Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Don’t look up…

‘INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING over and over again and expecting different results.’ So goes the quote often misattributed to Albert Einstein. Well, if that quote is true, then I’m an insane idiot. Let me explain…

I once got a Land Rover County 110 with a metal Safari roof rack wedged under the concrete ceiling of an underground car park. We had to let most of the air out of the tyres to budge it.

On another occasion I managed to scratch the top of the roof tent on my kids’ Jeep Renegade Trailhawk. Not because the car park ceiling was too low, but because the vehicle was too high.

So I have history with car parks. Car park barriers too. My Wrangler 392’s front end is so high that I didn’t spot one such barrier recently. As I drove forward it got pushed up onto the top of the bonnet, and then proceeded to repeatedly karate chop it in indignation.

You may, therefore, think I’d have learned my lesson before rushing the C8 Corvette out of its underground lair in Geneva for its last drive before being shipped back to America. I’d promised to take my daughter to her exam mocks in it with the roof down, for good luck, so as I drove through the garage, I pressed the button to put the roof down.

It’s something I’d done before, no problems, the rear engine cover pivoting up, the roof balletically folding itself, then the cover lowering back down. But this time I managed to perfectly synchronise the high part of its arc with the lowest part of the concrete ceiling…

So the C8 is still in Switzerland. With part of its roof sticking up like a dainty little bit of unplanned aero. I need to get it fixed before shipping it back to the US, so maybe I’ll keep the Vette here for spring and summer. Bad luck or good fate? Time will tell.

Date acquired September 2021 Total mileage 2221 Mileage this month 3 Costs this month A lot mpg this month n/a