All Revved Up

Rick Treworgy has a track record of successful business ventures, but he’s not sure his latest enterprise will bring in much money. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. Muscle Car City is the culmination of his "35-year obsession."

Muscle Car City—home to a car museum, diner, used-car lot, service station/restaurant, speed shop and gift shop—opened in March at the site of a former Wal-Mart on Tamiami Trail just south of Punta Gorda. Inside the 99,000-square-foot building are displayed more than 200 of the highest performance cars ever made by General Motors.

With huge, V-8 motors tweaked for speed, these cars became known as "muscle cars," and Treworgy fell in love with them almost from their beginning in the mid-1960s. He began buying and selling, profiting each time; then he sold fewer and kept more.

Over the years, as his collection demanded more space, Treworgy built four buildings to house them. He kept them out of public view, allowing only a few tours by Corvette enthusiast clubs and similar groups.

When Wal-Mart vacated the Tamiami Trail location in Punta Gorda, Treworgy bought the building and property for $6.5 million, consolidated his collection there and opened it to public view.

Be assured that his is not just any collection. It has been called the finest GM muscle-car collection in the country, and the cars are in showroom condition, meticulously maintained so that any of them can be fired up and driven.

The collection features just about every powerful Corvette ever produced. (Treworgy has no interest in less powerful models and disdains a period in the 1970s when ’Vettes, in his view, were underpowered.)

"These are the best of the best and the baddest of the bad," he says, taking in the view in the massive museum.

Treworgy, now 59, moved to Punta Gorda from Michigan in 1959, graduated from Charlotte High School and completed two years at what is now Edison State College in Charlotte County.

He began working at age 16 for Bealls and advanced to the men’s buyer position. That’s when he started buying cars, working at night to restore them and sell each for a profit.

At 23, he worked for a while for his father, an International Truck dealer in Charlotte. Next came selling unfinished furniture in Lakeland. That job led Treworgy to open a business finishing furniture, a successful venture he later sold to the owner of the unfinished furniture company. Treworgy returned to Charlotte County, worked in construction and put money into a trailer-sales venture. By the early 1980s, he was successfully branching into ownership of commercial buildings—all the while buying and selling muscle cars he liked.

In the late 1980s, he partnered with Charlotte County developer Bruce Laishley, and the pair began a rocket ride upward. They formed Southwest Florida Land Development company, bought property and leased it as a landfill, bought more property for dirt mining and started the Airport Commerce Center at Charlotte’s airport.

As his fortune increased, Treworgy traveled to collectible car auctions to add to his burgeoning collection of muscle cars.

The collectible-car market today has outperformed the stock market, but collectible vehicles are no longer appreciating, Treworgy notes. Forget about finding bargains, however; most who can afford these expensive rarities are financially prepared to ride out a severe recession. Treworgy will never sell his cars, he proclaims. They are willed to his adult daughter, April, who works beside him at the museum.

The museum floor—almost twice the size of a football field—features green carpet with yellow, center-line striping as walkways. On each side are his cars, including some from the pre-muscle car era. Walls display neon signs, gas pumps and other memorabilia from the 1960s and early ’70s, the years that define the era of Treworgy’s passion. He favors 1963 to 1967 ’Vettes—and Z28 Camaros, Chevelle SS models, SS El Caminos, big-block Impalas, Pontiac GTOs and Oldsmobile 442s.

Not yet open at Muscle Car City are Rick’s Filling Station and the auto-sports-themed restaurant, which will join four other Charlotte restaurants in which Treworgy is a partner. Expect these next year, Treworgy says.

The used-car lot will sell only muscle cars, but none from Treworgy’s collection. The speed shop will be a Charlotte County first, and the ’50s-themed diner at the entrance will have the best hamburgers, cheeseburgers and cheese-steak sandwiches to be found, Treworgy promises, plus homemade ice cream. The 720-space parking lot will host car cruises and rallies.

Admission will be $10 per person, $30 for an annual pass. "I don’t know if this will make a profit," Treworgy says, "but I’ve been able to consolidate my cars in one building, and I’ll now lease out the four [buildings] they had been stored in.

"Plus, I’m buying up residences now that prices are low; they’ll come back. So I’m not worried."