Long Forgotten Corvette Collection Rediscovered
By Ken Lewis
A long overlooked Corvette collection (36 of them to be exact) has
been sitting in various storage garages for over 25 years just waiting
to hit the open road. So how did this collection come into being? In
1989 music network VH1 organized the largest prize giveaway ever done at
that time. They organized a massive giveaway of Chevrolet Corvettes,
one from every year from 1953-1989.
Thousands entered but only one
person was declared the winner and his name was Dennis Amodeo . In
grandiose fashion, VH1 handed Amodeo a bag of keys for the cars
presented to him by the singer from The Beach Boys and VH1 used Amodeo's
image on every commercial possible to maximize their clever promotion
and turned him into their poster child for their network. At first
glance it seems like a big waste of funds but their platform for people
to enter was toll calls at $2 per entry. The savvy network not only made
back their investment money, they also made a profit on the promotion
and did that in just a few weeks.
The grouping of the classic cars
was estimated to be worth over $600,000 at the time, a huge amount for
any car collection. While excited to win, Amodeo soon fielded a phone
call from an interested person who wanted to buy the whole collection to
use in an art project. Soon Amodeo parted ways with his stash of
corvettes and sold them to a New York photographer named Peter Max. The
sale was for an estimated $250,000 in cash, $250,000 more in Peter Max's
art and future potential profits.
Max stored his newly acquired booty
into various storage garages over the next 25 years, always promising to
do some kind of art show or display the cars. But words are just talk
and not all promises are kept, and soon these gems were slowly forgotten
about by the mainstream and decades of dust and disrepair fell onto the
iconic American vehicles.
That is until recently when new
pictures of the ghostly collection were revealed for the first time in
years. It turns out Max was looking for yet another place to move the
collection a few months ago when he was approached by a man and his
partners who wanted to discuss the possibility of buying the whole lot.
Soon a deal was reached and the cars have been freed from their dusty
morgue and are slowly being re-animated to their original state.
While
some of the vettes just don't lend themselves to being restored (as
their value isn't close to what it would cost to get them road-worthy)
there are a few gems in the lot which will eventually be show stoppers
if and when they are ever brought to auction. We will post more pics
soon of some of the restored vehicles, till then please click the arrows
below to see the incredible photos.
- 1964 Chevy Stingray Corvette just begging to be a restomod. Photo: Richard Prince
- 1969 Stingray sits among the others waiting for decades to be rediscovered. Photo: Richard Prince
- Interior of a 1977 Chevy Corvette awaits restoration. Photo: Richard Prince
- Yellow 1977 Vette. Photo: Richard Prince
- 1984 Corvette sitting for decades. Photo: Richard Prince
