He owns one of the largest Corvette collections. Here's a peek behind the locked door

Country music legend Loretta Lynn's tour bus made its way down a long road on the Hendrick Motorsports campus in Concord, North Carolina. She was unannounced, but her bus glided past the General Motors Charlotte Technical Center and came to a stop on the far side of the compound in front of a hulking white building.

It was August 2019 and Lynn, now deceased, had heard about NASCAR legend and mega car dealer Rick Hendrick's massive and unique car collection housed inside the white building he calls the Heritage Center. She wanted in.

See the collection: Top 10 most unique cars in Rick Hendrick's private garage

" ‘Loretta Lynn is in the parking lot wondering if she can come in? ' " Hendrick recalls an employee saying to him that day. Hendrick laughs about the situation in a recent interview with the Detroit Free Press, adding that comic and late-night host Jay Leno and Nicko McBrain, the drummer from heavy-metal band Iron Maiden, did something similar.

"They said, 'Nicko wants to give you a drum from Iron Maiden,' and I said, 'Who’s Iron Maiden?' " Hendrick says with a laugh.

Hendrick is recounting the stories in late July in a large, wood-paneled room on the second floor of the Heritage Center, which is about 900 miles from Michigan but deeply connected to Detroit. Inside that room, he has more than 230 guitars signed by famous rock stars and celebrities. Footballs autographed by every Super Bowl-winning quarterback in the last decade line a wall and there are guitars and other autographed instruments in glass cases on the floor, on the walls and atop cabinets.

He strolls past a guitar signed by Garth Brooks, and over there is Sammy Hagar's autographed guitar he used to play a version of "I can't drive 55." Hendrick causally points to a baseball bat in a glass case in the corner that Babe Ruth used to hit two home runs (he said he co-owns the bat with former baseball star Reggie Jackson). On a shelf sits the Emmy he won in 2010 for outstanding editing in HBO's "24/7 Jimmie Johnson: Race to Daytona."

Lynn got inside that day, but her price for entry was an autographed guitar and a private performance in that room singing "Coal Miner's Daughter." That's how celebrities get inside the Heritage Center. For anyone else, it is invitation-only.

The Detroit Free Press spent an afternoon with Hendrick inside the 58,000-square-foot building. He built it in 2010 and it has grown to be more than a collection of notable cars and famous guitars. It is Hendrick's tribute to his family, representing his life's struggles and successes. Everything in there takes him back to his roots.

"In 2026, it will be 50 years in the automobile business," Hendrick says. "But you stay so busy that you don’t have time to reflect and that’s something you should do. There are two places I can do that: I can do it here and I can do it on the water."

Detroit ties on display

Hendrick, 74, lives on a lake in Charlotte, North Carolina. A passionate fisherman, he owns a few recreational boats, including a yacht. He likes to fish off the coasts of Florida or Costa Rica, catching fish as big as a 600-pound blue marlin once, which he released. He also has a "fast boat" for fun.

"I just rode all up, around 8 o’clock last night, on the lake," Hendrick said last month. "I throttled back into the dock and I was just thinking how I’ve always loved speed, I’ve always loved the water and always loved cars. I get to make a living doing this. That’s why it’s not a job."

His white hair turns lighter with each year, but Hendrick has a youthful energy and no desire to retire soon, saying if he did, "I'd go nuts. My wife will go nuts."

He is almost an extension of Detroit's General Motors. He is a legendary NASCAR team owner who races Chevrolets. GM leases a building on Hendrick's campus for its technical center, where GM engineers support the race cars used by various teams. Hendrick Motorsports is a supplier to GM's subsidiary GM Defense located nearby.

He is a mega car dealer with 94 dealerships in 13 states mostly in the South, California and Missouri. Nineteen of those dealerships sell GM brands. He has eight stores that sell Stellantis brands: Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram, but no Ford Motor Co. stores. His Hendrick Automotive Group is now one of, if not the largest, privately held dealership groups in the country. It employs about 10,000 people and generated $12.2 billion in revenue after selling 185,000 vehicles and servicing nearly 2.5 million vehicles last year.

Remembering poverty amid riches

Published reports estimate Hendrick's personal net worth at about $1 billion. His spokesperson David Harris declined to comment on Hendrick's net worth. But Hendrick won't forget his roots. He grew up on a tobacco farm in Virginia and once sold everything he owned to buy a run-down car dealership. He knows what it's like to be poor.

"You never forget where you came from and you’re very appreciative every day of where you are and this place to me," he trails off as he speaks of the Heritage Center. Its replicas of his early life keep him grounded.

It is also where he stores some of the most unique cars on Earth. Hendrick is one of the top Corvette collectors in the world. He owns 220 collector cars in the Heritage Center, 122 of which are rare Corvettes. He owns Roy Orbison's 1967 Corvette and two that belonged to King Leopold III of Belgium. Earlier this year he paid $1.1 million for the first electrified 2024 Corvette E-Ray at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Palm Beach, Florida.

"Growing up, I idolized (the Corvette) and never thought I’d own one," Hendrick said. "I remember when I rode in a ’62 with someone else one day and I thought, 'Man if I could ever, ever own one of these.’ "

The GM board has had occasional board meetings at the Heritage Center and GM's top executives such as CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss have toured it.

"It’s unreal," Reuss told the Detroit Free Press of his experience at the Heritage Center. "It’s mind-blowing. He has some really sentimental things there, too. Every single one of those things is one of a kind. I love old cars and he’s got one of his first hot rods there."

The one vehicle he'd never part with ...

It is a Tuesday in late July and there are several small tour groups from racing sponsors who got invitations to tour the Heritage Center. They enter in the lobby where there are four black Corvettes: The 2023 70th Anniversary Z06 in VIN 001, for which Hendrick paid $3.6 million, the first regular production 2023 Z06 coupe, $1 million, and the 2019 ZR1 Convertible VIN 001, $925,000 — all bought at Barrett-Jackson auctions.

The fourth is the first Corvette he ever owned: A 1963 black Corvette convertible in 1971 that transported he and his wife on their first date. He had to sell it in the mid-1970s for $7,000 to help buy his first dealership. He found it and bought it back years later, and he and his wife drove it on their 50th wedding anniversary earlier this year.

The group makes a quick stop in a conference room off the entrance before a tour guide opens a door on the opposite wall that leads into the Heritage Center. "Oh, wow!" gasps a man in the tour group as he steps into the huge showroom where hundreds of rare cars, polished to a high sheen, flood the floor. Replicas of Hendrick's hometown buildings line the walls. Think of it like a mini version of The Henry Ford but with a lot more cars.

There are cars from the "Transformer" movies in one corner and a row of exotic imports such as a 2016 Ferrari F12 TDF, a 2022 McLaren 765 LT Spider in orange with black interior and a 2021 Rolls-Royce in black with white interior, the last "Dawn" convertible to ever be produced.

The group starts the tour at the intersection of Stingray Street and South Hill Way — names paying homage to Hendrick's love of Corvettes and the small town — South Hill, Virginia — near the tobacco farm where Hendrick grew up.

A replica of the Dairy Queen (which serves real ice cream) where he took his wife on their first date sits in the corner off the entrance. A few feet away is Hendrick's most prized possession: a 1931 Cherry Red Chevrolet. Hendrick bought it for $250 in 1963 at age 13. He rebuilt it inside his grandfather's store, J.R. Hendrick General Store. It sits in the Heritage Center in front of a replica of the store.

“I drag raced this car," Hendrick said, standing next to it, grinning. He put a 327 Chevrolet engine in it, which generated 365 horsepower at 3,200 revolutions per minute. It hit a top speed of about 118 mph. "Then, I left home and I hadn’t seen it since I was about 19 years old. On my 40th birthday, my dad drove it into City Chevrolet with my wife and two kids in the rumble seat. There’s valuable cars, there are one-off cars, but if you said, 'If everything goes, what’s the one piece in here that you’d never get rid of?' That’s this car."

'I bleed bowties'

Hendrick will tell you everything he has achieved comes down to luck and GM giving him his big break. Reuss will retort, "He made the most of (that break) though.”

Hendrick was a general sales manager at an import car dealership in 1976 when a risky opportunity came his way. A troubled Chevrolet store in Bennettsville, South Carolina, needed new leadership. He wanted to be a car dealer so he and wife, Linda, sold everything they owned, including that 1963 Corvette, to buy the store. It had no showroom, and sold just 200 cars a year in a tiny rural town. At 26, he faced turning the store around.

He stands near the replica of his granddad's store, near where he also has built a copy of the bank where his mother worked as a teller. When he got the store in Bennettsville, he said he went to that bank to see his mother's boss and ask for a loan. He was turned down.

"He said, ‘Son, you know, I don’t think you’ll make it in the car business,’ " Hendrick said with a sly smile creeping across his face.

His mother helped him get a series of 90-day notes at another bank to help buy cars when he was younger. He later turned the struggling Bennettsville dealership into the region’s most profitable. That led to the chance to get a bigger store: City Chevrolet in Charlotte, North Carolina. He still owns that store and it was the precursor to Hendrick Automotive Group.

There is a replica of City Chevrolet along the back wall of the Heritage Center. Dozens of 1967 Corvettes in every color scheme imaginable (including one with a pink interior) are parked in front of it. The 1967 design is Hendrick's favorite. On one side of City Chevrolet sit two special Corvettes: A 2005 model in red and a 2007 model in black. Hendrick bought those for two of his grandchildren the years they were born. His third grandchild also got a Corvette but is driving it so it's not in the Heritage Center.

Hendrick personally drives a white Cadillac Escalade SUV but he said, "I bleed bowties. I grew up idolizing Chevrolet racing. Everything I’ve ever raced is Chevrolet."

The Chevrolet emblem is a bowtie.

The need for speed

As he built his car business, Hendrick stayed active in racing. First, on the water in speed boats. He started a team in the late 1970s and it won three consecutive national championships. But that ended in 1982 after his driver, Jimmy Wright, 47, lost control of the boat and was killed. A corner of the Heritage Center is dedicated to Hendrick's drag boat days with a video of Wright racing and Hendrick has his boat Nitro Fever there, in which Wright set a world record at 222.20 mph in 1981. That record has since been topped.

Hendrick couldn't stay away from racing for long though. In 1984, a friend asked him if he'd be partners with country singer Kenny Rogers, entertainment promoter C.K. Spurlock and famed driver Richard Petty in a NASCAR team. He agreed and the All-Star Racing team was born.

But soon Petty backed out, then Spurlock and Rogers too, leaving Hendrick with no sponsor. He had a crew of five and gave it a go, but with only a few car dealerships to fund it back then, Hendrick was bleeding cash.

"I said, 'Look, I gotta stop,' " Hendrick said. "But Harry Hyde, our crew chief said, 'Let's go to Martinsville. Let's do one more race.' "

The .526-mile track at Martinsville Speedway is in the foothills of the Appalachians, about 50 miles from the Hendrick family farm in Virginia. Hendrick didn't go to the race; instead he went to church. When the service ended, he found a phone and called his mother.

"She said, 'They won!' I said, 'You're kidding?' " Hendrick said. "That's how close we came and none of this would have happened. I got a sponsor the next week and the rest is history."

All-Star Racing eventually became Hendrick Motorsports, the winningest team in NASCAR.

A brush with Hollywood

Near the replica of his City Chevrolet store, Hendrick had for years kept the race car Tom Cruise drove in the 1990 movie 'Days of Thunder.' He has since moved it to his Hendrick Motorsports Museum next door, where 35 competitive race cars, including some that won championships, reside. It is open to the public.

Hendrick met Cruise through actor and race car enthusiast Paul Newman in 1986 at a race at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. Cruise was Newman’s "Color of Money" co-star and he was interested in racing. Hendrick invited the actors to racetrack practices. It was during one of those practices when Cruise suggested making a movie about NASCAR.

In "Days of Thunder," a car salesman convinces a retired crew chief to work with a cocky young driver. It’s based on Hendrick, his former driver Tim Richmond and crew chief Harry Hyde. Actor Randy Quaid played the character modeled after Hendrick, Robert Duvall played that of Hyde and Cruise was a Richmond-like character. During filming, Cruise stayed in Hendrick’s home and the two remain friends today.

The soul of the center

While racing has been good to Hendrick, it also has taken from him.

In the center of the Heritage Center is a long, white racing trailer. It is the heart and soul of the place. It is the one thing that Hendrick could not enter for about 18 months. It is his late son's racing trailer.

On Oct. 24, 2004, Hendrick's son, Ricky, Hendrick's brother, two nieces and six others were killed when a team plane crashed on the way to a race at Martinsville Speedway. Ricky was 24.

"Oooh," Hendrick moans at the recollection of that day. “The devastation to the family was just … my dad had died just 90 days before that. If it had not been bad weather, (Ricky) would have been in a helicopter that day and if I hadn’t promised my wife I was going to a meeting, I would have been on the plane and maybe he wouldn’t have been and my brother, he definitely wouldn’t have been … so you think about that a lot.”

He considered calling it quits at the time.

“I didn’t know if I could do this," Hendrick said. "When I came back two weeks after the accident, the guy sitting in the front was (NASCAR legend) Jeff (Gordon). He was emotional and we all got emotional when I walked in. But when I saw everybody I knew, ‘Hey these people have put their life into this, we gotta go on. My son would want us to go on.’ "

The people are the reason Hendrick said he'll never go public or sell his businesses. He wants to treat his employees in a way that values them, such as providing scholarships, offering special perks like a Rolex watch after 20 years of service. He doesn't want to seek a board's permission to do that and he said it has paid off because he has low turnover.

"I went to Austin, Texas, and visited two stores last Friday and when I said, 'Thank you for what you do,’ one of the guys in the shop stepped forward and he was visibly emotional and he said, ‘You flew water and food down here when we had no water and no food. I’ll never go anywhere else,' " Hendrick said.

Hendrick's team planes took food and water to his employees after the ice storm in Texas in February 2021.

He stands in the trailer that his employees presented to him after the devastating plane crash. It is filled with Ricky's racing gear and other memorabilia. He points to Ricky’s radios, his small Go Kart sits on the floor, there are photos of Ricky at races and with his family hung throughout. The chairs that Hendrick, his wife and father — Papa Joe — sat in during races line up along one end. Memories. This trailer inspired him to build the Heritage Center.

"I had these cars scattered all over dealerships, warehouses," said Hendrick, who started collecting the cars in about 1984. "So I said, 'OK, I’m going to build the building.' I pay tribute to my family here. My granddad’s general store, the bank my mother worked in, the little volunteer fire department my dad built, a tractor shop I worked in, City Chevrolet, the Citgo station where I met my wife."

A feeling of family inspires the best

Hendrick steps out of the trailer. He is speaking of his appointed successor to Hendrick Motorsports, the now-retired Gordon. Gordon is currently the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports.

"I tell him, 'I don’t know if you’re a son or a little brother,' " Hendrick says. " "I’d rather call you a little brother.' "

The racing business was supposed to go to Ricky, Hendrick says, who he believes would have run it better than Hendrick himself does. But Hendrick has full confidence in Gordon, who he discovered in 1992 when Gordon was racing in the Busch Grand National Series hoping for a shot at the big leagues: NASCAR Cup Series. Gordon credits Hendrick's leadership style for bringing out the best in him.

"He does it in a way where he’s humble about it and he’s calm and cool, collected and gives you this warm feeling that this is more than just a business transaction," Gordon said. "He makes you feel like family and makes you feel very comfortable immediately. Those type of people, which don’t come along very often, you want to give them your best."

Hendrick has had his turbulent times too. He overcame a rare form of leukemia in the late 1990s and he pleaded guilty in 1997 to mail fraud in a plea agreement in a business bribery case, according to the Tampa Bay Times. A federal judge sentenced him to a year in home confinement while he underwent leukemia treatments.

But it never occurred to him that he wouldn't survive his challenges, he said.

"You just refuse to fail," Hendrick says. "I work harder and I’m more determined when we’re not winning because I don’t want to participate if I can’t compete.”

The final photo

Hendrick walks from Ricky's trailer over to a 1932 Chevrolet in Honolulu blue with a white canvas top.

"That’s a 1932 my dad built with my son. That picture up there is my son and my dad. That's my daughter Lynn,” Hendrick says, pointing to a large framed photo of a 5- or 6-year-old girl with short, messy blonde hair in a white T-shirt and rolled up jeans standing in the shallow end of a lake. Hendrick's daughter, Lynn Carlson, 47, is married to Marshall Carlson, who will one day run the dealership group, Hendrick Automotive Group.

“This picture you see here of my wife and my son, that was taken two days before he was killed when we were in Hawaii together," Hendrick says. There is a moment of quiet.

“Time helps. But you never get over that," Hendrick says of the plane crash that took his son, family and friends.

But looking at the trailer and the photos, he says, "We had a lot of great memories and his daughter, she’s the spittin' image of him.”

Ricky's fiancee found out she was pregnant just after Ricky died.

'One hellacious auction'

Hendrick strolls past a red satin boxer's robe with the words "Italian Stallion" on its back; it's enclosed in a glass frame on the wall.

“I built a car for Sylvester Stallone. It was the 2010 Camaro, we did 25 of them. He got one and we got that," Hendrick said, pointing to the robe that Stallone gave him. It was not worn in the "Rocky" movies. It is near a light blue costume worn by Elvis Presley that's also enclosed in a glass case. Hendrick bought it several years ago.

A steel staircase leads up to a second floor where Hendrick opens the door, the lights go on and the glass floor lights up and you are walking on top of dozens of autographed guitars. It's in here that Loretta Lynn sang to Hendrick that day, he says.

"General (Edward) Reeder, commander of the Special Forces in Afghanistan, he gave me his helmet," Hendrick says, pointing to the head gear hanging on the wall. "That’s 001 and he signed it for me.”

Hendrick looks around the large, elegant room that resembles a man's dream den with a large, round wooden table in the middle of it meant for possible poker nights. At the suggestion that it is the ultimate man cave, Hendrick laughs and says, "it is, isn't it?"

"When I’m gone, there’s gonna be one hellacious auction. The memorabilia, the cars, whatever you want," Hendrick said. Then, thinking of family and his three grandchildren — a son and daughter from Lynn and a daughter from Ricky, he utters, "They will keep it. They’ll keep it.”

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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

More: Behind the scenes of a NASCAR pit crew competing at elite levels

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mega collector Rick Hendrick lets us inside his private garage