Making old racers change their ways isn't always easy, as Kevin Triplett learned. Kevin began his career by creating a couple of cars for quick resale at the budding Barrett-Jackson auction back in 2003. Taking note of the adrenaline-fueled bidding fury and occasionally overinflated selling prices, Kevin knew a good opportunity to launch a career when he saw one, and by 2005, he was hauling 12 cars to the Scottsdale, Arizona, auction.
The cars kept selling, allowing Kevin to build more complicated projects-the main problem was finding quality shops to work with. As they say, if you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself, so Kevin founded Tripnozzi Muscle Cars in Grand Junction, Colorado, with the initial objective of solely building auction cars. Word got around about his obsession with detail, and regular customers began to trickle in and the business expanded. Nowadays, Tripnozzi is a legit, full-service hot rod shop that still builds auction cars on occasion, including one supercar each year. This radical '69 Corvette roadster is number three and the most ambitious to date.
Beginning with an ex-drag '69 Vette that was reportedly pulling in 10.29-at-129-mph timeslips at Cecil Country Dragway in Maryland, the initial plan called for building a luxury roadster with a new twin-turbo engine and a paddle-shifted automatic. It seems there was a little resistance from the Vette to change its lot in life however. "This one fought us tooth and nail," Kevin says. "We'd solve one problem and two would pop up." Since the 468ci big-block and 3,500-rpm-stalled TH400 proved to be well built, Kevin opted to keep that part of the Vette's legacy intact. That seems to have appeased the Vette, as the bugs were sorted out and it has since gone from stripped racer to pure luxury with a custom leather interior, flawless paint, and Air Ride suspension.