NCM Director Wendell K. Strode in Finland!

Text Mika Kurkipää, photos Tuuli Haapala

On Sunday the 10th of June 2001 Wendell K. Strode, the Executive Director of National Corvette Museum, spend a few hours in Helsinki. The Club Corvette of Finland had arranged a small salute to our far away guest. Wendell and his wife were visiting our country on their 14 day cruise in Europe.

In the morning the Strodes had seen some sights with their Finnish exchange student daughter and a local car enthusiast Seppo Nikkilä. Seppo, who has a beautiful '67 tri power, has been in contact with Wendell during the years and was behind our welcoming comity.

We gathered on Katajanokka where the ship was docked. Before we decided the park on the pear (no parking zone) we had blocked the whole parking lot with our Vettes. Lot of the folks from the ship came to see our U.S. made cars. We had even a couple of guys that had worked in making the Corvette coming by and asking what was going on.

After a while Wendell walked over in his Corvette shirt. He was delighted to see our welcoming party of fourteen Vettes. After our greetings we had an honor to present the Club banner to Wendell to take back home to Bowling Green. Wendell was also prepared for Corvette-enthusiast with Museum pins.

Wendell told us also about the future plans in the museum, but about that you can read in www.corvettemuseum.com.

As you can see from the pictures, we had cars ranging form '63 to '90 greeting Wendell. Two beautiful '63 convertibles and one coupe, a '64 coupe, a '67 big block, a '71 big block convertible, and the first ZR-1 in Europe - only to mention a few.

We had great time with the Strodes and we hope to meet them soon in the Museum or visiting us here in Finland again.