Reserved Parking is a specially designed area of GSM where reader’s have sent in pictures and stories about their garages, collections and more. Enjoy!
Text and Images by Joel Chesler
I must credit Garage Style Magazine with being the initial inspiration for my garage. My wife, Diane, and I moved to the Central Coast of California two years ago, after residing in Los Angeles for over 15 years, where I was employed by Northrop Grumman to perform the Aeroelastic Analysis on the B-2 Stealth Bomber and now the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Since moving here, I became a staff member of the Estrella Warbirds Museum, which also contains a large number of autos from the Dick Woodland collection. Their collection further inspired us to create an appropriate place for our own small collection.
Since Diane and I are both involved in motor sports, we felt it was time to build the garage I had always dreamed of.
Photo 1 shows our little piece of Paradise, here in the Central Coast of California, with Diane’s Mustang GT, that she purchased new.
The second shows yours truly alongside my Tokum 39 Fiberglass replica, which has a light-up globe.
The third is my pride and joy, a Corvette ZR1, which I was only able to order thanks to my wife’s influence with Chevrolet. It feels like the fastest production sportscar on the planet, with a top speed in excess of 214 MPH (due to the Aero Package one spoiler), 755 HP, one-and-a-quarter turning capability, 7-speed manual transmission, carbon ceramic brakes, etc. I believe the ZR1 set a track record at the ’Ring in Germany, something just a tick over 7-minutes around.
Finally, my Z06 that I ordered new in 2003 and now has over 45,000 fun miles and numerous
Concours D’ Elegance awards to its credit.
My garage is clean and kept and that’s how we like it. It provides shelter for some great cars and room for more as we go on. The house had an attached garage and this 3-car garage several yards away, which was a big part of why we bought it. While it wasn’t bad, we decided we had to make it our own. We refreshed the interior with new, bright white paint and corrected some of the small imperfections. The cabinets were the old cabinets from inside the house – when the house was updated, the old owners just moved the cabinets out here. I wanted something very special and low maintenance for flooring, so I went with Italian porcelain tiles with DeLorean Grey coping inbetween. Always wondered if someone at the tile company had a thing for the stainless steel color of those little cars, or if John DeLorean himself helped them conjure up the color – fun conversation piece. The lights are great, they are very bright LEDs, two sets, one on the backside of the garage doors, the other affixed to the ceiling. When the doors roll up, the lights on them illuminate the space.
At this point, most of our driving consists of fun trips and outings with our club, SLO Vettes of San Luis Obispo, California, but there is something fun and relaxing about spending some time in the garage waxing up a car or just enjoying some wine and conversation. I want to thank Garage Style Magazine for selecting our story and photos for their publication and providing the inspiration and courage to move forward and build something we can enjoy and be proud of.
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