What’s your Cylinder Index?

That relates to a term that I heard many years ago, when my Polar Observatory was closer to the North Pole than the South Pole, when I lived in a place where the Active Corvette Appreciation Season ran from early May to late September.

The term “Cylinder Index” (CI) was coined by Joe Soucheray, a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a radio talk-show host in the Twin Cities.  You calculate it by adding up all the cylinders of internal combustion that you have in your household. That includes: daily-driven cars and trucks; Corvettes and other fun rides that you don’t drive every day; original engines for those Vettes/fun rides that are now powered by a ZZ4 or any other crate engine; other car/truck engines that you have the parts to build; motorcycles and ATVs; lawnmowers, snow blowers, Roto-Tillers, leaf blowers, chain saws, ice augers, gas-powered generators and other powered tools; even those old Cox gas-powered scale model C2 split-window coupes with .049-cubic-inch single-cylinder engines.

Having a large CI is just like having a lot of tools…or a lot of anything that’s considered “guy stuff,” even though the CI  is something that can be calculated by anyone, anywhere, any time.

Alas, my CI only measures eight, thanks to my daily-driven droptop whose name is not fit to mention on a Corvette website. That hasn’t kept me from sharing the stories of Corvette owners and devotees whose CI approach infinity, or at least as many cylinders as there are in the engines headed to Bowling Green Assembly for installation into new Corvettes on any given day.

And it hasn’t kept me from dreaming of increasing my CI  with fiberglass-clad, Bowtie-powered creations that can reduce my daily commute time down to mere minutes, or turn weekends into multi-Vette road adventures. Besides, I’ve got a two-car garage that’s only housing one car!

So, here are my current ideas/wild dreams for increasing my CI should I get that chance, which I’ve labeled Project HopeSo:

-For a C1, a replica of the ’60-’62 Vettes as seen on TV’s Route 66, if not one that was actually used during the show’s production.

-C2: This gets a bit more radical, like a 2009 ZR1’s “Blue Devil” powertrain inside a Sting Ray convertible body that’s been given the Grand Sport treatment, yet retains a folding top and all its stock glass, including windshield.

-Echoes of Chevys roaring through the night in my past inspire my C3 pick—a streetable Greenwood GT, inspired not only by John Greenwood’s 220-mph wide-body wonders, but also the Vettes  and steel-body Chevys that he raced one place or another around Detroit in the ‘60s, where I first heard (of) him. The engine inside the ’glass? Either an all-aluminum 494-cubic-inch big-block CanAm refugee, or the supercharged 6.2 liter LS9 in the latest ZR1.

-For a C4, I’d go with a coupe built to look like one of the ‘83s that were used for pre-production testing, of which only one survives. Let’s make this one look like an escapee from the advanced-powertrain research team, equipped with the most wildly exotic and powerful engine those talented folks could come up with. (That means something on the order of the LT5 32-valve DOHC V8, or the latest LS9.)

-C5? Yes, thank you. Make this one an Indy 500 Pace Car replica, but with right hand drive—why let all the fans of the movie Corvette Summer have all that fun? It would also be a better choice for leisurely country drives, where you could pick wildflowers growing by the side of the road without getting out of the car.

-C6: Two words: Blue Devil.

That’s my dream, and I’m sticking with it.

By the way, what’s your Cylinder Index?