Card Corvette

I have had a passion for cars and inventions for as long as I can remember. At 14 I’m still too young to drive and I don’t have the funds to buy my favorite car, a Corvette, so I’ve had to improvise. In 1996, at eight, I got a cardboard refrigerator box, brought it into the basement, and built my first car, a little orange Pontiac. The next year I built a Dodge Viper, and in 1998 a Lamborghini Countach. Last year I built the card-board Millennium Yellow 2002 Corvette Z06 you see here. It features a working AM/FM radio with cassette player, opening doors, key-operated locks and pop-up headlights — you can even sit in it. It is by far my most complex project to date.

People ask how I made a life-size Corvette out of cardboard. I used a 1/18 scale model of the Corvette and a very fine measuring tool; multiplying any measurement I made by 18 gave me the actual size. Talk about a good way to exercise math!

The Z06’s front end is made from mattress, couch and chair boxes, and the rear is made from refrigerator and washer boxes. I started by building a box of the Corvette’s overall dimensions. Then I measured the model, drew its 2-D shape on the box, and began cutting and bending. I left extra cardboard so it would fit when curved over. The pieces are held together with hot glue, and there’s masking tape over the seams. My dad, who is a professional painter, mixed up the oil-based Millennium Yellow. I primed the cardboard to protect it and then applied three coats. One challenge was making sure the car would fit up the basement stairs. To solve this I built the Corvette in five main sections.

The Corvette’s first show was this year’s Bloomington Gold, where I shook hands with Dave McLellan and C4 ex-pert Gordon Killebrew, and was interviewed by ESPN and WJMK in Chicago. Its second appearance was the National Corvette Homecoming, where I received Mr. Killebrew’s “Gordon’s Choice Award” for 1997-2002 Corvettes! While at the National Corvette Museum for this event, we asked if they wanted to display it. The board approved the idea, and the car is now parked in the museum’s Sky Dome.

I enjoy talking to anyone who will listen to my experience as I pursue my dream career of being a Corvette engineer. I have been asked what Corvette model I’ll build next. Well, I’m already an engineer in my own way and I always have ideas, but you never can tell — most likely it’ll be the 50th Anniversary model.