Kansas Man’s 1959 Corvette Set to Be Destroyed by State Over VIN Issues

After purchasing this 1959 Corvette in another state, the owner brought it home only to have it seized as contraband.

Laws tend to differ state by state, and in many cases, simply don’t make a lot of sense. That little fact is on full display right now in Kansas, where the owner of this 1959 Corvette – Richard Martinez – is fighting an intense legal battle to save his car from being destroyed by the state. Martinez had been looking for his self-proclaimed dream car for some time and found it at a dealer in Merrillville, Indiana. But after bringing the 1959 Corvette home back in 2017 and trying to register it, the car was promptly seized as “contraband” by the Kansas Highway Patrol, as Martinez explained to KCTV News.

The C1 has sat in KHP’s impound lot for four years now, waiting to be destroyed by the state over its VIN laws, which state that any vehicle that has had its identification number “destroyed, removed, altered or defaced” must be seized and destroyed. As it turns out, that’s precisely the case with Martinez’s new ride, even though he wasn’t aware of that at the time of purchase.

“What happened is they took it off to restore it,” Martinez said of the car’s VIN plate. “When they put it back on, they used modern bit rivets instead of old. You can buy the old rivets to put them back on but they didn’t. They just used modern rivets and put it back on.”

Making matters worse, the Corvette doesn’t have its original engine, so that VIN was no help either, and a third VIN underneath the car was inconsistent as well. As one might imagine, this sort of thing is no big deal in most states, at least in regards to restored vehicles, as this C1 was indeed registered in Illinois.

Making matters worse, the Corvette has sat outside all these years and has suffered damage as a result. So even if Martinez manages to win his legal battle with the state, he estimates that he’ll need to spend $28,000 to fix it up, on top of the $30,000 in legal fees he’s already spent.

Thus, even though no crime has been committed and even the state recognizes that Martinez did nothing wrong, he’s still being punished and could quite possibly see his dream car – which he spent $50,000 to acquire – be destroyed over a silly, antiquated law that needs to be revised for the modern era.

Photos: Rich Martinez

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