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Any time a rare vehicle comes up for sale at auction, qualified buyers are guaranteed to spend hours drooling over it before the auction date ever arrives. This famous 1954 Corvette [2] will be for sale at an upcoming Mecum auction in Kissimmee, Florida, to take place between January 18th-27th, 2013. And what’s so special about this particular Corvette, you ask? It was placed in an enclosure in the wall of a Brunswick, Maine grocery store owned by a local businessman, Richard Sampson. Sampson was not just any businessman, though, as he owned a chain of 33 grocery stores as part of his “day job”. He also served as a Senator from Maine and ran for the state’s governorship.
These things are not what make the car special, however. Initially, Sampson left orders in his will that the car remain buried in the building until the year 2000, but later rescinded that wish prior to his death in 1969. The car sat buried in the wall of the store for 27 years before it was finally removed by a subsequent owner of the building and given to Sampson’s daughter Cynthia. She then displayed the car in her living room in a house in Daytona Beach for a decade before being sold to a collector who promised to keep the car as original as the day it left the supermarket’s structure.
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This car appears exactly as it did the day it was removed from its tomb.
What we have here is an amazing version of the 1954 Corvette that is completely unrestored and still wears the same 2,331 miles on the odometer as the day it was built into the building. The car has been in the Bloomington Gold Special Collection and is one of the rarest Corvettes in existence. The opportunity is coming up for you to add it to your collection – will it fit?