This time of year, many people are hibernating--keeping indoors to escape the wrath of another winter.

I'm using the term "hibernating" a little loosely here, if I include those who, while not venturing out into the elements, are lavishing attention on their Corvette(s) in anticipation of the return of warm weather and dirt/salt-free roads.

Count me among the hibernators, though here in Tampa the only way to encounter snow is to go where the Zambonis at the local ice arenas empty out their rink shavings. Old habits die hard, especially after all of the winters I spent in the past near the Great Lakes.

One of those old habits involves watching vintage video. That includes the box-set of the first season of the classic TV series Route 66. Both volumes are out now--Volume 1, which includes the pilot episode "Black November,"plus the next fourteen produced after it, was released before Christmas. The second volume, which includes episodes #16-30, arrived at your favorite video outlet earlier this month.

Those shows are a time capsule from a different age--the BC (Before Color) era. They're also filled with plenty of dramatic twists, interesting characters, and familiar performers in guest-star roles, in episodes filmed entirely on location. They're also loaded with Chevrolets, not including the Corvette that Tod and Buz use to get around the country. That isn't so surprising, given that back then, Chevy was the show's major sponsor, at a time when the Bowtie brand's share of the U.S. car and truck market was as big, if not bigger, than GM's total U.S. market share is now.

Speaking of the Vette, that should be plural. Two identical ones were provided to the producers--and only in the pilot episode are those vettes  1960 models. In the next episode that aired after "Black November", filmed several months later, the Vette seen on screen is a '61, which it remains for the rest of that season. The following year, it morphed into a '62, then in Season Three, it morphed again, into a 327/340-powered '63 Sting Ray, followed by one final morphing, into a '64, for the fourth and final season.

And these Corvettes weren't red, either. As you see in the promotional still shot way back when, the first ones used were blue, with Fawn Beige the color choice in '62, then Saddle Tan in '63 and '64, because of the way these hues showed up when filmed on location, in black-and-white.

What became of these Corvettes after the producers were done with them? Maybe you folks know. Tell-tale signs include the luggage rack on the rear deck, or filled-in holes from where it was, Borrani wire wheels on the '60s and '61s, and documentation showing the loan from Chevrolet to Lancer Productions or Lancer-Edling Productions (the show's production company), Columbia Pictures Corporation, or Columbia's TV subsidiary back then which distributed Route 66, Screen Gems.

My guess is that, after the last episode of each season wrapped, those Vettes were dropped off at a Chevrolet dealer in or near where they had been filming, likely at a dealer that sold a lot of Corvettes, and were sold as "brass hat" cars not unlike how they sold off company cars driven by Chevy's divisional brass.

If that's true, that means the '64s used in the final episode were sold somewhere around here as, IIRC, that last episode was set in, and filmed in, Tampa.

Can any of you Vette lovers out there shed some light...maybe you know what barn these "screen gems" are hibernating in?