Yay, one of my rants paid off. Also, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a car loan but if not, it’s always a good thing to get a “major” loan under your belt and paid off while you’re young to build credit. So if you have $20k available, find a Z06 for $26k. If the owner is “cool” he’ll let you give him a cashier’s check for say $16k to save you well over $1k in taxes. Then finance exactly $10k + taxes/fees (most credit agencies consider $10k+ a “major” loan). Payments on $10k are jack shit (Google loan payment calculator to get an idea). Make sure your loan has no early pay-off fees and you can make extra payments directly against the principle. Then pay that biatch off in 1-2 years instead of the 5 or whatever your loan term is.
Now, again assuming you had the $20k to spend you mentioned earlier in the thread, you only put $16k out of pocket so far. That leaves $4k to mod it. Whore up CorvetteForum and find a good set of used LTs/X-pipe, cam ('n all the install goodies/springs/etc) and get a tune. Get some '04 shocks and maybe a T1 front sway bar (I pull 1.39 Gs on stock springs, '04 shocks, T1 front bar, and no back bar). Then proceed to rape people in the face.
-TJ