The Life and Times of a Latch-key Surf Rat: Long Forgotten Corvette Collection Rediscovered.

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.

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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.