a few items for our Club raffles!
Our Sth Australian
friend won the longest distance travelled trophy (a mounted C5 tail light),
but of course our north
Our American
friends, Jim & Shirley Horniday, were also at the Convention and presented a
beautiful “Best Spirit of Corvette” trophy to a young West Australian
fellow, whose face was nearly splitting in half with his grin!
Members may recall
that particular trophy was initiated at our 2007 Convention and is always
eagerly sought after. We
send a Vetteletter to the Hornidays every month and they are always
interested in what the Aussie Corvette Clubs are doing.
Monday morning
concluded the Convention with a beach bar-b-que and farewells all around.
Alan Marshall from Vic Vettes, encouraged us all to attend the 2011
Convention in
Many thanks to our hard working West
Australian hosts and hope to see you all next year…………
Special thanks to Ernie (QCC) and Steve (Australian Corvettes Association) for permitting the reproduction of these event photos and to Sally for the great write-up..
