In a normal social setting, David Smitheram seems to be (to an American, at least), the stereotypical Englishman—reserved, soft-spoken, unassuming, and capable of delivering a cutting barb that sounds almost like a compliment. If he told you he studied aquarium fish at an agricultural college, you’d say to yourself, Yeah, well. That figures. But if he then informed you that he drives and races a modified C6 Corvette at sites all over the world, you’d likely respond with skepticism.
So, how did an Englishman come to choose America’s Sports Car over the small-bore sports and GT machines from the UK and the Continent? “My dad loves motorsports,” Smitheram relates. “Growing up in Norfolk, we watched everything from Formula One and RallyCross to club-level racing. Near our home was Snetterton race circuit, which used to be an American [B-24] Liberator base during the war. We would go out there to watch touring cars, historics, and all sorts. So, I guess that is where it started.”
Did his father have a personal car that matched his interest? Not exactly, as Smitheram notes: “When I was growing up, dad always had rubbish cars. When my sister and I left home, he was able to get something good, a Fiat Coupé 20VT, which you guys don’t have [in the U.S.]. I bought it from him a couple years later, and that coincided with the advent of internet forums and track days.”
Once Smitheram got a taste of grassroots motorsports, the hook was set and he left his aquatics background to set up a car-filming business, Fast Films. The enterprise was short-lived, but it led to him becoming managing director at the Classic Sports Car Club (CSCC), where he has worked for the past 14 race seasons, organizing hundreds of motor racing events for its members, including sessions at Daytona and Sebring.
Near Nordkapp, Norway, the northernmost point in mainland Europe.
Catching the Bug
It was during a track day at Laguna Seca in 2016, where Smitheram was lapping in a BMW Z4M, that he had a transformative encounter with a Corvette. “I just walked up to a guy with a C6 Grand Sport and asked for a lap,” he recalls. “He said, ‘Sure, let’s go.’ The lap was fun and the car sounded great. At our hotel that night, I looked at Corvette prices online and found that, for the look and the performance, they were a really good value. So, that was the catalyst.”
Smitheram and his wife developed a plan to buy an affordable Corvette in the States, fly over to pick it up, then drive it to a port where they’d have it shipped to the UK. Why take on such a logistical challenge? Although Corvettes have been sold since the C5 era, most are automatics, a nonstarter for this road-course driver.
It took almost a year, but Smitheram finally found a 2007 coupe with 190,000 miles for less than $10,000. The high miles didn’t deter him, because he intended use the car for track sessions and road trips. And while he would have liked to find a car equipped with the Z51 Performance Package and perhaps a few modifications, his budget didn’t allow for it. He put down a deposit in December 2017, and returned not long after to pick up his new-to-him Corvette.
“Before leaving California, we did part of the Pacific Coast Highway,” he says. “We then headed into Arizona and toured Seligman and Kingman via Route 66. We went to Monument Valley, including ‘Forrest Gump Point.’ From there, since we were so close, we went to the Grand Canyon, which was spectacular.”
Next, the couple headed east into New Mexico and stopped at the kitschy, little town of Roswell, a cynosure of UFO and conspiracy culture. The final stop on the trip was in Austin, Texas, where Smitheram enjoyed a track day at Circuit of the Americas. Finally, they dropped the Corvette off at the Port of Houston for shipment to the UK.
The trip understandably attracted viewers to Smitheram’s YouTube channel, with the Corvette being the star. The car soon took on the name “Clive,” which led to Smitheram’s writing a children’s book titled Clive the Corvette. That book has since grown into a series of four GM-approved titled, which are on Amazon and in the NCM Store.
Once he had the Corvette in his driveway, it took Smitheram a little over a month to make the car legal to drive on UK roads. Since their 200-year-old house only has a small, single-car garage more suited to a classic MG, Smitheram constructed a small carport in his driveway, bought a small lift, and began making a series of modifications and upgrades to make the Corvette more track-worthy.
“The LS2 is nearly stock, but a ticking lifter meant the heads needed to come off, so I took the opportunity to upgrade a few parts,” he says. “Not for performance, but reliability. Things like hardened pushrods, a high-volume oil pump, beehive valve springs, just in case I fancy going for a cam at some stage.”
Bending into the Nürburgring’s Karussell corner.
Next came headers, high-flow catalytic converters, and a bi-mode 3-inch Z06 exhaust, which Smitheram reckons might have been good for a bump of about 30 horsepower. To help with temperatures and g forces, he uses LiquiMoly oil running through an Improved Racing oil cooler and sump baffles. He notes that the most useful modification he’s made thus far was the installation of 4.10 gears and a lightweight flywheel, which make the car much more responsive on England’s smaller roads.
“As far as the suspension, almost everybody seems to make the jump to coil-overs, but that’s not how it came from the factory,” he continues. “I like the simplicity and the advantages of the leaf springs…so I installed KW V3 double-adjustable dampers, a Hyperco Race front leaf spring, a Z06 rear leaf spring, and Z06 sway bars.” Brembo/Cadillac four-piston calipers, EBC SR21 pads, and Yokohama Tires help yield a car whose handling and stopping power are arguably superior to that of a stock Z51.
Globe Trotter
Once those mods were complete, Smitheram set off on a series of trips that would make the typical North American motorsports fan salivate. He has attended track days at the most iconic racetracks in the UK and Europe, including Silverstone, Hockenheim, Spa, and the Nürburgring. He also participated in a number of racing series, namely Time Attack, Superlap Scotland, and the Pomeroy Trophy.
With such track-oriented modifications being made to such a high-mileage car, one might wonder whether reliability has been affected. Not according to Smitheram, who notes, “Inevitably track miles will wear out consumables at a faster rate, but the list of mechanical [failures] has been very small. The six-speed was rebuilt by RPM Transmissions at 180,000 miles, a noisy lifter was replaced at 195,000 miles, and during the latter process it was discovered that the LS3-style chain tensioner had broken up and was in pieces in the sump. The harmonic balancer was replaced at the same time.”
Not only has Smitheram put miles on his C6 at track days, he’s road-tripped the Corvette extensively. And not just to the usual European destinations like Belgium, France, and Germany, but to the edges of the continent and beyond. When he and his wife were on one of their many trips to the south of Spain, Smitheram had an epiphany. “If you look at a map of Spain, you’ll see that the Sahara Desert is not that far away; it’s just across the Mediterranean,” he says. “I just thought that would be a proper adventure.”
Smitheram freely admits he was a bit nervous about the sojourn, because as far as he knew there was no Chevrolet dealer in Morocco, let alone a Corvette dealer or even a roadside assistance service. None of that deterred him, however. He asked a friend, Felix Page, if he fancied hopping in the passenger seat. Page agreed, and in December 2022 they were off.
One might expect for a premium sports car to generate a less-than-positive response in a nation that ranks 120th in the UN’s World Development Index, but that turned out not to be the case. “It was an amazing country and reaction,” Smitheram reports. “We got so much positive attention that we almost got tired of waving at people.”
Aside from a broken A/C compressor—caused by getting ignominiously stuck in the sand—and a dented header from the rough roads, the trip, which was documented on Smitheram’s YouTube channel, went smoothly. The vast majority of cars in the former French colony are Renaults or Dacias, along with the occasional old Mercedes diesel, so it’s no surprise that the only person—a customs officer they met on their way out of the country—actually knew what Smitheram was driving. Many others had never heard of the Corvette, or even Chevrolet.
To underscore the car’s 238K-mile odometer reading—roughly the distance to the Moon—Smitheram drove it to the Kennedy Space Center. There, it was photographed alongside Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong’s ’67 big-block.
While still in Morocco, Smitheram and Page contemplated their next big adventure. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Smitheram thought it would be exciting to head east and take the Corvette all the way to Red Square in Moscow. But that destination is now unlikely to be a viable option for some years. Instead, he decided to point the C6 north, toward the Arctic Circle. He’d been to Rudskogen in Norway for work, and loved both the people and the scenery there. The only problem was that there is no longer a ferry from the UK to Norway, so he would have to take the Channel Tunnel to France and drive up through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Denmark before finally boarding a ferry for their final destination.
Once Smitheram and Page landed south of Oslo, it was still another 728 miles to the Arctic Circle by the most direct route, but the two enjoyed numerous detours along the way. In the U.S., such a distance can be covered in less than 12 hours, thanks to the Interstate Highway System, but in Norway much of the route is made up of two-lane roads. And, of course, it was necessary to factor in plenty of extra time for documenting the breathtakingly beautiful natural splendor. To that end, Smitheram and Page were accompanied by a support vehicle and two assistants, who provided professional video and photos.
Initially, the plan was to drive to the Arctic Circle Center, take some photographs and video, and head home. However, Smitheram had sent a message to the officials at the world’s northernmost racetrack, Arctic Circle Raceway, to ask if his crew could pay a visit and get some photos during the 12-hour race that was being run that day. Track officials did him one better and allowed him to run a couple of hot laps during a caution period.
“It was lashing down rain, and though I had Yokohama AD09s, which are great all-round tires, [they aren’t] wet-weather tires,” reports Smitheram. “I had a couple fun laps, and once I came back into the pits, I just sat in the car for a moment, overcome with emotion and laughing out loud at the craziness of what I’d just experienced.”
Tearing it up on the Tail of the Dragon.
Upon leaving the track, they drove the final 30 miles to the Arctic Circle Center, which was supposed to be the terminus of the trip. But it didn’t quite turn out that way, as Smitheram relates: “We thought the Arctic Circle would be far enough, but then mission creep comes in. I said, ‘On a map it’s only a couple more inches to the northernmost point of mainland Europe. It was [actually] really far, but we decided to do it.”
The final push to Nordkapp was just 650 miles, which is like driving from New York City to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Easy, right? Well, again, European Route 6 (E6) is two lanes, and the group made numerous stops for photography. When they finally reached the North Cape Hall (71° 10’ 21” N, for you geography buffs), they took the customary selfies at the North Cape Globe, overlooking the North Sea, and started the long trek back to the UK. Two road trips to where the blacktop ends, and a little beyond, for a combined 8,000-plus miles in four weeks, with no breakdowns highlights the unrivaled utility and versatility of the late-model Corvette.
Coming Home
Upon returning from this adventure, Smitheram calculated that, in the next year, he would hit 238,855 miles, the average distance to the Moon. So, with significant work from Stephen Johnson at the National Council of Corvette Clubs, Franc Storc of the Cape Kennedy (FL) Corvette Club, and NCM Ambassador Mike Buchanon, along with GM, Smitheram shipped Clive off to the Port of Brunswick in Georgia on March 25, 2025.
Upon picking the car up the following month, he immediately headed to Daytona International Speedway, followed by the Kennedy Space Center for a special photo shoot. As a historical nod to the connection between America’s Sports Car and the early NASA astronauts, the session took place in the Rocket Garden with Joe Crosby, the caretaker of Neil Armstrong’s 1967 Marina Blue 427/390 coupe. Upon leaving the Space Coast, Smitheram met up with his wife and son Austin (named after the racing circuit), and they enjoyed a vacation in the Florida Keys and Gulf Coast before driving to the NCM Bash event and a Clive the Corvette book signing. With Smitheram due back in the UK for work, he then left Clive in the caring hands of Buchanon and the NCM.
After returning in June with his photographer/videographer, Smitheram hit the track at NCM Motorsports Park, met with this author for an interview and photo shoot, and then pointed Clive towards the mountains along the Tennessee/North Carolina border to experience the famed Tail of the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway. The remainder of the trip involved attending the IMSA Six Hours of the Glen, followed by a short drive north of the border to visit Niagara Falls. The last leg took the duo down through Vermont and finally to the port in New York City, where after covering 16 states and 4,000 miles with no breakdowns, Clive began his long sea voyage back to the UK.
So, after eight years and tens of thousands of miles in multiple states, countries, and continents, are Clive’s travels at an end? Not quite, as Smitheram explains: “[That] 5,000-mile round trip to Moscow would be fascinating, but only if there were lasting peace. Alternatively, a 2027 recreation of the Car and Driver ‘Dempster Highway’ epic is appealing, but such a costly trip would require sponsors. Using the photos from this last trip to the States, I will write a fifth children’s book, Clive to the Moon.”
Smitheram clearly prioritizes using and enjoying his Corvette over keeping the mileage low, and the car wears its odometer reading with pride. And while he admits there is nothing rare or special about his C6 coupe, that’s OK. It has changed his life, and the lives of the many who have encountered it, for the better.
