Unseen for years, 36 Corvettes to hit road
NEW YORK — The ’56 starred in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” with Jerry Seinfeld and Jimmy Fallon in supporting roles. The ’89 is so ’80s — it has one of those early digital dashboards, with a big-digit speedometer, that were panned by aficionados. The ’53, one of only 100 or so that still exist, has been through a 4,000-hour restoration.
They are among 36 Chevrolet Corvettes from a legendary collection: one from each production year between 1953, when the car made its debut, and 1989. For more than 25 years, they have languished in one New York City parking garage or another.
“The cool thing about these cars is the entire collection stayed together all this time,” said Chris Mazzilli, a longtime Corvette enthusiast who is also an owner of the Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan. He called the cars “the largest Corvette barn-find in history.”
In 2020, they will be given away in a contest. It will be the second time they have served as contest prizes, but this time, the collection will be broken up. There will be 36 winners, not just one.
The current owners, the Heller and Spindler families, did not win that first contest, a VH1 promotion in 1989. They bought the cars from the artist Peter Max, the psychedelic art phenomenon who had put eye-popping colors on postage stamps, pianos, posters and even a Boeing 777. He had not entered the VH1 contest either. He bought the Corvettes from the actual winner, who did not even have a garage.
The owners have set up a group called Corvette Heroes and have promised money from ticket sales to the National Guard Educational Foundation. One ticket — one chance to win one of the Corvettes — costs $3. There are discounts for larger purchases: five tickets are $10, 20 tickets go for $25 and so on, up to 7,200 tickets for $5,000, according to the schedule on the Corvette Heroes’ website.
The 36 winners will be chosen at random, said Scott Heller, one of the owners. Another drawing will decide which winner gets which Corvette.
The 1989 VH1 contest grew out of a brainstorm during — what else? — a Los Angeles traffic jam. A music producer, Jim Cahill, spotted a Corvette in a nearby lane, and his mind wandered. “When I was a kid in Chicago, I really wanted that car,” he said at the time, “but it was always out of my reach. That’s how I thought of it, taking out my frustration at never being able to have one.”
In those pre-internet days, the contest involved dialing a 900 number that cost $2 a call. More than 1 million people entered. Cahill’s prescription for the winner? “Keep a dozen. Sell a dozen. Give a dozen to your friends.”
The winner — Dennis Amodeo, a carpenter from Huntington, N.Y. — did not do that. Before he could figure out where to store them, he heard from Max, who offered to buy all 36 cars.
The cars languished in a Midtown garage until the building was sold and the cars had to be moved. That was when Heller encountered Max. “I was the garage broker who moved the cars for Peter,” Heller said.
The ’Vettes went to a new home, in the Flatiron district. Heller was involved again several years later, when the cars had to be moved out of that garage. They went first to Brooklyn and later to Upper Manhattan. They have since moved yet again, to the Lower East Side.
Mazzilli got involved after an event on Long Island in 2014. Mazzilli, who was showing his own ’71 Corvette, went to get a bottle of water.
When he returned, “There were two feet sticking out from under my car.”
They belonged to Scott Heller’s cousin Peter, who asked Mazzilli about a ’53 Corvette. Then he asked about a ’54 Corvette, and a ’55.
“I said, ‘Are you talking about the Peter Max collection?’ ” Mazzilli recalled. “His face dropped.”