Our trip to Hendrick Chevrolet to Pick up our new 2010 CAMARO
By Shane and Donavon Wagner
Since the day the concept was released, I, like many other Camaro enthusiasts, vowed to someday have one. I have a long history of working with first generation Camaros and my dad owns a 1969. This car is part of our gene pool. So here is a small story of our Camaro and our trip to get it.
I remember spec’ing out the car online with my dad and just going all out on the options like a couple kids in a candy store. As soon as GM annouced they were taking orders we got one of the first allotments from Hendrick Chevrolet in Monroe. Not only are the Hendrick dealerships legendary, but they were one of the few charging MSRP and not price gouging. In addition, these are the guys that paid a few hundred thousand dollars to have the very first and second production Camaros, so we knew they were serious about this car and obviously performance with their involvement in racing.
I called almost every week or two getting updates from Bill Boles, their veteran sales manager, who also put a tracker from GM on my car that kept them updated to every single step of the way. I could tell by talking with Bill that he was excited about the Camaro as much as I was and didn’t get annoyed with me freakishly calling all the time. Unfortunately, I think my car was held up for almost every single possible quality control check there was including the 6-speed manual hold. So after a few months waiting, anticipation was at its capacity and finally Bill gave me the all too sweet phone call, “Well, I’m looking at a orange Camaro here that has your name on it..”
I currently live in Henderson, NV and my dad lives in my home town Bismarck, ND. From day one we said we would fly into NC and drive this machine back to ND and then down to NV. After all these cars are meant to drive! It would be a great chance to hang out with my Dad doing something we both love. So the day we got the call, we booked our flights and got out there within a day and that’s when we found out how great a choice it was to get this car from Hendrick Chevrolet.
Upon arrival at the airport, I got a call from Dwight, Hendrick’s driver, saying he was a white haired good ol’ boy holding a sign of our Camaro. Sure enough there he was with a big sign with our name and a color picture of our Camaro. That was pretty neat. So from there he drove us the 35-40 minutes to the dealership from the Charolette airport, but it only seemed like a few minutes with the great conversations. Once we got there, we met up with Bill and not long after some of the other guys couldn’t help but sneek into the office and join in on the excitement of the sale and asking us about what we plan on doing with the car and if they could help us with directions, etc. We had Tom VanEtten, the internet manager, taking pictures of us with the car and printing them out for us with script such as “The day finally arrived, Dad and me picking up the new Camaro.” He even gave us plastic protetive sleeves to put the pictures into. My dad asked if they happened to have a hat with the Hendrick logo on them and they had two left up in the locked room, and they were ours. They also gave us a handful of Camaro broshures to share with my brothers and friends. Katie Slevin, the finance manager, was so efficient I barely warmed up my seat before we where done getting all the paperwork filled out. Then Don Flint, another sales manager, jumped in the Camaro with me to get me all set up with Onstar and the turn by turn directions which made this trip much easier. He also called us along the way to make sure everything was working alright. I have never felt so welcomed and appreciated at a place of business in my life. These guys are a class act and are as passionate about the cars as their customers. Unfortunately we had a long drive ahead of us so we didn’t have any time to hang out which I would have liked to do.
So after getting up at 4am to fly almost six hours from Las Vegas to Charolette we got on the road that evening and made it about 50 miles from Chicago. The addrenaline of being in this car was enough to keep us awake that long which at that point we had been up for about 27 hours straight. We crashed at a sleezy truck stop hotel for three hours and got back on the road. We were trying to get back to Bismarck for my two brother’s softball party they were having since they took first this season and wanted to show off the car to all the friends and family present. So after another 15 hours of driving we finally made it home to a crowd of family and friends waiting for us at 1:30am as we pulled into the driveway.
After my dad gets a chance to play with it for a few weeks he and my mom are making another road trip down to Vegas. This would put the car through 15 states and over 3,000 miles on the odometer. I currently work as engineering manager for Drake Automotive group and Shelby Performance Parts, so I will be the black sheep in the world of Ford’s at work. I plan on using the car as a test mule for a bunch of new performance products and showing them why the Camaro is still the king of muscle cars. Luckily every one already knows my first love is GM.
This trip was truly a great bonding experience with my dad that I will never forget and I look forward to creating many more memories with this car.