Danville Street Sighting - 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray

Each year for the 4th of July I like to celebrate America's Independence Day with a special feature. This year we're doing American muscle and sports coupes in red, white and blue. Rounding out our assortment today is a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray coupe finished in beautiful Nassau Blue metallic.

Danville Street Sighting - 1973 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

June 7 marks the birthday of a singer-songwriter from Minneapolis you may have heard of. His name is Prince.

In his honor and in his memory, here's a little red Corvette.

Danville Street Sighting - 1977 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Many of you are no doubt stuck at home during the now infamous COVID-19 lockdown. I've been out of the loop on blogging for the past months and not producing much content, even though I continue to photograph cars and have a fair number of them archived. So, for your viewing pleasure, let's look at a 1977 Chevy Corvette Stingray. I enjoyed photographing this one during the sunny summer months last year.

Danville Street Sighting - 1956 Chevrolet Corvette

Every month on the first Sunday morning, the Blackhawk Automotive Museum holds a Cars and Coffee meet in their parking lot. A lot of local enthusiasts show up, from car club members to nouveau riche exotic owners to some older gentlemen just looking for a good excuse to get their favorite classics out of the garage. It's always different and a nice little free show for a couple of hours. After one of these meets I ventured into downtown Danville and ran across a car I didn't see at Blackhawk, this black and silver 1956 Corvette convertible.

Vacaville Street Sighting - 1979 Chevrolet Corvette L-82

Take a look at any list of the worst Corvettes or worst sports cars and you might see a late-model C3 generation 'Vette in there somewhere. Circa 1980 the C3 Corvette was a hopelessly old, increasingly plasticky sport coupe with no convertible option and low-performance variants to comply with California's draconian emissions standards. In 1980 it was not possible to buy a Corvette in California with a manual transmission, a 350 cubic inch engine, or a horsepower rating of 200 or more. A 305 making 180 hp and a three-speed auto was all you got. And an 85-mph speedometer. Dark days indeed, and yet the thing sold like hotcakes. The year this car was built, 1979, was Corvette's all-time best sales year. Maybe buyers saw what was coming.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1960 Chevrolet Corvette

Sometimes the greatest street sightings are the ones that fall into your lap. This beautiful 1960 Corvette showed up on my block one day and I didn't even know about it until I went outside to get ready to go somewhere. There it was, just down the street.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport

It's time to have a look at another car spotted near a car show, this time a modern classic: a 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport. I don't normally photograph C4 generation Corvettes in depth, but the Grand Sport special edition stands out from the rest. By 1996 the C4 body shell was getting very long in the tooth despite all the facelifting done over twelve years of production. Chevy chose to wind down the final model year of the C4 with this blue bullet, of which only 1000 copies were built. It came with the optional 330 hp LT4 V8 and a six-speed manual transmission.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray

I've always been a sucker for 1963-67 Corvettes, and yet I rarely photograph them. Why is that? Because they're something of a cliche. They're like first-generation Mustangs, 1955-57 Chevy Bel Airs, and such. At car shows, everybody has one. You might say I'm spoiled, living in California. It's the most populous state with the most vibrant car culture, and my local fairgrounds hosts car shows every four months with 3,000+ cars. Dozens of C2 Corvettes show up, and I walk right past most of them.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1964 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray

Here at California Streets we've taken a look at the histories of cars by examining X model's lineage and features and comparing them to the car I happened to find parked on the street. But often the story of that individual car is more interesting. The problem is, usually when I pass by, the car is just sitting there and I never meet the owner. That was not the case with this one.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1960 Chevrolet Corvette

Old Corvettes are pretty few and far between when it comes to finding street-parked examples. So I cheated. This gorgeous 1960 Corvette roadster was parked outside of a repair shop in San Francisco, and God she's beautiful. I should check that shop out more often, since they also had a 1966 Dodge Charger 426 Hemi parked across the street (as seen in the pictures) and a black 1936 Ford pickup truck. I have seen the Ford at car shows and I believe one of the employees owns it. The Charger and Corvette are most likely customers' cars. All will eventually be featured here. Interestingly, the shop is across the street from a motel which frequently has some manner of old car in the parking lot as well. I've seen a '49 Buick Roadmaster, '57 Thunderbird, '59 Chevy Apache and a '67 GTO in their lot, to name but a few.