CORNING, N.Y. (WETM) – When driving through Corning, you may have seen a parking lot filled with one specific model car. The car is a Ford Crown Victoria, and the parking lot full of cars belongs to one man.

The Crown Victoria’s were well known over 30 years ago when they were driven by police officers, and fire chiefs or used as taxi cabs. Now, many of them can be found not too far from here.

The owner, Mike Kennis, started collected the cars in 2020 when COVID struck and his job was considered non-essential. He then decided to pick up a hobby, and realized how much he liked this specific car.

“I came across the Crown Vics and thought it might be interesting to collect something a little different,” said Kennis, “So I bought one, bought two, next thing you know 85 cars later, here we are.”

As his collection grew, Kennis began to run out of room for them, He ended up building a 6,500 square-foot garage out behind his house to store his collection. But, the collection got bigger still, and he ended up moving many of them to the parking lot of The Corning Building Company.

All of the cars caught the eye of people from all over, including that of a YouTuber from Florida who made a video about them. Kennis has also been reached out to by Richard Rawlings from Gas Monkey Garage, who is interested in buying from his collection. Kennis has said that he would be interested in selling some of his cars.

“I will still continue to buy these cars as long as I can find the cream of the crop. Right now I’d like to try to thin out the herd a little, get rid of some cars,” said Kennis.

If you are interested in checking out the cars, they aren’t hard to miss; just head over to The Corning Building Company parking lot and there is plenty to see.