I remember rubbing glycerin into the rubber moldings. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Posted on 02/16/2010 4:19:42 AM PST by Daffynition
In 1989, VH1 gave away 36 vintage Corvettes in a contest. The winner sold those cars to artist Peter Max, who let them rot in a Brooklyn parking garage for twenty years. The cars recently disappeared. This is their story.
In 1988, VH1 was struggling for ratings. As part of a publicity stunt, the music video network spent a truckload of money on 36 vintage Corvettes. The cars were given away in a telephone sweepstakes the next year, and one winner walked off with the complete set.
The contest was the brainchild of freelance TV producer Jim Cahill. VH1 charged him with the task of raising the network's national profile and attracting the then-vibrant baby-boomer demographic. He came up with the idea — give away one car from every year of the Corvette's three-and-a-half-decade history — while sitting on the freeway in Los Angeles.
What followed was a buying spree of epic proportions. Over the course of several months in 1988, Cahill spent $610,000 — roughly $1.1 million when adjusted for inflation — of VH1's money on what must have seemed like the automotive purchasing orgy of a lifetime. According to a period article in Vette magazine, the 36 cars that he bought were "drivers," not "Bloomington cars." Fourteen were convertibles, and 25 of the 36 contained automatic transmissions (eww). Cahill shepherded the cars from commercial shoot to commercial shoot, kept them fastidiously clean, and generally went to town with the whole mess. He also did what any of us would do — he drove one home each night for 36 nights. (He has since noted that, although some of the cars were healthy and drove well, many of them were nightmarishly bad.)
To facilitate the contest and help recoup some of the investment, VH1 set up a 900 number that charged two dollars per call. Prospective entrants called the number to register, and AT&T gave the network $1.49 from every call. 190,000 people called in the first day, 1.3 million registered in total, and VH1 made its money back in less than two weeks. Amazingly, the contest was won by Dennis Amadeo, a carpenter from Long Island who entered only once. He flew to California and was given the five-pound bag of keys by ex-Beach Boy Mike Love in a ceremony in Culver City.
This is where it gets weird.
Enter Peter Max. Max, a Manhattan-dwelling American graphic artist responsible for a large part of the 1960s pyschedelic design movement, was, and is not, a car guy. He gained fame for his "Cosmic '60s" style and use of vibrant color, and while he has painted everything from a Boeing 777 to Dale Earnhardt's NASCAR Monte Carlo, he isn't the type of celebrity to have a Lenoesque garage full of automotive weirdness. Nevertheless, he bought the cars from Amadeo. As he tells it, he found out about the collection through a friend, fell asleep shortly after, and had a dream that included cheerleaders, the 36 'vettes, and a stadium full of people yelling "They're Peter Max's cars!" Naturally, when he woke up, he got out his wallet. (We make our spontaneous, million-dollar decisions based on REM sleep, too. Doesn't everybody?)
Max contacted Amadeo, made a deal — $250,000 cash plus $250,000 in artwork and a portion of the proceeds should the cars be sold again — and, despite a few reservations, had the Corvettes shipped to New York. Cahill facilitated the preparation and handover of all 36 cars, ensuring that they were both clean and driveable when they were put on the truck.
This is where it starts to get depressing: Because Max was then involved in a number of different projects (not the least of which was an IRS investigation), the Corvettes sat, were moved, and then sat again. They eventually ended up in the basement of a Brooklyn apartment building that had once been a New York Daily News printing plant. They sat there, gathering dust, for years.
[snip]
Cahill had them detailed every few weeks when they were in his care.
In a million years they will be puddles of goo.
I remember rubbing glycerin into the rubber moldings. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
PETER MAX'S 36 CORVETTES ARE MISSING, AND BACK IN THE NEWS!
The story about Peter Max's 36 "lost" Corvettes really started back in 2005, and it's now back in the news because the Corvettes are gone.
(UPDATE: We found Peter Max's new Corvette dungeon)
All *NEW* and recent developments from 2010 ...
This whole story started in 2005...
(Peter Max) Part 1 / NY Times - "Vette Set: An Artist’s Dream Collection Relocates"
(Peter Max) Part 2 / NY Times - "Appreciated, Certainly, but Not Appreciating"
(Peter Max) Part 3 / GONE! First photos of the last known location of Peter Max's 36
(Peter Max) Part 4 / Twitter user snaps pics of Corvettes being taken out!
(Peter Max) Part 5 - NY Times article shows how Peter wants to paint the Corvettes
NEW! (Peter Max) Part 6 - FOUND THEM! Exclusive and first photos of Peter Max's new Corvette dungeon!
No one loves these 36 Corvettes
2005 covert mission to photograph and document Peter Max's 36 Corvettes
Full listing of all Peter Max Corvettes discussion threads/posts starting in 2005
Vette Garage: The Series is a new Corvette show in HD. Go watch it now!
We are concerned for the well being of the 1953 Corvette with VIN# E53F001291 (53,892 miles on the odometer). If you know where the 36 Corvettes have been moved to, please email patrick@digitalcorvettes.com.
If you have photos of the Corvettes being loaded or unloaded, or in their new location please email them to patrick@digitalcorvettes.com.
No kidding.
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