Facebook has two groups with the same initials focusing on my favorite car, the Corvette. (One of which — the car, not the Facebook group — again did not show up in my driveway on my birthday, or Father’s Day, and most likely will not show up on Tuesday, National Corvette Day, commemorating the first day of Corvette production June 30, 1953.)

One group is the National Corvette Restorers Society, dedicated to, as you can imagine, restoring Corvettes to their showroom original condition.

The other takes those initials and does something different — the Not Correctly Restored Society, whose administrator says is about “the kind that really pisses off the purists that think all Vettes should remain stock and as they left the factory.” Such as …

In the days when you could actually modify your car, Corvettes may have been the most modified car of all. Sidepipes and new wheels are a relatively minor pair of mods. The editor or publisher (I forget which) of Car Craft magazine once featured his ’68 Vette convertible, which was so modified with a different front end, body (wider to accommodate much wider wheels and tires) and back end that you could not tell it was a ’68. And it was banana yellow.

I’m pretty sure that shade of red never came from the St. Louis factory. (Or from Bowling Green, where Corvettes are now built.) Nor the wheels, which I would not put on any car. Apparently some people don’t grasp that metals are heavier than rubber, and therefore the bigger the wheel the heavier the car. And we won’t even bring up what that does to suspension parts. But it’s not my car, and not my repair bills.

The ultimate modified car is a race car built from a stock car. Suffice to say this didn’t come from the factory looking like this, including the color; I believe orange wasn’t available until the C3 generation.

Body and paint is one thing. Engine work is another. This car came from an era in which Corvettes could be ordered with up to 465 gross horsepower. (Horsepower is now measured as net, with engine-driven accessories included; in those days net was usually 100 horsepower less than gross.) Apparently the owner channeled his inner Tim Allen and decided it needed MORE POWER!

See previous comments about engine, wheels and non-stock paint. (Though I like green, I’m not sure I’d choose this green. I’m more of a Fathom or Polo Green — that is, dark green — guy myself.)

One reason to own a Corvette is the easy ability to find replacement parts — to replace or upgrade original parts — from places like Mid America Motorworks. This is a C5, built between 1997 and 2004. Generally, the newer the Corvette, the less likely it seems to be modded. I don’t think I’ve seen a C5 that looks like this, with the body mods and non-stock hood.

This is more like it to some, but if you look at the lower right you can probably tell it too is not stock. I have limited experience in C2s, which I gather have a more normal driving position than Corvettes since then. The hidden headlights are, to me, required to be a Vette. The downside of the C2, I guess, is the lack of T-top or targa top found on the C3 and succeeding Corvettes, which give you fresh air when you want it and not when you don’t.

Note the sidepipes as well. I can’t speak from experience, but I think they are in a dangerous position for someone getting out of the car. Their position also would seem to make the car much louder than exhaust pipes out the back.

This owner appears to have removed the tailgate to create a Corvette El Camino. The paint is cool, but the rest counts as, to quote the late Paul Harvey, Just What, Not Why.

You would think having the engine stick up that much it wouldbe impossible to see to drive. The photo does that somewhat since it’s from the front, not the driving position, and angled to  \make the engine look bigger. This engine is supercharged (see previous Tim Allen quote), and the car appears set up for drag racing. If you have to ask the fuel economy, you can’t afford the fuel.

This, of course, is all a matter of personal taste. I cannot understand why someone would put Lamborghini-style scissor doors on any car. And you already read my thoughts about 20-plus-inch wheels. I wouldn’t be obsessed with resale value for reasons I’ll get to at the finish line, but some mods are difficult at best to undo.

I am not opposed to mods that improve the drivability of the car, though. Some Corvettes didn’t have much horsepower (as little as 180 in the late ’70s). Others had unacceptably (by today’s standards) narrow tires and wheels, and insufficient brakes. The seats in earlier Vettes wouldn’t do a good job keeping the driver in place. Most Corvettes before late in the C3 generation didn’t have air conditioning, and factory radios are not of the quality you can get from the aftermarket. And I would not own a C4 without a replacement for the hideously bizarre instrument cluster.

Part of my rationale also is the obvious (to me, anyway) dictum that Corvettes should be driven. I would not want to own a Corvette, or any collector car, that was restored or built so perfectly that I would be afraid of driving it for marring its appearance or diminishing its resale value.