What s Happening. COB Club Meeting Feb 9 th, 2013 Don t forg et about the Pizza Party at this meeting

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1 VETTE NEWS Volume 32, Issue 2 President s Corner Hi everyone, I would like to thank all that were present for my first meeting as President of Corvettes of Buffalo. By the time you are reading this letter most of you would have seen pictures of the 7 th generation corvette. About a dozen of us are going to make the trip to Detroit to possibly touch and feel the new STINGRAY as they are calling it. Along with stopping off at the Lingenfelter collection for a private tour thanks to Ken Kaczka., we are also scheduled to see the Henry Ford Museum, have some good eats and go on the People mover so we could see all of Detroit. All thanks to Bob Parrish. Also looking forward to getting in some side tours that have been set up by Ken Kaczkas We have a full house for our Winter Sleigh ride at Kelkenberg Farms. Frank & I will be cooking hot dogs and hamburgers under the moon light! The pizza party should be a tasty hit. Please make sure you sign-up with Skip or Maureen Polowy, Surprises are only good on birthdays and holidays. We are still looking for four (4) charities to donate $ each too. The charity should be local if possible and have a low overhead so that most of the money goes to the needy! Please submit your favorite charity in writing to a Board Member or officer no later than the February meeting. And in Closing I want to wish everyone to: HAVE A GREAT VALENTINES DAY Drive Safe Mike Buccilli February What s Happening COB Club Meeting Feb 9 th, 2013 Don t forg et about the Pizza Party at this meeting Winter Sleigh Ride Kelkenberg Farms, Akron, N.Y. Feb. 2 nd 7:30pm - 11:00pm S now Buster Auto S wap Meet Hamburg Fairgrounds Feb 3th 9 am to 3pm Salvatore s Dinner Dance March 16 th 5:30 pm S ig n up at Feb. meeting Cavalcade of Cars Show Hamburg Fairgrounds March 1 st rd Buffalo Motorama Buffalo Convention Center March 22 nd th OFFICAL PUBLICATION OF CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 1

2 Officers President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Mike Buccilli Lowell Rothenberger Skip Polowy Larry Ienco Board of Directors Sue Brownlee Frank Pastore Jim Brett Mike Erdey Mel Skeide Dan Wroblewski Rich Zahner Committees Membership Newsletter Phone Comm. Sunshine Comm. Webmaster Activities Dir. Club Photographer Or Barbra Lipome Richard Kirkland Sue Brownlee Karen Rothenberger Diane Skeide Jim Bonus Patti Parrish or Dan Krakowski Birthday s 2 nd John Biggie 6 th Marilyn Wolfe 7 th Carole Rotando 9 th Paul Brozyna 19 th Pat Mangan 19 th Ray Zelinski 20 th Skip Polowy 22 nd Debbie Schafer 24 th Maureen Polowy Anniversaries 21 st Rose & Peter Ricigliano Note Patti Parrish will now be the new Activities Dir. Congratulations Home Cell Patti Meeting every second Saturday of the month at First Presbyterian Church 9675 Main St. Clarence, NY Meeting starts 7:00 p.m. Corvettes of Buffalo is open to all Corvette owners and enthusiasts over the age of 21 Visit us at Send Articles To: Rich Kirkland, Loretta Drive Niagara Falls, New York mailto:razzor888@roadrunner.com Submissions must be in by 24 th CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 2

3 February Pizza and Wings Party After our February 9 th monthly meeting at the Clarence Presbyterian Church, the club will be sponsoring our annual Pizza & Wings Party. This year the pizza & wings party will be paid by the club. Skip and Maureen Polowy are Co-chairing the event again this year and we need to get a headcount to order enough pizza & wings. If you did not put your name on the sign up list at the January meeting, please contact Skip or Maureen to let us know if you can join the party. You can contact Skip by e mail, Skip98c5@msn.com or call Maureen at We hope to see you at the FREE - Pizza party! Swearing in the 2013 Corvettes of Buffalo Officers CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 3

4 For Sale 1980 White Corvette Coupe, 350, auto, Burgundy interior, new tires, mirrored T-tops, Ps, Pb, AC, only 33,000 miles, excellent condition Call Mark COB South news in January Mel and Diane Skeide met John Meyerhoff and Mary Carol at Kissimmee to take in the NCRS SE Regional on Jan 25 and 26 as well as the Classic Corvettes of Orlando show on Sunday, Jan 27. We all had a great time cruising the NCRS show and its record number of vendors! On Sun, Mary Carol's beautiful 67 Tri-Power 427 Coupe took 2nd place in a very competitive field of Mid-year Corvettes! Mel and Diane joined right in with the 15 other Corvette people from Highlands County which is where Sebring and Lake Placid are! After the show, Mel and Diane followed John and Mary Carol to Lake Placid and spent three days with John and MC. John treated them to his special Western Omelette and toured the Sebring Race track, the Lake Placid Murals, the original Conference Center established by Melvin Dewey of Lake Placid, NY. Dewey was the originator of the Dewey Decimal system and his influence in Lake Placid, FL which was formerly known as Stearns, Fl caused the name change to Lake Placid and the two largest lakes in the area to be renamed Lake June in the Winter and Lake Placid. On Wed., we travelled down to Punta Gorda, Fl where we met Reas and Nancy Graber at Fisherman's Village for lunch at Harpoon Harrys on the water at Charlotte Harbor. John Mey erhoff CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 4

5 COB Annual Dinner Dance Reminder!! This is just one of those nagging, annoying reminders to sign-up for the Best darn time of your life at the Corvettes of Buffalo (Gala) Annual Dinner Dance at Salvatore s Italian Gardens on March 16, 2013 from 5:30 to 11:00 pm (take a nap!) We ll be eating and drinking and dancing the night away. So, look for the sign-up sheet or call/ Mike & Cindy Erdey or Jim & Nicolet Brett and get your name on the list. You ll be Oh so glad you did!! The COB Dinner Dance Committee CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 5

6 NCCC Corner In just about a week my computer will be fired up and ready to register for the convention in Bowling Green. Information about convention seems to be slower than in past years but finally there are some threads to pass onto you. The convention schedule on the NCCC website was updated to include where the bus tours were actually going, what the themes are for the evening parties and that there will be drags, high and low speed autocross events. Due to the closing of some racing facilities in the area, it looked as if they were going to have to eliminate the high speed event. According to the schedule all systems are up and running. There was no mention of the valve cover racing or table top decorating competition but after all we have five months until the event. Since the dates and times are on the NCCC website I will not include them in this article, however it looks as if the prices for the tours are more costly when compared to past tours. We can discuss this when we have the trip planning meetings. According to the NCCC website our membership cards were sent out and every one should receive theirs within a week. I got mine in the mail two days ago, so if you do not receive yours by the time the newsletter is published give me a call and I will find out what happened. A little off the subject of NCCC. If you did not watch TV on the either the Speed or Velocity Channels over the past two weeks you missed a lot of premier automobiles. About 70 hours of auctions between Barrett Jackson and Mechum. Mechum had over 3000 cars go under the hammer, 400 of which were Corvettes. Barrett Jackson had close to 1800 and once again there was not a shortage Corvettes. The next is a Barrett Jackson auction on April 4-6 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The auction is broadcast live on the speed Channel but there are several COB members that are going down to thaw out. We will be meeting up with some of our Florida COB transplants, so if you are thinking of going south about that time, give me a call. Remember, you can t have too many Corvettes! Jim Brett NCCC Governor If you are planning to go to Bowling Green you should register as soon as you can. Registration starts on Friday Febuary 1 st at 12:01. Early registration will get you into the main hotel. You do not have to sign up for everything and you can cancel later if you have to. CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 6

7 Corvettes of Buffalo Trip to Detroit On Thursday January 24 th we departed from Buffalo on our journey to visit Detroit Michigan with our primary objective to see the new C7 Corvette close up and personal. The weather wasn t the greatest with lake effect in the north town areas but once we were in Canada it was clear cruising. In the lead was our Caravan Captain Bob Parrish and he was riding with Harry Kwiek, while Mike and Lee Buccilli followed with Rocco Buccilli and Rich Kirkland in their back seat. Ken Kaczka and his son Chris were next, followed by Pete and Rose Ricigliano. Maureen and I were in the last vehicle as we crossed into Canada. Upon arrival into the Detroit area, Ken Kaczka invited us to stop and tour a Corvette restoration shop named Master Works owned and operated by Werner Meier in Madison Heights. Werner is a retired long term GM Engineer that knows all the Corvette engineers and designers personally. Pete and Rose joined Ken and Chris for the tour and said it was well worth the minor detour before going to the hotel. Werner Meier has about 40 corvettes currently in various stages restoration for customers. His specialty is C1 and C2 but they do work on all corvettes too. We arrived at our Hotel in Farmington Hills, Michigan with plenty of time to unpack before a ride to downtown Detroit for Dinner in Greektown at Fishbone s Restaurant. We were greeted by Bob Parrish s brother and his wife that joined us for dinner while acting as tour guides explaining all about the Detroit area. The food and conversation was great then we visited one of three Casino s in the downtown area. But no big winners or losers on this trip! Back at the hotel we met up with Ken Kaczka and Werner Meier who shared several stories about corvettes he owns and has restored over many years as an enthusiast. Ken shared with us that Werner Meier was elected to the National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame and will be honored later this year at the Hall. He has several classic restored corvettes on display across the country and invited us the see some at the Ken Lingenfelter Collection on Friday morning. Friday morning we toured the Ken Lingenfelter collection of approximately 140 cars. It was unbelievable! Not only a room full of beautiful corvettes but he showed us several exotic cars such as his Bugatti Veyron, Lamborghini Revention, Bentley s, Ferrari Enzo, Maserati, Alpha Romeo, Porsche s, and many other rare cars. Werner Meier had at least four corvettes included in the Lingenfelter collection and they were all gorgeous! Another full room had his muscle car collection with just too many cool cars to describe. Then we went to the Cobo Hall to see the new C7 Corvette. The pictures really do not show all the styling and beauty that the Seventh Generation Corvette offers. This generation of Stingray really looks like it will capture the hearts and passion of all current Corvette lovers and for future owners. With an estimated 450 HP and 450 lb.-ft. of torque from the standard C7, I can only imagine what it will feel like to drive the new Corvette. Aside from the new C7 Corvettes on display, it was a big International Auto Show with beautiful cars, trucks and plenty of eye candy to go around. I enjoy looking at the concept cars of the future and asking questions to the Sales Reps. that seem to know it all. Saturday morning we toured the Henry Ford Museum and the Ford F-150 Assembly Plant in Dearborn. It was a full day of walking and looking at cool stuff from the past and present. While we toured the Henry Ford Museum, Ken Kaczka and his son Chris went to visit the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. Ken told us it is a cool Historic Campus of collectable cars and memorabilia. Unfortunately only a portion of the collection was open during the winter season. This could be a future destination to visit for club members. We all had a great long weekend trip and enjoyed a break from being a couch potato with winter cabin fever. It s only 8 more weeks until spring, but who s counting.. CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 7 Skip Polowy

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9 72 Corvette Restoration In last month s article Steve ( the painter ) finished putting the paint on my Vette, just before the Christmas Holiday. We let the paint dry and harden for a week before we wet sanded all the orange peel and imperfections out of the paint with 1000 grit paper. Steve then buffed the car with rubbing compound that brought out the finish to a high glass finish. He finished the job with a hand glaze that eliminated all the pad swirls marks, and brought out the real shine and beauty of the Electron Blue paint. With the paint on the car I will start to put the door trim, glass, handles, lights, and the license plates and get it ready to go it home. The question was how do I get it home in early January? The choices were to have it flat bed or drive it home. As it turned out the weather and roads were perfect for driving my Vette home. Tom Breen dropped me off at the shop and followed me home so if there was a problem I had a back up. You don't see many Corvettes on the road this time of the year so it was fun driving in 60 degree weather, and it got a lot of attention with the new paint job. The next set of pictures were taken when I got the car home. Now the fun part is putting all the parts on for the last time and seeing progress. It takes a lot of time and care to make sure that the paint doesn't get chipped when you are installing the bumpers are or gluing the weather stripping. At this time the front end is finished and most of the weather stripping is on most of the car. Pete Ricigliano CORVETTES of BUFFALO pg 9

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