Photos courtesy Bob McDorman Automotive Museum.
While his name no longer graces the dealership that he ran for the better part of five decades, Bob McDorman still retained a 15 percent stake in it, partly to fulfill his love of cars and partly to meet his goal of remaining in business for 50 years. McDorman, however, fell short of the latter goal by just a few months when he died last week at the age of 82.
McDorman, of Canal Winchester, Ohio, and a fixture of the Columbus, Ohio, automotive scene for as long as most people can recall, bought his dealership in 1965 after a number of years as a salesman and parts manager at other dealerships. Corvettes, in part, drove him to obtain the dealership, even though he had only admired them from afar over the previous dozen years.
“I thought it was the neatest little car that I had ever laid my eyes on,” McDorman wrote of his passion for Corvettes. “I couldn’t believe that Chevrolet had designed a car that sharp. From there on, I’ve had a passion for them. I remember when that ’63 split-window came out. I wanted one so bad I could taste it.”
About the same time he went into business for himself, he began his collection of mostly Corvettes, but also of other vintage Chevrolets. More than 150 cars eventually passed through his collection, including Bunkie Knudsen’s experimental 1963 Corvette, Bill Mitchell’s experimental 1964 Corvette, the first 1970 Chevrolet Camaro, Zora Arkus-Duntov’s test-mule 1954 Corvette, and a complete run of all first- and second-generation Corvettes, among many others.
McDorman sold off portions of his collection in 2005 and 2007 before the headline-making all-no-reserve 2010 sale of cars, parts, and automobilia that netted $7 million, which he said was necessary to keep the dealership running. In 2011 he sold a majority of the dealership to Jeff Wyler, though he kept a 15 percent stake in it so he could claim 50 continuous years as a Chevrolet dealer this September.
With a little more time on his hands, McDorman then opened the non-profit Bob McDorman Auto Museum last summer to show off the 50 or so cars still in his collection, along with his archive of memorabilia and light show of neon signs. Along with his nomination to the Bloomington Gold Great Hall in 2010, McDorman was selected for the Corvette Hall of Fame in 2012. As noted in his biography for the latter, McDorman had accumulated and sold off Corvette collections three times in his life, showing his persistence when it comes to building such collections. The museum will apparently remain open.
Bob died Wednesday after a brief illness, according to his obituary. He would have turned 83 today.
