The birth of Orange Krate...

[Orange Krate]

Here is a screenshot of Orange Krate's first official post on http://www.camarotracking.com

[Orange Krate]

OK so there isn't much one can do while they wait for the pregnancy to run its course and the new baby arrives on scene. In the case of our sales person "Dave", all I can say is what a supporter he is. He knows how long the wait seems for a new buyer and he has left me text messages of encouragement and phone messages saying "it won't be long", "you will soon have it", etc. This is very much appreciated by the wife and I.

I hope that anyone that might read this blog and is either contemplating the purchase or order of a new car can get the kind of salesperson that has an attitude and approach like Dave. There was never any pressure and he wants to make sure we are 100% satisfied with our investment and bundle of joy.

As Dave said today in one of his text messages... "Building the car is like putting all the pieces in the crockpot and having it turn into a beautiful soup. But in order to get to that point...you have to have patience and wait for it to go through the process and simmer and cook to perfection."

It is surely worth the wait and I can smell that new car smell, er uh, soup now!

[Orange Krate]

Here 2000...here 2000....looking for that elusive Code 2000 to pop up! BTW... We see an 1102 code (entered via web) at the CamaroTracking.Com site. What the heck is that? I hadn't seen that code on any other signature lines before.

Does that mean Orange Krate will get the GM internet bonus with a bump in horsepower and a loss in its fuel efficiency rating? Darn. Or is that a secret code that only GM knows that means Santa will be delivering Orange Krate for Christmas??? HA HA HA or should I say HO HO HO???

[Orange Krate]

Boy Oh Boy...Oh Boy...Oh Boy...

Look at my last post and now I wake up extra early because I can't sleep and now I know why!!! My code quest was magically answered overnight!!! I went from the unknown 1102 all the way up to 3000 overnight! How stoked am I??? I will have a hard time driving my VW Beetle to work thinking about Orange Krate's pending birth! Did I say...I am stoked? Holy moley!!!!!

[Orange Krate]

I had a heck of a week and a very hard Thursday at work. Took me 2.5 hours to commute into my office thru nasty LA Traffic! I had a meeting to attend that went OK. Afterwards "10-4" Magazine came to my office to interview my staff and take photos of our Class A trucks for an upcoming article in their magazine. That went OK although we had a couple of snags at the end of the photo shoot. So it was a 14 hour day and I am driving 2 hours home! More ugh traffic!! I log into http://www.camarotracking.com and see an order status change on our Orange Krate again! That was a quick change from yesterday and very promising! So now I am stoked again and all of the days BS is behind me! I love this car and I don't even have it yet. Nothing like an attitude adjustment from just reading an update on the baby's status. We are now at 3300!! Sweet! Before long Orange Krate is going to have a VIN!

[Orange Krate]

Orange Krate has a TPW... The week of November 15th!
(Target Production Week) or projected birthdate.

Looks like Thanksgiving will hold even more special meaning! The tension and excitement builds.

[Orange Krate]

With time to ponder while we await our beloved Orange Krate's birth, I reflect back upon days gone by when people use to worry about the day of the week and time of year a car was built. In the "old days" you didn't want one built on a Monday because assemblers came to work tired and hungover from the weekend. You didn't want a Friday car because assemblers were too excited to get home for the weekend to get hungover again so they would rush and make errors. You didn't want one painted on a cold day because the paint wouldn't cure correctly or if it was too humid the paint wouldn't cure correctly, or if someone had a hangover...you got it...the paint wouldnt cure correctly. Much of this was speculation and hype. The cars WERE good (look how long they lasted) but humans just made errors.

After watching the 6 part series on Youtube of the Camaro plant in Oshawa for the umpteenth time, and knowing there are 1000 robots doing the work within spec, that don't get tired, and the people who work there literally put their hard sweat and love into the job, that worry level is much much less for us as consumers.

The biggest concern we have as a consumer is bad weather and cars getting held up because of transportation issues (rail and truck), "X" amount of snow, rain or power failures on the grid.

I have confidence in the men and women of Oshawa who are about to build our new baby and know that the quality control will be there when it is needed.

We look forward to the day when we can go to Oshawa and meet and thank the folks personally, as many of the Camaro5 gang have already done. What a great way to show them how much we appreciate them for taking good care in building our babies.

CHEERS to OSHAWA and the FOLKS AT CHEVROLET who make these modern muscle cars so friggin' awesome!!!


P.S. - I went back to my dealer tonight and I just sat and took in that new car smell and looked under the hood, in the trunk, under the car, turned on the lights, put my wife in the front seat and demo'd more of the 2SS options to her. Next thing you know I will be selling Camaros! But hey...that is OK too!

[Orange Krate]

Advanced delivery plans for our new Orange Krate....there really isn't much we plan on doing to make the car better. Hard to improve on perfection. The smog laws in California make it nearly impossible to do anything other than adding a blower or turbo for performance increase. I personally don't want to do a thing that can be conceived as a modification that voids the warranty. I just want to drive the car with the wife and have some fun visiting places, friends and taking photos along the way.

Potential mods could be light tinting of rear windows, CARB approved CAI, CHIP, exhaust upgrade, and some additional lighting (footwells and afterburners). I prefer to just really keep her stock for now.

We will have stripes added as well as ground FX match painted to car. I would also like to take an orange colored billiard ball and machine it to fit the Hurst shifter. Of course there is always the obligatory "camaro5.com" window sticker!

[Orange Krate]

I captured the GM ORDER EVENT CODES from Camaro Scotty's Blog and placed them here so I could have a quick reference to ORANGE KRATE's status. Thanks Scotty for the helpful list and also the good info at your blog!

[Orange Krate]

So what are the chances of scoring this plate? Somehow I got lucky when I went to the CA DMV and reserved this. No one else had snagged it. I feel pretty fortunate and I hope Orange Krate likes it when s/he gets home from Canada. Hope s/he has his/her green card! BTW... the photo below of the plate is the one generated by the DMV site. It isnt actually the real plate yet. I have to wait for the car to get here and have proof of purchase and registration before they will release the custom plates to me.

[Orange Krate]

Hit 3400 on 9 November 2010!!! Surprise. Orange Krate is almost a reality! The DNA is coming together rapidly. Birth imminent.

[JoeP@TeamBeckyD]

Congrats Orange Krate - that beauty will be a reality soon

[Orange Krate]

So close...I can't friggin sleep and my mind won't shut off. The clock is going tick tick tick and my mind is going click click click. 4 AM is just a few hours away. DOH!!!! ORANGE KRATE is calling me from Canada!!

I am getting ready for one of these.

PERMAGRIN

[Orange Krate]

So as I see here sleepless and think about Orange Krate and the impending birth, I also think about one of the reasons I love the color. Besides having owned a 69 SS Camaro that was hugger orange, I also took a picture about a year ago that I like because it looked like the sky was on fire with inferno orange and that locked it in for me when I saw a new IOM Camaro in person. Below is a small version of that photo. I have it on my fireplace mantle blown up to 16 x 20. I hope to one day capture a sunset like this with Orange Krate proudly displayed up close and personal.