This Lucky Guy Just Won A Corvette 427 Convertible & A Trip To Le Mans

Earlier in the year, Charles Johnson saw an ad for a Corvette 427 Convertible giveaway, sponsored by General Motors and its Corvette Racing program, in a magazine. He filled out the entry form and didn’t think twice about it until the phone rang roughly six months later.

Not wanting to talk to yet another telemarketer, Charles didn’t plan on picking up the phone. But before he could tell his son not to answer, the 12 year-old had already said “hello?”.

Then the news came. Charles was informed that he was the winner of an LS7-powered 505-horsepower 2013 427 Vette Convertible… as well as a 4-night, 5-day trip to France for the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans race. What a day!

A resident of Raleigh, North Carolina and an ex-owner of a ’98 Corvette, Charles picked up his limited-production 60th anniversary 427 at a local Chevy store (after paying the obligatory sales tax plus dealer delivery and handling fee). He put 131 miles on the car the first day. “Maybe my plate should say ‘I WIN’ and not ‘U-LOSE'”, he joked, referring to the custom inscription of his license plate. “I love it.”

In the future, Charles plans to take the Vette to the Virginia International Raceway (VIR), to its birthplace in Bowling Green, Kentucky, as well as to the Tail of the Dragon — a track in Robbinsville, North Carolina. He’s hoping to put less than four thousand miles on the car every year, using his daily driver — a 2007 Honda Civic — for primary transpiration. We recommended he replace that piece with a Chevy Cruze, instead.

Charles would like to extended a special thanks to Jenny Hughes at the Bowling Green plant for keeping him apprised of the car’s build and delivery status, Lamont Greene at Hendrick Chevrolet, as well as Don Kowalski at Chevy Racing.

To top it all off, Charles will turn 49 on October 31st. How’s that for a birthday present? “The very very beset I’ve ever received”, he told us.

Following the 427 giveaway (the promo video of which you can watch below), GM is now giving away a 2013 Camaro ZL1, along with a trip to the Daytona 500 race, with more info available here.