CAR-LOVERS will be coming from far and wide to attend the annual Oakville Fire Brigade Family Fun Day and Car Show.
Ray Church will be driving over from Seaforth in his restored 1957 Corvette, for his first ever car show with his beloved red automobile.
He said he was looking forward to the show, which was sure to be a relaxed day out without the formalities of high-end shows.
“It’s going to be nice and casual, and for a good cause. The car seats two people so I’ll probably be bringing along my eldest daughter, who is 21,” Mr Church told the Gazette.
When Mr Church was 12 years old, he saw the movie Corvette Summer and decided that one day he’d own a Corvette.
“Many years later, when we lived in San Francisco, I used to take my daughter for a walk in the stroller every afternoon and we met a group of classic car enthusiasts who met each Tuesday night at the local Chinese restaurant,” he said.
“They had all kinds of American classics and hot rods. One of them had a gold 1957 Corvette that looked amazing. My daughter declared the car was ‘really pretty’ and it was her favourite.”
After Mr Church moved to Sydney, his car club mates helped him locate a 1957 Corvette in the Los Angeles area, and he purchased it in 2014. It had only one previous owner and the only modifications the owner had made were changing the interior vinyl to black and installing a 1961 engine.
Mr Church had the car tuned and registered at Tex's Automotive in Brookvale, then fully-restored by Norman and Carolynne Baxter at Nepean Classics in Penrith.
“Norman and his team took it back to fibreglass, carefully corrected every tiny crack or dent in the chrome-work, removed the engine and rebuilt the car as new,” Mr Church said.
“The car went back and forth between Norman and Tex a couple of times, so that Tex could install a few upgrades while the car was being rebuilt.
“I wanted the car to be drivable, so have radial tyres, front disk breaks, power assist steering and electronic fuel injection fitted to the car. We used ‘kits’ from the US for all of these upgrades, and that allowed them to be removed and the original parts re-installed without hassle, if ever I wanted to sell it as original and ‘matching numbers’.”
Mr Church located a matching numbers engine block and heads from San Diego, which he keeps in his garage for that very purpose - so the car can be truly returned to matching numbers spec.
“Matching cylinder heads were by far the hardest to find - and the most expensive - because for some strange reason, GM made these heads for just one year, and for just one car - the 1957 V8 Corvette - making them very rare and expensive,” he said.
Mr Church uses the car for weekend drives, and when he feels like “stepping back in time”.
“These cars were truly made (rather than assembled) in an era when the drive with company (rather than arriving at a destination) was the whole point of getting behind the wheel,” he said.
“We enjoy the car most when taking a day out along the Ocean Road to Wollongong or a weekend in the Blue Mountains. Cold days - when Sydney shows off with sunny skies and cool weather - are fantastic… we take the top down, put the heater on our feet, my wife wears a scarf, we turn up the radio and get out of town where these old cars do what they do best... cruise.”
The Oakville Fire Brigade Family Fun Day and Car Show will take place on Sunday, April 23, at Pitt Town and District Sports Club located at 139 Old Pitt Town Road, Pitt Town.
The event has all the fun of a fair, with rides for the youngsters and the young-at-heart, plus vehicles - cars, bikes and machinery - from all different eras.
There will be car judging, double-decker bus rides and trike rides for the kids, show bags and stalls, games, a raffle and an auction. All funds will go towards the upkeep of the Oakville RFS, which has been operated by volunteers for 71 years.
Gates will open at 8am, the car show and rides will begin at 10am, with presentations at 1.30pm and the auction at 2.30pm. For further information, call Ian Irons on 0407 774 348.
