I finally pulled the trigger on upgrading my sports car for some 2026 summer fun. It’s funny how car deals sometimes come together – this one was especially fast & favorable!

A friend and I were at the PGA Golf Super Store looking at golf clubs a couple nights ago. He noticed that I had driven my BMW Z4 over to the store and then mentioned that his neighbor was getting a new Corvette this week – trading in an older one. I’ve had only looked at Corvettes on line, but he said he would ask his neighbor if I could have a look at it before it was gone.

The next day, he sent me some pictures he took of his neighbor’s car – a candy-apple red, 2024 Corvette Stingray 2LT coupe. It was almost exactly what I would have put together – options, upgrades, and color. Less than 10K miles and kept in meticulous shape. The neighbor would let me see it, but the catch that it was being traded in at 10am the next morning on another Corvette he had special ordered.

It turns out that the owner of the car and I had a lot in common. We live in the same town, go to the same church, and both worked at the same MegaCorp. We didn’t overlap – as he said his first day there was in 1961! His Dad and son even worked at MegaCorp.

He’s a car guy through-and-through. His job was handling the automotive application of vinyl films in Detroit. That spans everything from the wood-grain panels on your parent’s Ford Country Squire, to the flaming firebird on Burt Reynold’s Trans Am, and the graphics on the current run of Indy 500 Corvette Pace Cars. He even helped start our local Corvette Owner’s Association 40+ years ago.

He called his dealer 15 minutes after I told him I was interested and they arranged a deal where they bought the car from him and then sold it immediately to me. I got the trade-in price plus $500 to the dealer to handle the paperwork & administrivia.

He was buying his 6th (!) Corvette and trading it into them helped offset the purchase price of the new one – meaning he then saved $$$ on the steep MN sales tax (6.875% + fees). I also worked with the dealer to trade in my 2013 BMW Z4 and also saved on my sales tax. Altogether, I saved more than 5-figures on the purchase and got a lot of upgraded features.

I was amazed that it took just 4 phone calls to arrange everything. A call to the dealer, a quick bank funds transfer from our brokerage, and a switch of our the car insurance. I couldn’t believe how smooth it went. I didn’t have any plan to even look at a new car right now and 24 hours later, a completely different red sports car is sitting in my garage, ready for a summer of sunny, Stingray fun!

Any fun new cars in your summer plans?

I’ll miss my trusty BMW roadster … I had it for almost the whole 10 years I’ve been retired!

Images: MrFireStation.com (c)