Lee Chapman wired six figures across the Atlantic in 2021, trusting a shop in Troutman, North Carolina, to bring his 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle Coupe back from the dead. Five years later, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Iredell County Civil Superior Court, he needed a third-party recovery outfit just to get his own car – and whatever was left of the parts he’d already paid for – out of that same shop’s building.
The man named in the complaint is Jarit Johnson, and the surname isn’t a coincidence. He’s the brother of Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion who still ranks among the sport’s wealthiest drivers and who recently locked in the 2027 Daytona 500 as his final Cup Series start. Per Chapman’s complaint, that family connection wasn’t incidental to the pitch. He says he chose Johnson’s operation because they “purported to be NASCAR and racing guys.”
A $140,000 down payment on a Chevelle restoration isn’t, by itself, a red flag. A proper frame-off rebuild on a first-generation muscle car – media-blasted sheet metal, a numbers-correct engine build, new wiring and glass, fresh upholstery, paint and reassembly labor – routinely runs past that figure before a shop even buttons the car up. The red flag is what allegedly happened after the check cleared: years of very little, according to the suit.
Chapman says he spent that stretch chasing updates from Johnson and two other restorers connected to the shop. The replies, when they came, followed a pattern any homeowner who has waited on a contractor will recognize instantly: a few more weeks, then a few more months. By the end of 2024, he was telling Johnson directly that six figures of his money were sitting in an unfinished car and that he wanted out of the deal. By the spring of 2025, he was reminding Johnson it was his family’s savings on the line, not just his own. Johnson’s own reply that May, according to the complaint, was that another worker had been making progress and the car was roughly two months out.
Two months turned into another seven with nothing to show. In December 2025, Chapman had a formal notice served demanding an end to the delays and a hard completion date. That produced no car either. In June, he brought in a third-party company to physically pull the Chevelle and its remaining parts out of Johnson’s shop.
What came back wasn’t what he paid for. An inventory turned up roughly $37,000 in previously invoiced parts that were either missing or never purchased at all. Much of the work that actually had been done, according to the complaint, was executed so poorly it needs to be stripped and redone – meaning Chapman may now be on the hook to pay twice for pieces of a restoration he already funded once.
The suit asks for at least $175,000 in damages and, notably, asks a jury to triple whatever number it lands on. That’s not boilerplate. North Carolina’s unfair-and-deceptive-trade-practices statute is the mechanism plaintiffs reach for when they want an automatic multiplier tacked onto a verdict, but it only kicks in if the conduct is proven to be a deceptive business practice rather than a garden-variety broken contract. That’s a meaningfully higher bar than breach of contract alone, which is likely why the complaint leans so heavily on the specific dollar figures, the years of missed deadlines, and the gap between what was invoiced and what was actually delivered.
Winning a judgment and collecting on one are two different fights. As of this filing, neither Johnson nor the other named restorer had an attorney listed in the case file, and neither could be reached for comment – no working phone listing for Johnson’s business, a Facebook page with messaging disabled, and disconnected numbers for the second restorer. No trial date has been scheduled.
Restoration fraud isn’t a one-off problem tied to one shop or one surname. Backfire has covered a Texas shop owner sentenced to 60 years over a $498,000 engine-swap scheme and a Florida restoration business that collapsed under $2.5 million in undelivered work, and the pattern in all three cases looks the same: money changes hands up front, the car disappears into a shop for years, and the paper trail of invoices doesn’t match what’s actually sitting on the lift.
The lesson for anyone sending a classic car, or a six-figure check, to a restoration shop is the same regardless of whose name is on the door. Structure payments around verified milestones, not a lump sum handed over before a single panel gets pulled. Insist on itemized, dated invoices for every part purchased, and ask for photos or a supervised walkthrough at each stage rather than taking progress reports on faith. Hold back a meaningful final payment until the car is inspected in person and running under its own power. It’s the same advice Backfire has given buyers shopping project Chevelles sight unseen: verify in person, because a famous last name attached to a shop is not a warranty.
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