What: Vettes in the Valley, featuring people’s choice car show, beginner and advanced driving instruction, open autocross, new Corvette Z06, GM product specialists, poker rally, sales corral, vendors, corvette parade, music and entertainment.
When: May 28-30
Where: Maggie Valley Festival Grounds
Information: 828.926.0201, ext. 607 or visit www.smokyevents.com; visit www.highlandsportscarclub.com to learn more about driving classes and autocross.

Adam Richardson found his dream car on the side of the road outside a coin and pawn shop in Greenville, S.C.

It was white with blue stripes and a maroon interior. Its floor boards were rusted through. Its emblems stripped. Its engine unable to turn over ... until the shop owner brought out a battery.

Despite it all, the telltale curves over the wheel wells — something between a snarl and the arc of a woman’s hips — the round taillights and the wraparound windshield meant only one thing to Adam. The car was a 1980 T-top Corvette Stingray with an L-48 engine.

“At the time, this was the only Vette that I could get into buying,” Adam said.

So he drove it home.

“This is the only car that he ever talked about,” said Barry Richardson, Adam’s dad.

Sitting in the Richardson family’s Maggie Valley driveway, the car represented a throwback to Barry’s own days as a hot rod driver — his favorite of which was a 1968 Ford Torino big block.

“It was hot,” Barry said.

Together the father and son team planned to restore the Vette, making it Adam’s primary mode of transportation. Not too shabby for a 16-year-old kid.

“I never really wanted to keep it original,” Adam said. “I wanted it to suit my needs, my interests.”

Of course that was one new garage, about $10,000 in car parts and two and a half years ago.

“A lot of times it felt like we were working, just to be working,” Barry said.

It took a new garage to protect the car’s interior as they had it dismantled, dashboard out, doors taken off. It took money that Adam saved up from various odd jobs, Ebay sales and Christmas and birthday presents. And it took time, as Adam and Barry spent days working and then weeks waiting for a part.

Most of the work has been external, or at least appearance oriented. They scraped off the old, flaking white body paint. They recovered the seats in black — though can’t find any new seatbelts to match, so they remain vintage maroon. They applied decals. Adam got a rearview mirror as a Christmas present.

And of course there was the paint job.

“It was supposed to be completely primered and completely repainted and well, he took a shortcut,” Barry said of the painter.

While the paint job — red, not burgundy, but red — was fine in a shaded enclosure, but out in the sun the original blue stripes showed through. Adam and Barry negotiated. The car got repainted.

The engine is still stock, though the exhaust system is all new. Rebuilding the engine is on the list of things to do. Stock it only has about 190 horsepower.

“Yeah I’d put more horsepower in it,” Adam said.

But it sounds like a beast and, with it’s amped up sound system, it’s the kind of car that will get you noticed in the high school parking lot.

“The first day I drove it to Tuscola just about everybody came up and started asking about it,” Adam said. “The first thing they wanted to know was if it was actually mine. The second thing was if they could drive it.”

Yes, and no.

Now, just a few days away from high school graduation, Adam plans to enter his Vette in the upcoming Vettes in the Valley rally to be held at the Maggie Valley Fairgrounds, May 28-30. The showing will be his first.

The project has been a learning experience for both father and son, one that Barry hasn’t ruled out as a personal hobby after Adam heads off to college.

“But I don’t know that I’d do the same amount of work on another Vette,” Barry said.

As a soon to be freshman at Western Carolina University — he’s undeclared, but has contemplated becoming a financial advisor —Adam will leave the Vette at home. It’s not something he trusts to leave in the large, unguarded, and out-of-sight freshman parking lot.

With a smile, Barry swears he’ll never be seen driving it around town. Its appeal is basic — speed and power.

“A car like this is kind of like a magnet, it just draws people to it,” Barry said.

As for how often Adam can be found with a hose and a sponge in hand?

“Well, uh, I like to keep it clean, I do,” he said.

“It’s probably the one thing I’ve never had to ask you to wash,” Barry replied.