Hib Halverson
So…you’re going to do a two-week road trip in your Corvette. For a 14-day run, your car will be chock-full of suitcases or duffle bags, backpacks and maybe a cooler, a lap top bag and whatever else you need. Since 2002, my Wife, the Fairest Sandra the Red, and I have been involved with organizing the National Corvette Caravan Section for the southwestern U.S. In 2019, we’ll go on our fourth Caravan. Between those trips, Caravan PreRun trips and other long-distance road trips, one or both of us has been cross-country in a Corvette more than a dozen times. Each was for a week to 14 days. Packing enough stuff in a Corvette for two weeks can be a challenge. Having durable luggage sized to just fit the space you have in the back of a Corvette can make road-tripping easier.”
ClubGlove USA has the solution for any Corvetter’s luggage needs with its new line of GM licensed, Corvette luggage. If you play golf, you’ve heard of “ClubGlove”. Its first product was golf club head covers, but it’s best known for “The Last Bag.” Named that because it’s the last bag for traveling with golf clubs anyone ever buys. The Last Bag is used by over 80% of PGA Tour players, people who travel constantly all over the World, in planes, trains, buses and cars. Golf Digest named it one of the “…top 10 innovations in golf in the last 20 years”.
In the Fall of 2018, ClubGlove developed its Corvette luggage which was licensed early in 2019. “Other products on the market for Corvette owners are made off-shore and have various compromises in quality and performance to facilitate a low price,” ClubGlove President Jeff Herold told the Corvette Action Center, “Think about this: luggage is the only consumer product which is handled more often by non-owners who don’t care how abusive their handling becomes than it is handled by the people who own the product. That in mind, we wanted to bring the same, high standard of quality, reliability and durability we use in our golf line to luggage for Corvette owners, especially those who regularly use their cars for long road trips and, also, frequently travel by air, train, tour bus or cruise ship and fear damage by abusive or negligent baggage handlers.”
GlubGlove makes two brands of premium Corvette baggage, “Rolling Luggage” and “TRS Ballistic Luggage.” Both are manufactured in Southern California to stringent quality standards. All pieces in both lines can be embroidered with any one of the eight Corvette logos. Both lines use reliable and durable YKK® zippers with dog-bone handles and ITW Nexus® Buckles. The larger pieces with wheels have the same heavy-duty parts used in high-end, in-line roller skates. The wheels are mounted in a high-impact frame which is riveted to the bag material. Some of these products have telescoping, adjustable and retractable handles. When retracted, the handle is in a recess to protect it. All Club Glove Corvette luggage is backed by a lifetime limited warranty and a five-year, no-questions-asked warranty upgrade is available at extra cost.
Club Glove “Rolling Luggage” is made of Invista Cordura brand 1000 denier, water-resistant, nylon fabric which is up to three times stronger and lasts up to five times longer than standard polyester. When not in use, Rolling Luggage prices and store flat for easy storage. All Club Glove Rolling Luggage pieces are available in 16 colors. “The 1000D Cordura has a more cotton like look and feel,” Jeff Herold told us. “1000D Cordura was originally designed to outperform canvas and this is why it has a softer feel. It was so well made that the fabric was used for backpacks, duffel bags, and many other products that could have been made of canvas. It was also much lighter weight than canvas.”
The “TRS Ballistic” line offers an even higher level of protection from crazed baggage handlers who personify brute strength and ignorance. TRS Ballistic is designed for the Corvette road-tripper wanting the ultimate in durable and functional luggage. TRS Ballistic bags are made with Invista Cordura, 1050 denier, mil-spec ballistic nylon fabric. Because it is the strongest fabric available, 1050 denier Cordura is the ideal material for high-end luggage destined for a long life of rough treatment. The side and end panels of the Ballistic Check-Ins are reinforced with webbing made from airline seat belt material attached to the Cordura with a diamond pattern of metal rivets.
People who carefully shop for luggage sometimes find certain luggage makers talking about “1680 denier” material. We asked Jeff Herold about that. “For those well-versed in the fabric industry,” Jeff told us, “it is common knowledge that imported 1680D Nylon or Polyester is actually 840D that is double woven and called ‘1680D’. If Invista was to do the same with its Cordura ballistic fabric, it would actually would be a ‘2100D’ fabric. We tested both imported 1680D and Invista’s 1050D fabrics and there is no doubt that the American-made ballistic fabric outperforms anything else in the world. They all look the same when they are brand-new, but the true test is what do they look like after several years of heavy travel. The 1050D Ballistic has a much smoother shinier surface. Both the 1000D and 1050D Cordura are tremendously durable, but the Ballistic can outperform the standard 1000D Cordura in some severe duty situations. The ballistic material is considerably heavier in weight than the standard Cordura.
During research for this product evaluation, in early March 2019, I toured ClubGlove’s manufacturing facilities in Huntington Beach, California. I learned that Club Glove Corvette luggage is not only made in USA, but excepting the telescoping handles, which are unavailable from a domestic source, all raw materials–fabrics, thread, reinforcing webs of aircraft seat belt material, foam reinforcement used in some TRS Ballistic products, in-line-skate wheel assemblies, nuts, bolts, rivets and even the packaging–is all from domestic sources. The fabric, zippers, buckles and so forth are made to military-specifications. Yes, you pay a premium price for this luggage but, in our opinion, it’s built to last a lifetime and is a great choice for Corvetters who travel frequently by car as well as by plane, ship, bus or whatever other method of travel you choose.
This CAC review comes from two experiences with Club Glove Corvette luggage. My Wife and I bought a pair of Club Glove TRS Ballistic “Check-In” models in black and embroidered with the C7 logos. My 2019 Caravan boss, Section Captain, Tony Megowan and his Wife, Paula, bought a pair of the Club Glove Roller series “Carry On” models also with the C7 logo.
I picked up our two Ballistic Check-Ins at the end of my visit to Club Glove’s factory. Two weeks later, Sandy and I packed 14-days worth of clothes, jackets, shoes and toiletries in the two Check-Ins. We caught a Southwest Jet to Nashville, then we dumped the bags in the back of a Nissan rental and headed for Blowing Green and the National Corvette Museum to take delivery of a 2019 ZR1. Two days later it was time to pack-up and leave B.G. headed back home to California. The width and height of the TRS Ballistic Check-Ins was such that two of them, fit easily into the back of a C7 Coupe. In fact, there is even enough width for three of them side-by-side. Everything but our laptop, camera gear and merch we bought on the trip fit in those two bags.
Handling TRS Ballistic pieces is relatively easy, even when the bags are fully-loaded. They are easy to wheel around due to that strong telescoping handle and in-line-skate wheels. The wheels and wheel frame are designed so the wheels can be replaced in the rare case of a failure and replacement parts are available from Club Glove. Once you or a baggage handler needs to pick-up one of these pieces of luggage, there are robust handles on the top and side of the bags. Another handy feature is both the larger TRS Ballistic and the Rolling Luggage lines, using Club Glove’s “Train Reaction” feature, can be strapped together. As many as three pieces can be strapped together and pulled by one person. We tried this at Burbank Airport, again, at the Nashville airport and then on parking lots of several of the hotel properties we visited. The TRS Ballistic bags have a built in Train Reaction strap which I deployed then wrapped around the handle of the second bag. I cinched it tight then towed both bags. Because of the inline skate wheels and how the second bag balanced on those wheels, pulling two of them wasn’t much different than pulling just one. I think the Train Reaction system is a great idea. A couple can easily travel with up to six big bags and require no baggage help moving around airports or hotels. Each rolling bag has a zippered pocket in which you stow the TRS strap when not it’s in use.
Another handy feature Club Glove offers in the larger pieces of luggage is its Nylon Mesh Packing Modules. Our two Check-In bags each came with four of these modules of three different sizes. I used one for undies, one for socks, one for a extra pair of shoes and one for sweat shirts. The Packing Modules are an extra cost option for the Roller Luggage line and a standard feature of the TRS Ballistic line.
Our two-week evaluation of the TRS Ballistic Check-In luggage ended with two-thumbs-up for this product. The two Ballistic Check-Ins will likely be the last large pieces of luggage I ever buy. After the Caravan, Sandy are I are planning a trip to Iceland, Ireland and Scotland and, no doubt, various airline baggage handlers will try to (unsuccessfully) beat the crap out of these bags. The two bags will hold almost everything we take with us in that trip.
My boss on the 2019 Southwest Corvette Caravan Organizing Team, Tony Megowan, purchased two of Club Glove’s “Carry-On” sized Roller Luggage and one of the “Rolling Duffle” size. When Tony and his Wife Paula travel by air, they prefer to use only carry-on luggage. They found that two of those pieces of Roller Luggage easily fit in the back of their C7 Coupe leaving lots of room for Tony’s Club Glove Laptop Bag, a camera bag and a plastic crate full of Caravan operations equipment. Tony tested his two Roller Carry-Ons on the final full rerun trip he ran over the Southwest Section’s 2400-mile route. His results with the Club Glove GM-licensed Corvette Luggage was just like ours. That is, the Club Glove Corvette bags fit perfectly in a Corvette and make the road-trip process easier. Tony likes his Corvette luggage so much that prior to the actual Caravan this August he purchased the “Rolling Duffle” just for long road trips where the two Carry-Ons don’t have enough room.
For more information see the Club Glove web site or contact Club Glove USA at 714.843.9288.
