The car that built Double Yellow- Andy’s 2013 Corvette Grand Sport
In its most current form.
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”— Jack Kerouac
This week’s a little different. Instead of featuring someone else’s car, I figured it was time to finally tell the story behind mine—the 2013 Grand Sport that’s been sitting at the center of everything I’ve been building, whether I realized it at the time or not.
If you’ve followed along for a while, you’ve seen it. The green wrap that shifts just enough under gas station lights, the lowered stance, and a presence that doesn’t need to be loud to be noticed. It’s not the most extreme car I’ve owned, not the fastest, and definitely not the most expensive version of a Corvette you can buy, but it’s the one that stayed.
At the surface, it’s just a Grand Sport. Widebody, LS3, a car that came from the factory already knowing what it was supposed to be. No excuses, no asterisks, no long list of things it might become if you throw enough time and money at it. That part matters more than it sounds, because for a long time, every car I touched ended up turning into something it was never meant to be.
Projects that started simple got pushed too far and eventually broke under their own weight. Faster, louder, more complicated—always chasing something just out of reach, and usually paying for it one way or another. This car didn’t come into my life to fix that, but it was the first one that didn’t ask me to keep going down that road.
Setting at the dealership.
That shift didn’t happen all at once.
I can trace it back to a single moment—a ride in a C6 Z06 that changed what I thought “fast” meant. Up until then, speed had always been simple: how hard a car pulled, how quick it got from one number to another. That car did all of that, but it also did something else. It stayed composed. It braked harder than anything I’d experienced, rotated without drama, and carried itself in a way that made everything else I’d been around feel one-dimensional. It was the first time I realized there was more to driving than just going fast in a straight line, even if I didn’t fully act on it right away.
At the time, I was still rooted in the kind of car culture where straight-line speed was everything, and the Trans Am was my first real step into that world. It was the first car I had that felt legitimately fast—the first one that made me feel like I had something to prove. Like everything that came after it, it started with a plan that made sense at the time: keep it simple, make it quicker, enjoy it. That didn’t last long. It turned into more power, more parts, more late nights, and eventually more than the car was ever meant to handle. I pushed it too far, and it let go. At the time, it felt like a setback—something to fix, rebuild, and come back stronger from. I told myself I’d do it differently the next time.
That’s how the C5 Corvette showed up. It was supposed to be the smarter move—the more refined platform, the car that would let me apply everything I’d learned and finally get it right. For a while, it felt like that might actually happen. It drove better, felt more capable, and gave me just enough confidence to believe I was on a better path. But because I am, at my core, a fundamentally flawed human, I managed to screw that one up too. The pattern didn’t change—it just scaled. More power, more effort, more money, and eventually the same outcome. I pushed it past what it was meant to be, and it came apart just like the one before it.
At that point, it wasn’t bad luck—it was a pattern.
A proper Replacement
In early 2018, I parted out what was left of the C5 and started the hunt for a C6. My criteria was pretty simple: Z06 was off the table—I didn’t want to immediately throw five grand at fixing valvetrain issues. Narrow bodies didn’t do it for me, and ZR1s, even in a dip, would’ve meant more ramen noodles than I was willing to commit to.
That left the Grand Sport. It had the right formula for what I was trying to do: a bulletproof LS3, Z06-derived cooling and braking, and a slightly nicer interior. My checklist wasn’t complicated—it had to be a 2012–2013, had to be manual, and had to have a black interior.
I got one of those.
The market was in a weird spot back then. Manual Grand Sports were oddly scarce, and the few I found in my budget all had issues. One of them—a gorgeous Inferno Orange car—looked perfect until it laid down a jet-sized contrail of smoke all over I-70. After a few months of searching, I was getting nowhere, and I was actually about to cave and buy an S550 Mustang when, out of nowhere, this one popped up.
It didn’t match my spec at all. It was a 2013, and that was about the only box it checked—automatic, titanium interior, chrome wheels, Night Race Blue. It was pretty much the opposite of the car I had pictured. Honestly, it looked like an old man Sunday special. But in the listing photos, sitting right next to it, was a white C5 that looked just like mine, and for whatever reason, I took that as a sign.
One quick call to make sure it was still available, a little back-and-forth on numbers, and suddenly it was mine. The first drive was exactly what I needed—no drama, no surprises, just a car that worked. I remembered pretty quickly what made driving fun again, and the automatic, along with the paddle shifters, grew on me faster than I expected.
First time at the Killboy store
Within a few months, the Grand Sport started to feel like my car. The chrome went away, carbon fiber found its way in, it got lowered, picked up a mild cam and full exhaust, along with a handful of quality-of-life upgrades that made it better without turning it into another problem. Before long, the backroads took over my weekends, and the car gave me back something I didn’t realize I’d been missing.
Eventually, I got tired of the dark blue and the amount of upkeep it took and decided to wrap the car. Though Cyber Grey was always my original choice, when I ordered the sample books, something unexpected stood out—a metallic green swatch called Fir Tree Green. I figured I’d roll the dice and try something different. Within a few weeks, the car had a completely new attitude. Green was clearly its color, even if it wasn’t mine.
My adventures into the West Virginia backcountry with the C6 started to prove something, but at the same time, something else was pulling at my attention. In early 2021, I made a pilgrimage to what we all know and love as the Tail of the Dragon. What I thought would be a simple, one-time trip ended up altering the course of my life in ways I didn’t understand at the time.
That story is bigger than I could ever fit into a single blog post, but it set me on a path that eventually led to what you see here—the foundation of Double Yellow. Roads stopped being about adrenaline and going fast, and started becoming something else entirely. It wasn’t about how quickly you could get through them anymore; it was about finding the ones that were actually worth driving in the first place.
And once that switch flipped, there was no going back.
Forever chasing twistys
The focus shifted from pushing limits to paying attention—where the road went, how it flowed, what made one stretch of pavement forgettable and another something you’d drive hours just to experience again. The more I leaned into that, the more it became clear that there was a lot more out there than anyone was really talking about.
Which, in a lot of ways, brings it full circle.
Nothing behind me, everything ahead.
The car as it sits today is still pretty simple. A BTR Stage 2 cam with the usual supporting mods, full exhaust, a set of LG G2 coilovers with matching sway bars, and a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires to tie it all together. It’s not a crazy setup, but it works, and it’s been reliable as a pin. I don’t think I could ask for much more out of it.
In eight years of ownership, it’s only left me stranded twice, and both of those were self-inflicted. I’ve put over 80,000 miles on it since taking ownership, and it’s rarely ever disappointed me. It’s seen most of the East Coast and, if everything goes to plan, it’ll make its way out to the Rockies next year.
New wrap, who dis?
Every time I sit in the driver’s seat, it still feels like it did the first time. I told myself I wouldn’t get attached to another car, but this one managed to find its way in anyway.
Looking back on it, it’s kind of funny how far off this car was from what I thought I wanted.
Wrong transmission, wrong interior, wrong look—just about everything on paper said I should’ve kept searching. If I had, I probably would’ve ended up with something that checked every box and still somehow missed the point entirely. Instead, I ended up with a car that didn’t match the list, but matched exactly where I was at the time.
And that ended up mattering a lot more.
This was the first car I could just have fun with and not worry about it all being perfect at once.
Somewhere along the way, the focus stopped being about building the perfect car and started being about finding the right roads. The Grand Sport just happened to be the one that carried me there—not because it was the fastest or the most impressive, but because it let me pay attention to everything else that actually mattered.
And the more I leaned into that, the more it became clear that there’s always another road out there—another turn, another stretch of pavement you haven’t seen yet, another reason to keep going.
Not because you’re chasing something.
Just because it’s there.
So I hope you guys didn’t mind the little detour into the car that built Double Yellow before I even knew I was building it. Every time I think I’ve got it figured out, it keeps giving me new ideas and pushing things a little further.
If you’ve been with us this far, stay tuned—there’s some really cool stuff on the horizon, and it’s more than just apparel. What we’re building here is a community for anyone who’s ever sat in the driver’s seat and thought, “yep… this is where I belong.”
For now, I hope you’re all off to a strong start this driving season, and I hope to see you out on the mountain this year—for some good drives, good vibes, and one amazing tribe.