Blue-Black and Venom: A 1979 Corvette at Cars and Coffee

Oct 21

2 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

At a relaxed Cars and Coffee morning, I stopped behind a 1979 Chevrolet Corvette I couldn't walk past. Here is my conversation with the owner.

Harry: Let’s start with your name.

Bob: Bob Bradshaw

Harry: Bob, tell us what we’re sitting behind here.

Bob: We’re here behind a 1979 Chevrolet Corvette. It was rebuilt in the early ’80s.

It's got the wide body and six taillights. The original wide-body look came from the racing era in the early ’70s, when Corvette Can-Am racing was going on.

Today it’s basically a Cars and Coffee show car. You just drive it and have a nice day. It’s not a competition day or anything like that. It’s just relaxing for a couple of hours. I actually painted the car myself. It’s called blue-black chameleon. At night, in low light, it looks black; in the sun, you’ll see blue, even purple.

Harry: You told me you painted the car in your garage and that you're not a sprayer by profession?

Bob: No, it actually took me a while to paint it. It was a lot of trial and error. I’m not a painter. I painted it in my garage. It took several months.

Harry: Good Lord. That alone is amazing.

Bob: A gentleman named Elf did the artwork by airbrush, freehand. You see his signature here. (Right front edge of hood.) He’s out of Lodi, California. The picture is of Venom. He’s a tattoo artist who also does airbrushing. As you can see, this is all freehand, with no stencils. It took him three days. When I originally painted the car, it needed something else. I thought about Batman, because everybody says, “Oh, look at the Batmobile.” But I wanted to change that up, so we went with Venom. Harry: Good idea.

Bob: The headlights are from a ’94 or ’95 Chevrolet truck. They fit in there. I even modified them to use projector headlights.

Harry: What’s the power unit?

Bob: It’s a Chevrolet 350, with a cam and aluminum heads. A basic Chevrolet engine. Well, not basic, but that's what was done to the paneling. What you have up front, I'd say, is Frankenstein-built. The rear is from the Can-Am era, Greenwood fenders, race fenders. We did the front nose ourselves. It was wrecked once, so we remolded it. It’s all fiberglass.

Harry: And do you drive it around, or just for shows?

Bob: We just do Cars and Coffee. This is actually its first year out.

Interviewer: So it hasn’t been shown for years and years. You’ve just finished it.

Bob: Correct. The paint job before this was two-tone purple on top, with yellow around the lower half. It also had red down the middle and black on the bottom. It’s been several colors.

Harry: It’s been through a few transitions.

Bob: Yes.

Harry: Well, this is magnificent, and I want to thank you for telling me about it. I look forward to putting it on the blog, and I can tell you it’ll get a lot of attention. Thanks, Bob. I appreciate you.

Bob: Thank you.