There's a song from 1968 by the Troggs called "Wild Thing" with the lyrics, "Wild thing, I think I love you...But I wanna know for sure". Patti Hutchinson found herself questioning her love for "Wild Thing", her husband's '96 Grand Sport coupe. The performance modifications seemed to grow on a daily basis-a Comp Cams 210/224 bumpstick, Hooker headers, Random Technology high-flow catalytic converters, Power Effects cat-back exhaust system, BFG drag radials, and so on.
"I like modifieds", says Patti, somewhat defensively, "But not for daily driving or for trips. When we lived in Hawaii in the late '70s, we did a lot of autocrossing with the '76. John did minor mods to make it run better. We've got all kinds of trophies from there."
John and Patti Hutchinson got married in 1970. Patti remembers first falling in love with Hutch, then with his '68 big-block Corvette. Through 31 years of marriage and 17 Corvettes, Patti has enjoyed the rides and the life long friends they made in the clubs.
Still, her Corvette experience was definitely suffering with the intense modifications to the Grand Sport. Eventually, they realized the solution was to get Patti her own Corvette. "It's kind of a cute story", Hutch laughs out loud. "I'm very much into performance and she prefers her cars stock and smooth and quiet. Every time I wanted to put something else on my car, it kind of ticked her off a little bit because I was putting this extra money into the car and turning it into a race car."
Hutch could certainly understand Patti's feelings. He told us, "I finally got to the point where I said, 'Well, I'll just get you your own.'"
At first, Patti got a '94 red convertible, which was a great car. Then, their good friend Roger Judski, who owns Roger's Corvette Center in Maitland, FL. (near the Hutchison's home in Orlando), came up with a pristine '96 Grand Sport convertible for sale.
Now we know the answer to...
Now we know the answer to a lasting marriage-share an interest in Corvettes. John and Patti Hutchinson have been together for 31 years and have owned 17 Corvettes over that period. We'd bet that their Grand Sport twins will be part of the family for a lot of years to come.
This car seemed just the perfect Corvette for the Hutchisons. Patti told us, "Hutch loves Grand Sports, and this one had the red interior, which we had always wanted. So there was really no question about it when we found it."
Hutch explained why he was so attracted to this specialty series C4, "When they first came out I thought the paint job was real distinctive, and that's the first thing you see. And it was the last year of the C4s, so that's typically the best model year of a series. I liked the high performance of the engine, and the fact they were unique and distinctive. We always picked cars that were a little bit different."
Chevrolet built exactly 1,000 Grand Sports, divided between 810 coupes and 190 convertibles. Patti pointed out to us exactly 53 of the 190 came with the red interior, which she likes so well and plans to keep "as long as I can."
Hutch's Grand Sport, despite the stock look, is far from the factory configuration, including a custom front spoiler from Eckler's and new paint.
Hutch told us, "It's all been completely redone. On the factory Grand Sport the pinstripes and hash marks on the front fender are decals, they are tape. When I had this car redone, I had them put down the exact same dimensions, but all that stuff is in paint now with multiple coats of hand rubbed clear coat on top. So, when you run your finger over the stripes you don't feel any bumps. That is all paint under there. It just provides a much, much higher gloss to the car."