My Corvette Story

My interest in Corvettes developed out of my love for dirt bikes, as a kid growing up in suburban Johnstown. After much begging, my parents bought me a motorcycle at age 11 (what were they thinking ! ).

Eventually, my Dad bought a street bike and, at 16, I obtained a motorcycle license, just after I received my PA driver's license. After a few years of street riding, my Dad convinced me that we should sell the bikes and pursue a "safer" motoring hobby. The hunt for a sports car was on.

At first, we focused on British cars (Triumph, MG) then Italian (Alfa Romeo) and ultimately decided on a 1975 Corvette convertible. The car was not only beautiful, but also, if you needed parts, there's a Chevy dealer in every town. At 19, with a Corvette Stingray in the house, motorcycles were a distant memory !

Historically, the mid-1970's Corvettes were not very desirable as collector cars. Primarily because government safety, emissions and fuel economy standards dramatically reduced the horsepower ratings compared with the muscle-car era Corvettes. Still, the '75 was my preoccupation during summer breaks and, eventually, I learned every nut and bolt on the car. As a business-minded student at Villanova, I concluded there was an under-served market of mid-'70's Corvette owners.

So, I decided that I would write the first non-General Motors reference book dedicated to these forgotten models. Now, 25 years later, the '75 roadster that gave me the Corvette bug calls my garage "home" and shares a bunk with my 2008 Velocity Yellow, 6-speed coupe (pictured at the Conemaugh Gorge in the header of this web page).

My first "book" was actually a spiral-bound manual titled, The Original 1974-1976 Corvette Fact Manual. It was self-published in 1989 during my senior year at Villanova. I researched and wrote the manual and paid a copy center to have it "desktop published" with a laser printer (what we now do on a daily basis with MS Word !) The first 50 copies of the Fact Manual were printed at the Sir Speedy print shop in Ardmore, PA. My sole proprietorship, Just the Facts Publishing, was born.

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Source: Peter J. Licastro

Posted 9/27/19