Traverse City, Michigan – On the morning of February 22, 2017, Dave Fischbach woke up at his Southgate hotel to find his prized 1960 Corvette, the trailer it sat upon, his Jeep and 1994 Ford F350 truck gone.
Fischbach, the owner of Dave’s Collision & Car Repair in Bellaire, bought the Corvette around 2003 and poured countless hours and dollars into restoring and upgrading the entire car. “There wasn’t anything we didn’t do to that car,” he said. The body alone took four to five months to complete.
Since the restoration, the Corvette won numerous National Corvette Show awards and Fischbach was on his way on his way to the Autorama, an indoor custom car show in Detroit held Feb. 24-26, when he parked it at the hotel for the night on February 21st.
Fischbach immediately reported the theft to the authorities who shortly after found his truck and prized Corvette burned to the ground.
“They took a three-time National Corvette Show winner and cut it up in three pieces and burned it,” he said Thursday. “I can’t even describe my feelings. They totally destroyed my passion for cars right now.”
While the remains of the truck and Corvette were found within miles of each other, the Jeep has yet to be found and the incident is still under investigation.
“They didn’t just destroy a car, they destroyed me,” he said.
Source: Traverse City Record Eagle