00:00
On this episode of the Collector Car Podcast, 1,000 butterflies in 917s, wrecked Bugattis being
00:06
raised from European lakes, missing Aston Martin DB5s and $150 million Bugatti Atlantics, and
00:14
giant keychains, all this and more, on the Collector Car Podcast.
00:19
Your car deserves the best.
00:20
That's why my Pontiac GTO and Porsche Boxster S are wrapped in California car covers.
00:25
Since 1989, they've been family-owned and focused on quality offering more than 100,000
00:31
patterns plus fully custom options.
00:34
Protect your passion with California car cover, the world's softest custom fit covers.
00:39
Learn more at CalCarCover.com.
00:41
RM Suthubes is the world's largest collector car auction house by total sales.
00:47
They are the preeminent market maker of high quality collector cars and collections
00:51
regardless of size or complexity by working in partnership with the Suthubes team
00:55
and its network of 80 offices in 40 countries, RM Suthubes has established the largest client
01:00
network of any collector car auction house in the world.
01:04
Join the RM Suthubes family by connecting with one of their car specialists at RMSuthubes.com
01:09
or contact me directly at GStanley at RMSuthubes.com.
01:14
All right, Heidi, we are in an incredible exhibit that you have put together and
01:21
why don't you tell my listeners where we are and how they can possibly see this?
01:25
So we are at Waterworks Visual Art Center which is in Salisbury, North Carolina and the show,
01:30
the overall arching theme of the show is the spark that drives us and it includes five
01:36
world-renowned artists in various mediums.
01:39
We have Stephanie Hansen who is an abstract painter and he is a Lamar driver and we
01:46
have Michael Furman who is an accomplished photographer, probably know him and seen much
01:51
of his work, he's written some books, he's got his pieces called Bad Ass, sometimes he
01:56
likes to say Badass, but and then we have Dan McCrary who is a local watercolor artist
02:02
and his pieces are exceptional, they are so detailed, you could look at a droplet
02:08
of water and see these interesting reflections on them and then we have Richard Petruska
02:13
and he is an incredible, incredible sculptural artist and you see his forms, we'll walk
02:19
by them if you want.
02:20
Yeah, let's check them out and then obviously we have you as well.
02:23
Oh, we have me, we'll take a look at some of these and then we'll look at your
02:27
studio for your gallery.
02:29
Yeah, take a look at the gorgeous finishes on these and the form.
02:33
You get a sense of motion just by looking at them.
02:35
I noticed the Jaguar XK120 or so and obviously a Ferrari Formula One car here.
02:43
And then I would assume that's a Mercedes right there, right?
02:47
Okay, well yeah, these are just absolutely stunning.
02:50
I see another Ferrari over here, a lot of Ferraris, that's great.
02:53
Well, why don't you show us your gallery and tell us a little bit about these
02:56
pieces of artwork you have in here.
02:59
So my exhibition is called Driven by Narrative and cars are certainly my
03:04
muse, but it's the stories that they carry that really kind of get me
03:08
And when you look into this gallery, you say, well, there's so many
03:12
different mediums in here and that's because once I sort of do the research
03:16
and document documentation of the car, I really kind of lean in to find
03:21
something that's that's a novel approach and then I use that, allow
03:25
that to tell me what mediums to use.
03:28
Well, a little sneak peek as we get the medium of butterflies
03:30
behind you, but we'll get we'll get to that in a second.
03:33
So why don't you tell us about this first piece is
03:37
called Rise to the Challenge.
03:39
And I had an opportunity to follow a gentleman driver around for Ferrari
03:43
Challenge for two years as he started.
03:47
And then he actually went through the ranks and the classes and moved up
03:50
in one North America, Trofeo Pirelli AM.
03:54
And included in here are his crashes and podium wins.
03:58
And, you know, I got to really take a close look at what it was like
04:03
His crew team, his coaching, how he prepared for races.
04:10
And I hide things in each of these pieces, sort of in plain sight.
04:14
I see a sheep in there.
04:17
What's with the sheep?
04:18
So that's a very good question.
04:20
So sheep, the woolly-weeders, they use them at Sonoma
04:25
racetrack to keep the the course area around the course manicured.
04:29
So I had to put one of those in there.
04:30
But I mean, if you look at this, I'm going to point it out.
04:33
There are car crashes.
04:34
This really is representative of the shadow that the mirror casts.
04:40
And then I've got, you know, there were so many photographs.
04:42
Here actually is my client kissing the bricks because he had wanted
04:50
Yeah, I mean, there's just so many details here.
04:52
And then didn't you also say that some of this is actually
04:54
pictures of the different racetracks?
04:56
Yes, different racetracks.
04:58
And so if you've been in those worlds, you can actually identify,
05:02
oh, I know where that's from, because the bumpers are that color.
05:04
Or you see grandstands or seats.
05:08
There's all these little identifiers that you can literally pick out.
05:13
Now, what's interesting is a lot of your subjects in here
05:16
are rather famous for one reason or another.
05:19
Now, this next one is famous for what it is,
05:21
but also for what it is not.
05:24
So this is called the Puzzling Case in the Missing Bond Car.
05:32
Well, because this is arguably one of the most famous cars
05:35
in the world, James Bond.
05:37
It was the first one.
05:38
And I'm going to point this out for the car enthusiast.
05:41
So the difference is this was actually
05:44
the prototype for the DB5.
05:46
If you look at it, it has this, which is a turn signal.
05:51
But they're not on the cars that are made.
05:56
So you put it on there because it was a prototype?
05:59
This is the prototype.
06:01
Yep, this was the car.
06:03
And what happened to it was, it was in the movies,
06:07
and they didn't think it was going to be worth much money.
06:09
And they sold it, sold a couple of times.
06:10
And the last owner bought it for $200,000.
06:15
And they ended up kind of campaigning it around
06:19
and showing it off.
06:20
And slowly but surely, they raised
06:22
the value of the insurance money.
06:24
And once it reached 4.2, it mysteriously
06:28
disappeared out of an airplane hangar in Florida.
06:31
We're not really sure what happened to it.
06:32
It's still a mystery.
06:33
If you go online and you Google it,
06:35
it's going to say something about it being found
06:37
in the Middle East, but it hasn't been found.
06:39
It could be in a waterway in Florida.
06:41
It could be in somebody's collection in Russia.
06:44
We're not really sure.
06:48
It might be out there.
06:49
It might be out there.
06:51
Now, this next painting, I saw on the cover of,
06:54
or one like it, on the cover of PCA.
06:56
And I love the way you put this thing together.
06:59
So tell us about this.
07:01
And then we'll take a step back.
07:03
So this is the colors of Portia.
07:06
And Portia has been around for 70-some years.
07:08
And if you think about their cards,
07:10
you always can see them in these fabulous colors.
07:12
And they have so many choices.
07:14
And they actually have where you
07:16
could pick your own color.
07:17
So you can paint a sample if you want.
07:21
So these represent the different colors.
07:23
Tangerine, acid green.
07:26
There are Ruby Star.
07:28
And you can see these little 9-11s.
07:32
It's designed in a way.
07:33
Oh, and it's on a Portia 9-11 hood.
07:36
This is from a 1994 9-11 that was stolen.
07:40
And I ended up with it purchasing it.
07:42
So if you step back, what happens
07:45
is your eyes start to do what's called visual mixing.
07:50
And it turns into the Portia logo of three colors.
07:55
So you just see the red, black, and gold.
07:58
Now, how did you do that?
08:00
Or can you not share your trade secrets?
08:02
I have really bad eyesight, so I actually
08:04
have been seeing like that my whole life.
08:06
But yeah, there's this thing in our DNA
08:10
where in our brains, we are trying to always figure
08:15
out what something is.
08:16
It's a fight or flight.
08:18
And so we can say, OK, that is not dangerous.
08:21
And so the further we step away, our eyes visually mix it
08:24
and immediately say, if you've ever seen a Portia crest before,
08:28
that's a Portia crest.
08:29
But up close, your eyes don't allow you to see the hole.
08:34
And that's how all of my pieces work, my collage pieces.
08:36
From a distance, they're relatively tight images
08:41
But then you step closer and you're like, whoa,
08:43
there is a chaos of information in here.
08:46
They said fight or flight.
08:47
So would that be the reds and yellows?
08:49
Our brain is meant to see, whereas they
08:52
see that as danger and the greens and the blues
08:54
and the pinks go further back?
08:55
No, but that's very good.
08:57
Color does mean something.
08:58
So speed and fire and intensity.
09:02
But what I'm saying is it shapes.
09:04
So the further you step away, you begin to see the shape.
09:08
And then your brain tells you, oh, that
09:10
must be Portia, so you mix it.
09:12
And your brain tells you that that's the Portia crest.
09:15
And again, the same with my cars.
09:17
The further you step away, the tighter it gets.
09:20
Well, let's talk about another missing car, the one
09:22
right behind you, which I've been
09:24
doing a lot of research on lately.
09:25
So tell us about it, and we'll see what happens here.
09:29
Well, this is the Bugatti Atlantic 57 SC.
09:34
And back when the Germans were invading France,
09:38
they had the werethal to put it on a train.
09:40
And they were sending it to Bordeaux.
09:43
And unfortunately, it was never seen from again.
09:46
And so this is called vanished.
09:48
And it's lenticular.
09:49
I had to paint two different paintings, one with the car
09:53
And as you move by it, it literally disappears.
10:02
Arguably, again, if this is found,
10:05
it would be considered probably the most valuable car
10:08
It'd be my guess upwards of $150 million.
10:10
Yeah, that's what I've heard as well.
10:13
I won't be buying it.
10:14
OK, now, this is another Bugatti, right?
10:17
This is based on the famous Bugatti of the Lake.
10:20
I was going to say Lady of the Lake, but that's not right.
10:22
Well, no, Lady of the Lake.
10:23
That's what Peter Mullen.
10:24
Oh, that's what he called it.
10:26
So this is such an interesting story.
10:28
It's a big part of the way I do my art today.
10:31
So Peter Mullen had purchased the Bugatti of the Lake
10:35
for his museum that he was opening up.
10:37
And there wasn't much research done on it.
10:39
And 50% of the time that I spent on a vehicle
10:42
is uncovering documentation and researching a vehicle.
10:47
And so for this one, the story is
10:50
that it's a Type 22, 1925 Bugatti Brescia that
10:54
was supposedly owned by Renee Dreyfus, who
10:57
was a famous race car driver in France.
10:59
And 10 years later, he lost it in a drunken poker game
11:03
to a playboy who lived in Switzerland.
11:06
And he took the car to Switzerland at the time.
11:08
When you had a car, you had to pay a duty on it.
11:10
And he had no money, couldn't pay the duty.
11:13
And so the tax guys decided that they
11:15
were going to dispose of it in a lake.
11:17
But one of the guys thought, well, if this was Renee Dreyfus's
11:20
car, it might be worth saving.
11:22
So he put it on a chain so that he could pull it back out
11:24
after they were gone.
11:26
But the chain rusted and broke,
11:27
and it rolled 175 feet down to the bottom, flipped on its side.
11:31
And there's like a silt or muck down there,
11:34
which there was no air in it.
11:35
So it literally preserved that whole one side of the car.
11:37
And the other side was like a skeleton.
11:39
You can see it in this area would be where you can see how a car was
11:42
made back then with the wood.
11:44
So how deep was it when it came to our rest?
11:46
Do you know what I'm saying?
11:47
About 170 some feet.
11:50
And then fast forward, and it was just legend that was down there,
11:55
you fast forward to the late 60s.
11:58
And one of the dive masters at Lake Bajori
12:01
wanted to go down and prove that it was there.
12:04
He made it his mission, actually, to find it.
12:06
He found it in 1968.
12:08
And then people came from all around the world
12:10
to dive to see this Sankan Bhagati.
12:13
It truly was a treasure.
12:15
And fast forward to 2009.
12:20
And this young man.
12:21
I'll see the picture out there.
12:23
So a young man was killed on the banks of Ascona.
12:26
And his father was the dive master.
12:28
And they decided they were going to raise the car
12:32
and create a foundation in his name.
12:33
But it wasn't a real easy task, because they
12:36
had to build a platform to float it out there.
12:39
It took a year, 30 divers.
12:42
They wanted to make sure that it was something important,
12:45
because the chassis plate had been taken off the car.
12:47
So they really didn't know.
12:47
Could it just be a junker that somebody rolled in there?
12:50
So they went to a Hans Madi, who
12:52
was a Bogadius, and had the same type of car.
12:56
And he showed those divers where the markings were,
12:58
so they could unequivocally find out what this vehicle was.
13:02
And they said, oh my goodness, this is an important car.
13:05
We need to raise it.
13:06
So they did raise it.
13:08
And it became this sensation on the banks.
13:11
There were thousands of people that lined it.
13:13
When they pulled the car out of the water,
13:15
and this is a representation of the car
13:16
being lifted out of the water, there was still air in the tires.
13:20
And you could still see some French blue on the car.
13:22
That's insane after 70, 70 years, right?
13:25
What I did, which is, and when
13:27
I say that this piece moved me so much,
13:29
that this young boy who died and the reason they raised it,
13:32
and then, of course, Peter and Merle Mullen,
13:36
they wanted to pay homage to this.
13:38
And I thought, how do I do that?
13:39
So I took a canvas, painted out of water-soluble inks,
13:45
and took it to the very spot where the car had laid
13:48
for many years underwater.
13:50
And the father of the boy who died took the canvas
13:53
underwater, and he moved it back and forth
13:56
and allowed the lake water to wash away some of that ink,
14:00
just as it did wash away a part of the car.
14:02
So this is a representation of that.
14:04
And here it is if you look here.
14:06
Oh, yeah, I was wondering what that was, OK.
14:08
And then if you look here, this is actually
14:10
it being pulled out.
14:12
So then you look back and you say, OK.
14:15
I love the tax collector, tax man.
14:18
You got Peter Mullen up there with this.
14:20
Oh, I have the drunken poker game and Peter and Merle.
14:26
This is where it was sold at Retromobile.
14:28
My wife and I were fortunate to be the very last two public people
14:32
into the Mullen's Museum.
14:33
Oh, you're so lucky.
14:34
Like Bruce Meyer got us in.
14:37
And I thought we had like three hours.
14:39
And I'm starting to film.
14:40
And all of a sudden, they start flipping lights on and off,
14:42
saying it's time to leave.
14:43
We've got to get ready for an auction tomorrow.
14:45
Oh my, that's right.
14:47
OK, so do we have another Bugatti?
14:50
So this is my Bugatti trilogy ball.
14:52
So this is another Bugatti that during the war,
14:56
when the Germans were invading, they took this to also Bordeaux
15:00
and they buried it.
15:02
And this is called Unearthed.
15:04
And it represents the moment that they brought it
15:07
into the light again.
15:09
And you can see this car at the Simeon Museum.
15:13
Is this a Bugatti tank?
15:15
I did not realize that the tank car was buried at one point.
15:19
Now, is that the actual shovel they used?
15:23
No, that's a representation of the shovel.
15:25
But I will say, I took a canvas and buried that in Bordeaux,
15:32
So it was imbued with ingrained, should I say.
15:36
Yeah, ingrained with the clay soil.
15:40
Wow, that's awesome.
15:42
And now we're on to the 917.
15:45
And so this is my aerodynamics by entomology wall
15:51
And it tells the story of the Porsche 917.
15:54
And it's not a story that a lot of people know,
15:56
but basically when Porsche created this car
15:58
and it's a purpose-built car to race at Le Mans,
16:03
they never won at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
16:05
And they created this beast.
16:07
It could go 200 some miles an hour.
16:10
And it had a tendency to lift on the straights.
16:13
And it was so tough and unstable that the works drivers
16:17
didn't want to drive it.
16:19
It just so happens that a private-seer bought one.
16:21
And in 1969, on his very first lap, it crashed and died.
16:25
And so they knew they had to do something.
16:26
And they took it to a track in Austria, Austria-Gregg.
16:30
And there, John Weier's team, the engineering
16:34
that the Porsche had hired, John Horisman
16:37
was the chief engineer.
16:38
He noticed as the track, as the car came in from going
16:42
around the track a few times, that there were dead insects
16:44
everywhere on the car but the rear wing.
16:47
Now, they didn't think it was an aerodynamic problem.
16:49
They thought, because they used a wind tunnel to design it.
16:52
But that was very early in wind tunnel design.
16:57
And so they thought maybe it was a chassis flex problem
17:00
and not an aerodynamic problem.
17:02
But he knew immediately when he saw these dead insects
17:05
all over the car but the rear wing that had to be
17:07
aerodynamic problem, there was no down force.
17:09
No dead insects meant that there was no airflow there.
17:12
And so he took out some snips and sheets of aluminum
17:16
and duct tape and refashioned the back end.
17:18
And the next morning the car went out.
17:21
It was five seconds faster, which is equivalent
17:26
Insane, it broke a record at the track.
17:28
And of course, as we now know,
17:31
Porsche went on to win their first outright win
17:32
at Le Mans in this car in 70.
17:36
And then in 1971, they won again.
17:39
They changed, the F8 regulations changed
17:43
but insanely enough, one of the records
17:46
that the 917 broke lasted till 2010.
17:49
The butterflies are the stand in,
17:51
obviously for the insects.
17:52
And I think they're just absolutely gorgeous.
17:54
Livery on cars is so important
17:56
because you can identify what team they are
18:00
and the colors are so interesting.
18:02
So this is from the movie Le Mans.
18:04
This is the Gulf livery.
18:06
Steve McQueen's car that is now owned
18:08
by a famous comedian.
18:11
Who just put it up for sale at Mecom
18:14
and it did not sell.
18:16
Yeah, I did see that.
18:18
They're much smaller than you think they would be.
18:19
They're very low to the ground
18:21
as most race cars are.
18:22
So you see these other,
18:23
I call these my specimens
18:25
and these are Porsche 917s
18:27
that I've accumulated or collected, should I say.
18:32
One of the big collections was
18:33
when Pebble Beach Concord at Le Mans
18:40
But from Portion Museum in Germany
18:44
through to different auctions,
18:47
I've been able to take a lot of photographs of 917s
18:51
and they're quite rare.
18:52
So it's very interesting.
18:54
Now I hide myself in a lot of my pieces.
18:58
So I always challenge people to find out.
19:00
And at the tail, by the way,
19:01
at the tail end of this, the tail wing,
19:05
wind, you see there's a little bit of a story
19:08
and that's from Jay Gelotti's book.
19:09
Oh, Jay, yes, he's been on the podcast.
19:11
And it tells the story of how John Horisman
19:15
figured out what was wrong with the car.
19:17
Is he upset that you cut a book up?
19:19
No, no, no, I asked him.
19:20
Actually, my good friend from Dalton Watson
19:24
who published the book sent me a book.
19:28
Yeah, I love the Gulf Oil.
19:29
The actual first logo I ever had for my podcast
19:32
was the number 21 Gulf Oil 917,
19:36
just because I've always loved that.
19:37
Oh, I love it, yeah.
19:38
And now, obviously, this is a ton of work
19:40
to put all these little butterflies up here.
19:42
So that's 1,000 butterflies.
19:44
1,000 butterflies right there, yeah.
19:47
And then you have the hippie one as well.
19:48
Oh, yeah, that's called the other hippie.
19:50
This is the other hippie.
19:51
So most people don't know it,
19:52
but okay, so the Porsche 917
19:54
came basically in two iterations.
19:56
You had the long tail, which was,
19:58
it's a different style,
19:59
cards meant just to race at Le Mans.
20:01
And then you have the short tail
20:02
which is sort of this epiphany
20:04
when they came up with the redesign of it.
20:07
And butterflies also, if you think about it,
20:10
mean transformation and change.
20:12
And they have, there's so many things that it symbolizes.
20:15
So I think I love that way it plays with history.
20:20
And telling the history.
20:21
But yeah, so there was a short tail that raced
20:24
and it was, it raced in this livery
20:28
and it was also in a red and yellow
20:31
martini livery as well.
20:34
And then finally, the big key chains.
20:36
So the big key chains, this is my latest series
20:39
that's called Key to Success.
20:40
And basically when I was in my twenties,
20:43
I got a, I shot a Porsche business was
20:47
and I got a key chain for it.
20:49
And I kept it with me
20:51
and I said one day I'm gonna own a Porsche.
20:54
And this actually is in 2024, I got a Porsche 911.
20:57
This is my key chain.
20:58
It was the impetus for this entire collection.
21:01
You actually, I met you by your Porsche.
21:05
I got to show it to you.
21:07
It is gentian blue, spectacular color.
21:11
So blue and a little bit violet as well.
21:13
So tell me again, how long does this exhibit run?
21:15
This exhibit runs now until February 28th
21:18
and there's going to be cars and coffee
21:20
on the third Saturday of each month up until December.
21:25
The hours I think 10 to five.
21:27
And I want everybody to come in and see it.
21:30
You know, the idea behind this show
21:31
is to take a look at cars through the lens
21:35
of artists and see them in a new light.
21:38
And I think that it's high time
21:41
that car art comes out of the garage and is respected.
21:45
And I think this allows us to do that.
21:46
And it also makes you think about
21:48
looking at cars differently
21:51
and seeing the design elements of them
21:52
and the beauty of them.
21:54
Well, and so the link will be in the description
21:56
but we do have a car behind us
21:59
that I'm pretty sure is not one of your pieces of artwork.
22:03
Oh, so this is the Martin station that I love it.
22:06
It's on loan from the Lane Motor Museum.
22:09
It is a bonkers car.
22:11
So it's like a Woody.
22:13
It's a three wheeler.
22:14
It has a transmission from a Harley Davidson.
22:17
What's really interesting about it,
22:18
if you take a look inside,
22:20
it's got theater style seating which flip up.
22:23
And you see there's a notch out of the steering wheel.
22:25
That's because you couldn't fit in it
22:26
if it was down and it didn't have
22:28
a notch out of the steering wheel.
22:30
I think it's like 45 horsepower.
22:33
The engine is from basically,
22:36
it's a Hercules that was meant for generators.
22:39
Yeah, it's pretty, it's so darn cute.
22:42
It has, the rear wheel breaks, the fronts don't.
22:46
So it's kind of dangerous.
22:48
And it's a bear to drive.
22:50
I've been told I haven't driven it but.
22:52
Pretty much most of the cars in the Lane Motor Museum
22:55
are difficult to drive.
22:56
Yeah, so it's really, I say what it lacks in safety
23:01
and in drivability it makes up for it.
23:03
Yeah, that's awesome.
23:04
Well thank you so much for being on The Collector Car Podcast.
23:07
You're welcome, it's been my pleasure.
