Carpentersville man has 30-year romance with 1957 Corvette

In 1969, Frank Braiske and his college buddies spotted the remains of a 1957 Corvette in a junkyard in Downing, Wis.

Frank, with a mechanic's eye, saw the possibilities.

He and his wife Chris met while freshmen in college. When Chris saw the car for the first time - in a hay wagon outside the dorm - she thought it was just a piece of junk.

A work in process for more than 30 years (the car, not the couple, but maybe both), the Corvette was finally completed in 2009.

"It took a lot of years to collect all the parts we needed," Chris said. "We went to a lot of Corvette swap meets in Milwaukee. Back then you had to find old original parts. We wandered around a lot of junkyards. Now they have reproduction pieces."

The 1957 Corvette is fuel-injected and one of only 379 made with the power window option. It also had a power soft top and a wonder bar radio. The Chevrolet was built in April of 1957 and was Aztec copper with a shoreline beige door cove. It had an original price tag of $4,579.52.

Today, Frank and Chris enjoy their treasure.

The car is now Venetian red with a shoreline beige cove, with both the hardtop and convertible top.

The Braiskes drive their car in the summertime, attend car shows and cruise nights, and store it for the winter.

"I took it out last week for cruise night at Culver's in Carpentersville. And I might go to one tonight," Frank said recently. "It always draws a crowd. It's old enough that you don't see many of them."

After Frank and friends found the Corvette, it was sent off to a vocational school in White Bear Lake, Minn., where it became a class project in fiberglass and restoration. It was a good learning experience for the kids, Chris said.

Later, with the body on the frame, the car traveled on a trailer in a snowstorm across the state to Lakewood, Wis., where the couple was then living. Frank eventually rebuilt the engine and transmission and did the electrical wiring.

In 1988 the couple moved to Carpentersville.

Since then, the car has survived a flood, an accident and several breakdowns.

"In 2007, the car was in a flood - a total loss, which took 18 months to restore. Then when Frank took the car to shows three years in a row, there were problems," Chris said.

But like any long relationship, you work through those problems, and the Corvette continues to be a labor of love.

"One year the tire exploded and the right front quarter of the car just shattered and caused the fiberglass to break into pieces. (Frank) picked up the pieces, went to the show and drove the car home.

"Another time the engine blew up, and he had to get a flatbed to bring the car home. The third time on the way to a show in St. Charles, a truck backed into him at a stop sign and smashed in the front.

"So seeing it all together now is a wonderful thing."

We agree.