Photo Credit: Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle

Joe Flickinger didn’t let this one get away.

Inspired by memories of a C1 that got away from him a long time ago, the Salina, Kansas man took charge this time, and the result is a 1962 Corvette resto-mod that’s absolutely music to his ears?and everyone who sees and hears it.

?You really don’t need a sound system because the sound you want to hear is the car going down the road,? he told the Wichita Eagle.

The car is a perfect blending of a 1962 Corvette that he found on eBay nearly five years ago and a low-mileage 2005 C6 that he bought after it had been wrecked.

SRIII Motorsports in New Lenox, Ill., shrunk the C6 chassis to fit the C1 body, and the result is a car that does not flex, unlike the original C1s, according to Flickinger.

Meanwhile, he had to do some motor work to the C6 because the accident apparently damaged the engine. But on the bright side, that just enabled him to bore the block out .01 of an inch and stroke it with longer connecting rods. Coupled with headers he built and a Comp Cams street camshaft he installed, the ?new? motor now makes 500-hp. Plenty fast enough, but Flickinger says he hopes to raise that number to 600-hp with an upgrade to a dual throttle body injection system and a hotter cam.

Of course, paint is the finishing touch on a car like this, and Flickinger is thrilled with the results of Brad Umscheld of Paints Unlimited in Salina.

?He started at 6:30 in the morning and didn’t finish until 8:30 at night,? Flickinger said. ?He told me his arm was about to fall off by the time he got done.?

The Sunburst Orange car didn’t even require color sanding between coats, just a light buffing after the final clearcoat, he said.

Flickinger handled the interior himself, narrowing each seat by an inch and using modern materials, including two-tone tan Euro Leather and carbon fiber to fabricate the passenger grab bar. Other interior goodies include a flat three-spoke steering wheel, an electric speedometer and accessory gauges by Classic Instruments fitted to original bezels, a Pioneer sound/navigation system, and a Vintage Air AC system.

See the full photo gallery of Joe Flickinger’s Corvette at Kansas.com.