Norm Dotti, 78, an acoustical engineer living in Forked River, N.J., on his 1967 and 2023 Chevrolet Corvettes, as told to A.J. Baime.

In 1954, when I was in the fourth grade, my father, who worked for Chevrolet, came home one day in a new white two-seater with a red interior—a loaner from the company. Turns out, this was the Corvette. It was totally new to everybody, certainly something the neighborhood had never seen before. My mother drove it around for a couple of days, and then my father returned it. But I never forgot that car.