The Corvette Hunter. Tyler Greenblatt

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СКАЧАТЬ want to tell you this then because I didn’t know you, but I’m going to tell you now because I consider you like a son to me.” He paused. “I think you’re an ***hole.”

      Kevin wasn’t sure he had heard him correctly. He did.

      “You’re an ***hole, but I love you, and I’m going to tell you why you’re an ***hole. You’re doing the wrong kind of cars.”

      “What do you mean?” Kevin asked, taken aback as to why a man who had just complimented him was insulting him. “I’m doing Corvettes; what do you mean I’m working on the wrong cars?”

      “Listen to me, Kevin, and you’ll understand. Whether it’s a big-block Corvette or a small-block Corvette or a Tanker or a ZL1, all these cars are basically the same. They have the same bodies, same interiors, same chassis, and the only major difference is the engine.”

      Kevin couldn’t disagree with that. He had worked on enough of them to know what Mueller was talking about.

      “So you have that 300-horse car that you did,” Mueller continued, “which is really a gorgeous car; the only problem is there’s not any value on it. Now if this car were a 396, or a ’67 435-horse car, it would be worth double or triple the amount of money. Same body, same interior, same chassis; it’s just the engine that’s different. Now if you put all your heart and soul and your passion and talent into a rarer or more desirable car, you’d be better off. Your car wasn’t worth restoring. It’s a great car, a great driver and starter, but you’ve got to take it to a different level.”

      Kevin understood completely what Ed Mueller was telling him. The next car he bought for himself was a black-on-red ’67 427/435 coupe in March 1988. The options were incredible and Kevin later discovered that car was the legendary Bounty Hunter. He treated it to a complete frame-off restoration and, although he desperately wanted to keep it for himself, he had a financial partner in his growing business who didn’t share his vision and passion for the brand. In 1991, Kevin had had enough and decided to sell the car. Ed Mueller immediately stepped up to buy it and handed Kevin $100,000 in cash. “Now you’re getting smart,” he said. It was enough money to finish buying out his partner and lead Corvette Repair on his own.

      When he wasn’t working at the shop, which wasn’t often, Kevin was at home thumbing through old magazines. He started to become interested in what he considered to be the greatest Corvette option package ever made. He had quickly outgrown even ’67 Tri-Power cars and wanted to step up to the baddest of the bad: RPO L88. However, he couldn’t even come close to being able to afford one.

      He continued to look through the old magazines, admiring the famous L88 race cars that duked it out at Sebring, Daytona, and even Le Mans when it hit him. He had never seen or heard of most of these cars in present times. Of course the Grand Sports were known, as were some of the more famous race cars that had major class wins and continued to be used at showcase events through the years. Cars such as Roger Penske’s ’66 Sunoco Blue coupe that won back-to-back at Sebring and Daytona. But there were other class-winning factory L88s that had much success and were never seen again. So what if they were sitting in a junkyard somewhere with the engine missing? A factory L88 race car is still a factory L88 and could be restored as such just as easily as any other Corvette.

      “I realized that there were a lot of those cars out there that had never been found. The official publication of Corvette is Corvette News, and I thought that any car featured on the cover would have to be something important. A lot of them were factory L88s that won championships. I decided to go after all of them.

      “Some people started to get jealous. They’d say, ‘How can one guy find all these rare cars?’ You know how? When you don’t have a life, like me; that’s how you find these cars. My whole life I was just obsessed with the history of these cars and finding out where the hell they were. While others were on vacation or at home with their families watching a movie, you know what I was doing? I was looking through a telephone book or at the classified ads in an old magazine. I was studying photos in old books, making connections, and getting phone numbers. That’s what I was doing in my spare time. I’d sleep for six or seven hours, and the rest of the time I’d be hunting, restoring, working, repairing; whatever I had to do. So that’s how I found these cars. Other guys were at home. There’s nothing wrong with that; family is as important as anything, but at the time I wasn’t married, I was living on my own, I was independent, so my whole life was Corvettes. That’s why I got this stuff, because I had the drive and the will and the passion to do it.

      “I went down a lot of dead-end streets. Not everything was a pot of gold. A lot of cars turned up stolen, destroyed, or burned to the ground. But that’s the way it is.”

      As he started finding some of these long-lost race cars through perseverance and gut-bending willpower, he continued to learn from Ed Mueller about the investment side of the car hobby. He was brought in the loop of other well-known collectors including Chip Miller, founder of Corvettes at Carlisle, who also took Kevin under his wing and groomed him into one of the top Corvette experts in the world. Kevin’s first major Corvette sale in 2000 took three cars out of his garage and put $1 million into his bank account. He could have retired on the interest; instead, he spent all of it on his dream Corvette.

      Even as the cost of some restorations at Corvette Repair neared half a million dollars, and the awards continued to pile up more than any other Corvette shop in history, the featured magazine covers exceeded 100, and Kevin Mackay took on celebrity-like status on television and at car events worldwide, he never lost the drive to hunt down long-lost Corvettes.

      “I like the challenge, I like the hunt, and I love the history. It’s fun. Life is short; we’re only caretakers of these special cars, but as long as I’ve got my health I’ll keep plugging away. That’s what keeps me happy. I didn’t take my first vacation until I was 50 because I got married when I was 50.”

      With hardly any time available to date, how did he meet someone, fall in love, and get married? In ninth grade, Kevin started dating Christina, and the two quickly fell in love. From their first date when Kevin took her fishing to learning how to drive together in driver’s ed, they knew they were meant for each other. When Kevin turned 16, she gave him a seashell engraved with the words: Kevin And Christina, Love You Forever, 7/12/1973. The pair shared two years together, sharing first dates, first handholds, and first kisses.

      Kevin was the captain of his Junior High wrestling team and his coach, who was incidentally his and Christina’s driving instructor, told him that he couldn’t have any relationships; it would screw with his head. So Kevin broke up with Christina. She was devastated.

      Fast forward 30 years when Kevin received an invitation to his 30th high school reunion and, of course, went online to see who else had signed up to attend. He saw a familiar name: Christina Cantone. He couldn’t believe it. All the memories of his first love came back in a whirlwind rush. He had to contact her before the reunion, so he sent an email with the heading “Your First Love.” He said that he was looking forward to seeing her and he hoped that all was well. She responded, signing her email “Your First Love.” Sixty emails later, Christina called Corvette Repair and Kevin recognized her voice immediately. She asked how many kids Kevin had, to which he responded, “I was never married, I have no children, and I’m not gay.”

      “I have no kids, I’m divorced, and I’m not gay either,” she said. After they shared a good laugh, Kevin mentioned that he would be in West Palm Beach, Florida, the following week, near where Christina lived, for the Barrett-Jackson auction. She invited him to stay at her house. She told him that she had been so in love with him when she was a kid and that she had never gotten over him.

      He had never gotten over her either. That night, he went into his attic and opened СКАЧАТЬ