Members of Corvette forums seethed every time a new photo emerged showing the dust-caked cars in a dim garage. Some wanted Mr. Max to sell the cars or donate the set to a museum. Others didn’t much care who owned the cars: They only wanted to see them — the 1953 example, in particular, one of 300 built that year — restored to their former beauty.

Those people are getting their wish.

Mr. Heller and his cousin Scott Heller, along with Scott’s sons, Adam and Mike, bought the cars from Mr. Max over the summer. They plan to clean, and restore as needed, all 36 before taking them to auction next year. (The Hellers are partners in the venture with Gary Spindler, a New York parking management executive.)

After the decades of neglect, how did the Corvettes’ reversal of fortune come about?

The tale of the set begins in 1989, when the collection came together as the grand prize in a contest sponsored by the VH1 cable music channel. A call to a 900 number, for a $2 fee, was required to enter; more than a million people made the call.

The winner was Dennis Amodeo, a carpenter from Long Island, who flew to California to accept his prize. But before he could bring the cars home to New York, he got a call from Mr. Max, who was interested in using the cars to pursue his vision of a grand art project fusing his bright hippie imagery with the distinctly American iconography of the Corvette. (Imagine, say, a hot-dogs-and-apple-pie Chevy commercial mashed up with the psychedelic interludes from “Laugh-In.”)

Once the cars were delivered to New York, Mr. Max did some preliminary work, taping color test strips in place on several. But he was busy with other projects as well as a legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service that led to a guilty plea for tax fraud.