"My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Discussion of Corvette based Callaway Cars including: 1987-1991 RPO B2K Callaway Twin Turbo Corvettes (C4); Callaway SuperNatural Corvettes (CL-1/CR-1); Callaway C12; Supercharged Corvettes; Callaway C16; 6th Generation Callaway Corvettes (SC560, SC580, SC606, SC616, SC620, SC652); 7th Generation Callaway Corvettes (SC627/SC757); NEW Callaway C8 Corvettes - and more!
*89x2*
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"My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by *89x2* »

Realizing I've had my one Callaway Corvette for over 20 years, I thought it would be interesting to hear your Callaway Story.

Let's hear how you found your Callaway...

Let's hear how life has been in the course of ownership, or about your experiences with the company.

Would love to hear your Callaway Story, as would others, I am sure :hi
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by kingforward »

Ok, I’ll bite.
I owned a 1985 Corvette coupe which always visited the local dealer service department. One day while waiting around I stumbled upon a new black/tan 1987 CTTC coupe sitting outside under a canopy at this Miami Chevy dealer lot.
Six months later I’m back at the dealer and the same CTTC is still undercover and unsold and covered in dust. It was a mess and my first “introduction” to a Callaway Corvette.

In October 1988 I put a deposit with a MI dealer and with Callaway for their first conversion of the ZR1 (#001) which weren’t even being delivered by GM to customers until the 1990 model year.
In 1992, I took delivery of my custom candy apple red “CR1” and still have it today. Car was wicked fast in its day with 475 hp. which was more than a Ferrari’s Testarossa. It’s still bad ass.

There’s more...
Between the 1988 deposit and 1992 delivery, I sent my 1991 convertible to Callaway and had them install a CTTC. It may be the last customer ordered CTTC since it’s not an “RPO B2K”. Reeves hand wrote the order in December 1991 for this “500 Series” car. Kinda cool.
Still have this car too.
Cheers COG brothers!
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kingforward
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by kingforward »

And fast forward ~34 years and I’m driving one of my Callaway Corvettes at Sebring Raceway earlier this month. Crazy to think this Callaway Cars stuff started in my late 20s and I’m still playing around with them into my early 60s. Let’s keep rolling!
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by kingforward »

CC 89X2, you started this topic so lets hear your top 3 “experiences” like below...
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Road trip stories? Running from the law? Come’on man!
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by Jeroenvgfn »

I started with The A-Team and its famous white Vette with red striping.

When buying all magazines covering Corvette on holiday in germany I stumbled upon a magazine featuring the Sledgehammer and immediately fell in love with the aerobody design.
And still am today.

I owned an 1986 Coupe z51 from 1999 till 2001 and in the meantime I bought everything Callaway Turbosystems I could lay hands on and started building my first Callaway Volkswagen Turbo.
Now I own 2 and enjoy them a lot.

Several stages in life like having kids and building my own house are keeping me from buying a Callaway aerobodied Corvette but lucky as I am a good Corvette Friend of mine in the Netherlands bought a 1991 so I can experience the car and enjoy the beauty of the aerobody in person.

I have a weak spot for C1 projects and love finding all sort of stuff digitally and on ebay
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by Arctic91 »

Here's my story:

Back in 2016, I was being re-assigned from Maryland to Naples, Italy, and owned a pair of C4 ZR-1s at the time. I truly loved the ZR-1s but had been contacted by another ZR-1 owner in Switzerland about selling one to a buyer out of Germany. We had negotiated a price and all of the transfer details to the point that I considered the sale to be a done deal and was just waiting for the wire transfer of the initial deposit. While waiting, I happened to see a beautiful black/black, modified B2K Aerodody coupe for sale and began talking to the seller about purchasing in as a replacement for the "sold" ZR-1. The Callaway Aerobody had always been high on my want list and I loved the idea of owning both of the "premiere" cars of the C4 generation. Within a couple of days I had convinced myself that I MUST have that B2K and made the purchase. Eventually, the German buyer of the ZR-1 backed out of the purchase, so I found myself storing three cars instead of two as I headed off to Italy for a couple of years.

Returning to the states in 2018, I took a trip to Virginia to purchase a house for us to move into. Since we knew what school district we wanted to live in, it only took me a couple of days to view what was on the market and get a house under contract. I found myself with about a week of free time until I needed to return to Italy to finish work, and I happened to see a'92 Supernatural convertible listed on ebay. I knew that I'd need a car immediately after we arrived, and not knowing if there would be any issues bringing the three cars that I had out of storage, I decided that I should do something worthwhile with my time and buy this one, too. After a short conversation with the owner about history and condition of the car, I bought it sight unseen, flew to Los Angeles, met the owner and immediately drove the car cross-country back to Virginia. Seems very risky now, but the only issues that I had on that drive was some debris in the radiator that caused it to run hot in traffic (until I figured that out and cleaned it) and the failed Bose amps that prevented me from using the radio. That was my first experience with a Supernatural, and I've loved having that as a daily driver ever since.

Finally, as I was being re-assigned from Virginia to Washington in 2019, I found another Supernatural (this one was a '95 Aerobody coupe) for sale. Since it was a black/black car that matched my B2K, I couldn't pass it up and had the car sent here ahead of my arrival. I've only owned that for about a year and a half, but have really enjoyed that the most. Looking forward to getting all of the cars together in Maryland next month when we move back, and finally getting the B2K back out of storage and on the road again soon. These cars, along with the ZR-1 that I still own, were the cars that I dreamed of as a teen and feel incredibly lucky to drive them each time I get behind the wheel. I've often considered getting a C12 or a C16 (and may still do that someday), but I'm not sure that they would bring me more enjoyment than I get from these special C4-based cars.

Pictures are: '95 Supernatural in WA, '92 Supernatural convertible in WA, and original three cars (2 ZR-1s and the B2K) in MD right before they went into storage together. White ZR-1 is now sold, unfortunately.

:beer
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89 CTTC #027 (Black/Black Aerobody Coupe)
90 ZR-1 #2547 (Turquoise Metallic/Black)
92 SNAT 400 (Polo Green/Beige Convertible)
95 SNAT 450 (Black/Black Aerobody Coupe)
91 ZR-1 #1231 (Arctic White/Saddle) - SOLD
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by *89x2* »

Here's what I thought was a funny story from my FIRST experience with driving a Callaway Corvette:

In 1999, I had been looking at new motorcycles. I wanted the new CBR1100xx in gray, which was for 2000. Nobody had it... Looked at Aprila and some others, but nothing jumped out. On the way home, my wife reminded me of the red Corvette up on the hill which I thought was gorgeous. It was a red 1989 AeroBody Convertible.

We stopped and knocked on the door. Fella answered and we got to talking about the car. It was not his first Callaway, and he was a bit of a horse trader, it seemed. Anyways, he asked if I wanted to drive it, which I politely declined.

Driving home, my wife said she would NEVER hear the end of it if we didn't go back... So we did... My Mom watched the baby and wife and I went back to talk to the guy...

The car had around 10k mi and was a 6 speed. It was Red / Red/ white top. #69 for 1989

We drove around the block and the car was wonderful... Getting back to the guy's house, he flipped me the keys and told me to be back in an hour.. Okay...

So much fun!!!!

Next day, I called Old Lyme. A guy named "Reeves" answered, and there was a lot of noise in the background... He said he knew the car. When I asked what he thought of it, he said something to the effect of, "Whoever ordered the car had no taste". "Very ugly car in those colors".

Needless to say, I could not buy any Callaway where the man himself, would not own it. I mean, it looked like a giant rolling valentine. Pass.

So that's how I came to drive my first Callaway, and my first talk with Reeves on the phone. :beer
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by kingforward »

Great stuff guys! Well done. Keep it coming.
Big John, Surf, Dakota, Jonster, Magic D, Callaway4Fun, Critt99,others, jump in and divulge!
My kiddo below, a “next gen” Callaway enthusiast, got her driver's permit last week…
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by BIGJOHN »

kingforward wrote: Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:33 pm Great stuff guys! Well done. Keep it coming.
Big John, Surf, Dakota, Jonster, Magic D, Callaway4Fun, Critt99,others, jump in and divulge!
My kiddo below, a “next gen” Callaway enthusiast, got her driver's permit last week…
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You did teach her how to drive a manual transmission?
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by BIGJOHN »

kingforward wrote: Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:33 pm Great stuff guys! Well done. Keep it coming.
Big John, Surf, Dakota, Jonster, Magic D, Callaway4Fun, Critt99,others, jump in and divulge!
My kiddo below, a “next gen” Callaway enthusiast, got her driver's permit last week…
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You did teach her how to drive a manual transmission?
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by jonstr »

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.
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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:
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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.
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Later,
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by BIGJOHN »

If I tell ya Mr Callaway may not be happy!
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by Dakota Aero »

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. :thumbs

DAKOTA AERO

B2K 90-024

Special thanks to JK, creator of 90-024!
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by SurfnSun »

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.
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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 :jsmile
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by *89x2* »

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!!! :beer
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by *89x2* »

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 :beer

DakotaAero, you are a great friend. I sense a pattern of how the cars have brought people together.
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by CalJim »

Chris-I agree!

DakotaAero, you are a great friend. I sense a pattern of how the cars have brought people together.
:beer
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by kingforward »

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

God Bless America! :bday
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by *89x2* »

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 :hi
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Re: "My life with a Callaway..." Let's hear your ownership and vehicle experiences...

Post by BIGJOHN »

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