Collecting and restoring Corvettes isn’t for the faint of heart and no one knows this better than Tony Parella. As the owner of over two dozen Corvettes all with NCRS Top Flight certifications, Bloomington Gold certifications, or both, Parella knows a little something about all the work that goes into restoring America’s favorite sports car. Check out Parella’s fantastic Corvette collection on this episode of Vette Collections [1] in the CorvetteTVShow video above.
[2] Born with a birth defect, Parella never let what some might consider a disadvantage get in his way. Now a successful business man and entrepreneur, Parella spends his free time restoring vehicles in his own personal collection. Among them are at least one Corvette from each production year from 1953 to 1982.
Parella started collecting Corvettes in 1990, purchasing a 1959 Corvette as his first project. After restoring the car that had the same birth year as he did, Parella sold the car, regretting the sale almost instantaneously. Fortunately for him, Parella found the car three years later and reunited with it, never looking back since.
[3] Among the other Corvettes that call Parella’s garage home are the 64th Corvette produced in 1953, a ’63 split window coupe, ’67 big block roadster, a never registered ’78 pace car with only 400 miles on the odometer and the very last Stingray ever produced in 1976.
So what is Parella doing with all of these cars, besides enjoying them of course?
Well, he wants to give back to the community and open a Corvette museum to benefit children’s charities. Not a bad goal considering Parella has more than enough museum-quality Corvettes to display.
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