CallawayOwnersGroup.com

Ok, I’ll bite. Here’s my Callaway story.

I’ve been a nearly life-long Corvette guy – we have had one in the family since I was 5 and I bought my first (a 1963 Convertible) when I was 18 – but I had very little exposure to Callaways until the late 1990s/early 2000s. By then I had owned several Corvettes (all of which are gone now) gravitating toward higher performance and lower production cars and was looking for something different.

I started looking into Callaways and stumbled on this forum, which I found to be a great source of learning about these unique cars, and I got totally hooked on the styling of the Aerobody. As I learned more about Callaways, I discovered the Speedsters. If I recall correctly, one of my first post on this forum was something along the lines of ‘Where are the Speedsters now?’.

Being a fan of high-performance, low production Corvettes, I set my sights on a 1991 Aerobody car, preferably a Series 500 car. On a family trip to the Santa Monica area, I went up to Corvette Mike’s in Tustin to look at a maroon ’91 Aerobody Series 500 Convertible. It was a beautiful car, except it had those awful C5 wagon wheels on it, so I held off to do some research around finding a set of Dymags. Although I wasn’t having much luck, I decided to pull the trigger on the ’91 anyway, but when I called back I found out it had been sold.

I made an offhand comment to the sales guy that I’d really like to find a Speedster, and to my surprise he said ‘let me call you back, I might know of one’. It worked out, and that is how I came to own Speedster 007 – that also happened to be a Series 500 car.
That car was a blast, but about as far from practical as you can get on 4 wheels, so I almost immediately renewed my search for a ’91 Aerobody car. I found a yellow car with low miles on it at an auction in Oklahoma City, and flew up to look at and hopefully bid – and I got to meet BoostedmaxPSI from the forum, who came to the auction also. Unfortunately, while the car looked awesome, this ended in failure as well because the auction attendee wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see or hear me trying to make a bid when the car sold. Missed again, but I talked to the buyer and told him that if he changed his mind to contact me.

About 3-4 months later, he did. I got an email from an address/name I didn’t recognize, that just said ‘Are you still interested in that car?’. It took me a couple of days to figure out what car it was about (with a little help from CC), so we worked out a price and I bought this one:
That’s basically my story of how I got in to Callaway Corvettes. Both of those cars have, unfortunately, moved on, and the 2012 B2K replaced them. I’ve had this one since new, and it still makes me smile every time I drive it.

If I tell ya Mr Callaway may not be happy!

Fellow Callawayans,

After growing up in California and seeing a beautiful black split window 63, I have hunted the perfect Vette. I re-engaged my search and found cars from Callaway! Unbelievable cars, fast cars, unusual striking Vettes. So now I am searching for Callaways and on the forum saw a candy apple red B2K as COM. Stunning car!

A short while later it was for sale, got acquainted with the owner, bought the car and it was on the truck headed here.

My wife called and said you'd better come home, this car is gorgeous! The next day I backed it out and my Dad said, what is that?

Needless to say, but I will, I became tied to John K, Chris C, Luigi, Surf, Reeves, Syd H (rest his soul), Lenny, Pete, Mike, Gil, just great guys who helped me get going.

It feels great at shows when people say, oh, thats one of those Callaways! It feels even better spooling it up and shocking everynody, I never get tired of that feeling.

DAKOTA AERO

B2K 90-024

Special thanks to JK, creator of 90-024!

For me I remember seeing a topside picture of a b2k in my school library where magazines were kept. The polished intercoolers were awesome.

Fast forward a few years, I managed to trade a late 80s Honda Accord straight across for a 1975 Stingray. It needed a little bit of work so we tinkered with it and I kept it for about 2 years and sold it to buy my first C4...an 84 with the Z51 package(and an auto trans).

After having my 84 for a year, I yearned for a TPI and manual transmission. I traded it for an 85 with a 4+3. I kept that car for 10 years and put 100k miles on it. It was a great car.

In 2001, I had a job traveling the country by car. My travels lead me across Indiana where I got the opportunity to test drive a 88 Med Gray B2k. I was hooked. That fall 9/11 happened and I lost my job.

In Jan 02, I moved to Ocala FL, I sheared the timing chain gear in my 85 and messed up the top end of the engine. I got it fixed it, and sold it. The hunt for a b2k was on....

After looking for months and months, I found an 88 B2k with Z51 and a big Wonderbar in NY state. I called to put a deposit on it only to find out it had already been reserved. Little did we know at that time that "Ralph" from Georgia was calling and committing to buying cars without ever following through. The dealership had a contract with no deposit and no expiration date.

I week or so went by and I was calling every other day..Finally when they realized the deal was a fake, they sold me the car.
I flew to NY and drove it back to FL. Along the way, I stopped in VA and met 89x2 and his wife. We went to dinner, a cruise in, and they invited me to stay the night to save me the hotel cost. A 20 year friendship was born... Being a Callaway owner has lead me to meet many new people and chat cars over the internet with people Ive never met in person, just a great experience.

A few years later I sold the b2k after getting it almost completely sorted...expensive lessons along the way.

Now I am the current keeper the 2010 GS demo car. It was the test bed for the 2012 b2k and is a VERY cool piece. My heart is still in an Aerobody b2k so who knows what the future holds

SurfnSun wrote: ↑Fri Jul 02, 2021 2:20 pm For me I remember seeing a topside picture of a b2k in my school library where magazines were kept. The polished intercoolers were awesome.

I flew to NY and drove it back to FL. Along the way, I stopped in VA and met 89x2 and his wife. We went to dinner, a cruise in, and they invited me to stay the night to save me the hotel cost. A 20 year friendship was born... Being a Callaway owner has lead me to meet many new people and chat cars over the internet with people Ive never met in person, just a great experience.

Made my Day!!! Thanks!!!

Jonstr,
You were too kind when we met, letting me drive your Speedster. We've had some fun times over the years, and glad you got the new B2K in 2012

DakotaAero, you are a great friend. I sense a pattern of how the cars have brought people together.

Chris-I agree!

DakotaAero, you are a great friend. I sense a pattern of how the cars have brought people together.

Ditto that! Some of my closest friends today are a result of this COG forum being born ~20 years ago.

God Bless America!

Another story from the early days of ownership...

After the Callaway Owners Group foundation and our first reunion in 2002, I was on the hunt for a Callaway I could drive. I found the 1993 SuperNatural 425 Convertible from Corvette Quarterly and flew to Texas to buy it, driving it home. What a fun trip.

Two Callaway's however, quickly became three... In 2005, I added another, which also was my 4th Corvette at that time. The garage was full.

One thing I found, these cars are so much fun, and one wasn't enough! Who else can relate to this, and what's your story

Chris if you need help driving your twin turbo car I volunteer.

Master John you are a day one brother too , what's your story on your special collection

My cars are one of a kind and they took much longer to build than most other Callaway cars!
The Secret is they took years to build, but I’m not gonna say how many.

Who else has Callaway stories?

I'm in my first year of Callaway ownership with my 2007 Callaway Corvette Convertible. I found it on Corvetteforum while searching around for a C7 Z06 as a new vacation car to replace my C5 coupe. I had no interest in C6's but for a 20,000 mile Callaway I could make an exception. So my wife an I last second flew to Palm Beach, Florida to buy the car and drive it home. In the end I've driven a number of C7's since buying this car and am happy with my C6 now. I am 6'1" 280 pounds of mostly muscle with adequate beer belly (I'm a carpenter of 25 years) and I find that the C7 is a bit cramped for me. The C6 is smaller than my C5 but roomy and comfortable.

Last week we went to Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Cody, WY, the Big Horn Mountains, then to the Black Hills Corvette Classic. The Callaway has been a wonderful car to travel in. Autocross performance was great in the car, drag racing it runs right with the C7 Z06's that my buddies were running. For an older car the performance is shocking. And the tremendously loud whine of the maggie got LOTS of comments at the drag racing event. At the Vette Street downtown car show event I had the hood open and the polished maggie all shined up and the car had groups of people around it the entire night. I was a bit surprised at the amount of attention that it got. In a field of C8's and all sorts of C7's the C6 Callaway is unique enough that people take notice. We did 3,200 miles round trip in nine days and did all of them but 110 miles with the top down. It was kind of fun.

-Justin

Good stuff Rudevette.
Nice to read you are putting “quality mileage” on that bad boy!

There are some interesting stories on this thread, captivating stuff.

My love of Corvettes goes way back to when I was a young child. Growing up and then into adulthood, I told myself a Corvette would be my reward for finishing graduate school. The search goes back 10 years to when I saw the Carbon Edition Z06 revealed in Inferno Orange Metallic.

Seeing the Carbon Z06 for the first time & I knew that was the Corvette I really wanted. The right situation didn’t present itself over the years (either couldn’t find any for sale, or they were out of my budget). For my 40th b-day my wife bought me a 2012 Inferno Orange Metallic Grand Sport. It checked most of the boxes, but still wasn’t the IOM Carbon Z06, so I kept searching sporadically.

Then one day in March 2020 while on a family vacation in Hawaii I was scrolling Facebook of all things one morning and a notification popped up saying something to the effect of “here’s a car you might be interested in” and it was an Inferno Orange Carbon Edition Z06. Gotta love how our devices track our every move.

When I looked at the pictures I noticed it had a different hood and some Callaway emblems on the car. I remembered Callaway from the big poster of the Callaway Sledgehammer Corvette I had on my wall as a child. But I had no idea Callaway was still making badass Corvettes. So I immediately contacted the dealership who was advertising the car to find out if it was still available, and then I contacted Callaway to confirm it’s authenticity. Upon confirmation from Callaway I got back in touch with the dealer and negotiated the purchase of the Callaway Carbon along with the trade-in of my Grand Sport from the balcony of our hotel in Hawaii. They emailed me the paperwork, completed the transaction and picked the Callaway up the day we returned from vacation.

I’ve made some additions/modifications to the car so far (upgrading the interior, stereo, front & rear cameras, and some other items), and have my young kids help me with all the work. In the almost two years I’ve had the car I’ve put approx 3k mi on it, but enjoy driving it when I do. I receive offers probably at least once a month from people who want to purchase the vehicle, some at more than double what I paid, but I don’t have any plans to sell. This very special vehicle will be handed down to my children when the time comes.

JABCAT