One lucky person will leave the 2016 Florida Strawberry Festival with a unique Chevrolet Corvette.
This year’s Unity in the Community raffle car turns heads like a strawberry queen in a festival crowd.
The prize, a strawberry candy-red 2016 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, was custom-made and donated by Stingray Chevrolet.
It’s not the first Corvette that the charity group has raffled off, but it’s undoubtedly the coolest. And, the best part: it can be won for as little as $5.
“I don’t know anybody that raffles a brand new car, like a Corvette, and does it for only five bucks,” Stingray Chevrolet owner Steve Hurley said.
Internally, the new ‘Vette is a lot like last year’s car. It’s got 455 horsepower and an eight-speed, automatic transmission. That’s taking drivers from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds. Inside the cockpit, the interior is made with gray leather.
While it’s not a typical daily commuter — the car gets about 29 miles per gallon in highway driving and retails for around $55,000 — it’s hard to get from point A to B more stylishly.
That’s because the ‘Vette’s exterior is what really shines here — literally.
The first thing anyone will notice is the candy-paint job, a custom House of Kolor mix that was applied in three go-rounds at the dealership. Hurley said, to avoid overspray, this paint job wasn’t done traditionally: instead of taping up the windows and tires and going to town, the ‘Vette was stripped apart, and each panel of the fiberglass exterior was painted separately.
When it was time to put the ‘Vette back together, the exterior pieces were realigned and matched up by hand. Rather than having a machine put the car together, as it is on the factory assembly line, hand-placing these panels allowed the Stingray team to match them up perfectly and reduce panel gap size. It’s most noticeable with the hood of the car.
In other words, it’s like they took a suit from off the rack and tailored it for a better fit and a cleaner look.
This is a process that Stingray has done several times before, but only for unique, custom orders. And, unlike other customs, it’s the first time Stingray has ever used this particular color.
As if the car didn’t already have enough visual pop, the dealership slapped some chrome Chevrolet wheels on it — 18 inches in the front, 19 in the back.
Hurley pegs the car’s value at around $70,000 — a $15,000 increase from the 2015 raffle car, which raised $162,000.
“It has to be aspirational,” Hurley said. “We keep raising the bar just to change it up and make it more interesting. It costs Stingray more money, but we’re doing well over the years, and it’s a way to, hopefully, generate more funds … The ‘cool’ factor is everything.”
There is no limit to the number of tickets one can buy. They are available for purchase through March 11 at StingrayChevrolet.com and at the dealership, located off exit 22 on Interstate 4 in Plant City. Tickets can also be purchased each day of the Florida Strawberry Festival, at Stingray Chevrolet’s vehicle display on the event grounds.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
