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00:01 These cars are the holy grail of the Corvette collectors.
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00:12 We basically have a museum of Corvettes here every year from 1953 all the way through 1989.
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00:20 This remarkable chronological collection of 36 Corvettes has been hidden for over 20 years.
00:27 Originally given away as a prize by music channel VH1 in 1989, the cars were soon bought
00:33 by artist Peter Max, whose plans to paint them never came to fruition.
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00:39 The new owners are restoring the vehicles to their former glory and Chris Mazzilli,
00:43 a Corvette expert, is consulting on the project.
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00:46 Some of these cars are going to need to be cleaned up, have the fluids changed.
00:50 Some cars are going to need a year's worth of work and some cars are going to need two
00:52 weeks worth of work.
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00:54 First, we'll start off with the most valuable car in the collection, a 1953 Corvette.
01:01 This car is one of 300 that were made and it's probably going to be worth somewhere
01:05 around a half a million dollars when the restoration is done.
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01:09 The crown jewel of the collection.
01:11 Unfortunately for us, it's requiring the most amount of work and we're putting a substantial
01:16 amount of money, well over six figures into that one individual car.
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01:21 So we think by the time we get done with the restoration, we'll have one of the most valuable
01:24 1953s in the world.
01:26 However, not all of the cars require so much work.
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01:30 So this next Corvette is a 66 coupe.
01:31 It's one of my favorite colors.
01:34 This is called Nassau blue and it has a white interior and that's the color combination
01:39 that came from the factory with.
01:41 The paint is not perfect on it, but it's a pretty solid original car.
01:44 This next car is a 1964 Corvette coupe.
01:47 This car originally was Irvine white, but now it's painted tuxedo black.
01:52 This car also has its original engine.
01:54 It's a 327 300 horsepower engine.
01:57 It's the one that the car was born with.
02:00 It also has a four speed transmission and that's the correct transmission that came
02:03 with the car.
02:05 So the interior in this car was in pretty good original condition.
02:09 What also makes it unique is it's silver leather and not a lot of cars came with silver leather
02:14 interior that particular year.
02:17 Many of the Corvettes are yet to be restored and are covered in 20 years worth of dust,
02:21 which isn't as bad as it sounds.
02:23 The fact of the matter is the dust is what ended up preventing the paint from being ruined.
02:28 So when we start washing these off and cleaning them with the special solution, the paint
02:32 on almost all of them is in perfect condition.
02:35 So that was a pleasant surprise when we started working on the first couple of cars.
02:40 When the restoration is complete, how much would the collection be worth?
02:44 It's a very, very valuable collection.
02:46 They're folklore.
02:47 People know about the car, so it's very hard to put a dollar amount on the cars because
02:50 who knows what the value of Peter Max and VH1 having these cars, but they're worth a
02:55 lot.
02:56 So what does the future hold for these 36 Corvettes?
03:00 We're being approached by people from all over the world who are interested in potentially
03:03 buying it or have other creative ideas for the collection.
03:07 So our original plan was to take all of them, get them into working condition, and then
03:11 go to the big auction houses.
03:13 But right now we're pretty much keeping our options open.
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