397: Matthew D'Andria ("Motorator") on Fox Bodies, XJ220s & the Future of Collector Cars

All right, welcome to the Collector Car podcast.

Before we get to the main interview for this episode,

I wanted to invite Michael Zimmerman on, hey, Michael, how you doing?

Good, how about yourself?

Good, good.

Now, I've worked with you in the past for Sotheby's Motor Sports,

also known as SOMO, Sotheby's online platform.

And I thought it'd be fun just to share some of the cars that

are active at this moment as you listen to those podcasts

and also just maybe first give an overview as far as how SOMO works.

Yeah, SOMO is very easy.

I mean, it basically takes the collector car market online.

It's 14-day online options, 24-7.

We handle basically the process A to Z.

From photography, getting the car listing bills,

even post sale, we handle escrow payment,

transport for the buyer.

So we really handle every step of the process,

just taking the ambiguity out of online selling.

Yeah, I love that.

And as a car specialist with our Sotheby's,

if it wasn't a home at Monterey or Miami or Scottsdale,

it was nice to know we had a home for those cars that maybe

weren't million-dollar cars, but they were 100,000-dollar cars

or 200,000-dollar cars.

And I know, if you go to the website right now,

there's a lot of quote-unquote used supercars.

Is that kind of the bread and the butter of this kind

of format?

Yeah, yeah, used supercars.

We do great with collector cars as well.

Really anything in between.

I mean, you could find anything from a 280-cell Mercedes

to a Koenigsegg.

So really anything that handles either live auction

or online auction, we can also represent online.

People love coming to us for the collector car side.

Yeah, and you have three cars, but two in particular

I wanted to talk about that are closing tomorrow

as we post this.

So we have this Lexus F-Sport handling car,

which is pretty cool, 2025 basically brand-new Sport Ute.

But the other two are classics.

We got a 92, 928, now correct me if I'm wrong,

but this is kind of what you want.

It's a GTS and it's a five-speed, right?

Yeah, and these are going up extremely high in value now.

I mean, it's one of the cars that we've been watching

in terms of value rising in the last five years.

I mean, we just sold one no-reserve for $211,000.

Wow.

And this is a three-year only car.

Manual is the one-to-half.

I mean, it really is the grand touring version as a GTS

and the V8, so definitely the one-to-half.

Yeah, what's amazing as we record this,

it is at $90,000, so that's a bit of a bargain.

But as you know and I know and pretty much

all the listeners know is all the action happens

in basically the last hour and a half or so, right?

Exactly, yeah.

The last hour, half an hour is really when

all the last-minute bidders start to crawl in

and everyone likes to wait until the end

to see where the bidding action ends up.

But with something like this,

I definitely think it's a great deal to be had.

It comes from a prominent collection

and we can't wait to see what this one does.

That's very cool.

And then the other car I just think is so cool.

It's a 1962 Fiat Jolly and those are so cool

because if you go to one of the big auctions,

especially if you're in South of East in Monterey

or in Florida, typically you'll have one of these

as kind of a little fun car.

It's not a million dollar car

but they'll let a lower price point car in

that's cute, quirky, beach themed.

This one has the Wicked seats

and usually it really rings the bell

because if I lost out on the five million dollar Ferrari,

well here's a cute little something or other.

So where the typical market might be like 60 grand

for a car like that.

Typically they sell for over a hundred grand

and this looks like a really great opportunity on SOMO.

Yeah, and it reserved really, really reasonably.

The first time I saw one of these was actually

with Wayne Carini.

Yeah, I saw him on TV

and he was driving a Fiat Jolly

on one of the show fields.

And I mean, you see this at every concor,

it's kind of a fun car.

It's a neat little way to get into every event.

And I mean, you could drive this to the beach,

you drive it around your neighborhood.

It's really a cool car.

Yeah, that's awesome, man.

Well, I'll let you go here in a second

because I know you've got a lot of cars closing today.

You gotta get on the phone with potential bidders

and buyers, but just a sneak peek,

there is a 296, so I'm sorry,

246 Dino as well as a 296 GTB.

We got a Gallardo, we have some really cool

high-end cars, Mercedes SLR,

and I love that Toyota Land Cruiser.

So some great options on SOMO, right?

Yeah, and I mean, there's cars popping up every day.

So we normally see between 14 to 20 cars listed every week.

It's not really on the volume side that we focus on,

but more or less the quality over quantity.

So it's really exciting to kind of stay in touch

with everything that pops up every week.

Awesome, Michael.

Thanks so much for being on the podcast, I appreciate it.

Absolutely, thank you.

Imagine a journey so rare it only happened once.

That's the spirit behind once,

exclusive one-time only adventures

that will never be repeated.

Our next experience, American Muscle Legends

takes you track side with the most iconic cars in history,

complimented by luxury accommodations

and behind the scenes access you simply can't buy.

Spots are limited, when it's gone, it's gone.

You can learn more at discoveronce.com forward slash muscle.

RM Sotheby's is the world's largest collector car auction house

by total sales.

They are the preeminent market maker

of high quality collector cars and collections,

regardless of size or complexity,

by working in partnership with the Sotheby's team

and its network of 80 offices in 40 countries,

RM Sotheby's has established the largest client network

of any collector car auction house in the world.

Join the RM Sotheby's family by connecting with

one of their car specialists at RMSotheby's.com

or contact me directly at gstanley at RMSotheby's.com.

All right, now welcome to the Collector Car Podcast.

I have another guest on that I'm excited about,

mostly because we've interacted sporadically over the years

and he's heavily involved in the podcast world.

So wanted to learn a little bit more

about what he's up to today.

So I'd like to welcome Matt DeAndrea.

Matt, how are you doing today?

I'm doing well, thanks for having me.

How are you?

Good, good, I appreciate it.

I know we've talked a little bit beforehand

and now we see each other at the quail

and I follow you on Instagram.

You follow me on Instagram, thumbs up and such.

And I just thought, nice to have you on

because I listened to a lot of podcasts

where you're either the primary or the secondary voice.

And so I appreciate you being on the Collector Car Podcast.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

You guys have such a great show

and it's gonna be fun to be on the show.

And we've been involved in the Collector Car space

for a long time

and I know we've seen each other at events,

we've seen each other at auctions.

I think we've been,

I don't know, we've probably been working

with RM Sotheby's 15, 16 years.

I try to think of like, you know,

just trying to think of when was the first time

we were, you know, myself and Adam Carolla specifically

when we were doing it, him,

he's been working with you guys

probably even longer than that, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I remember the first time we met,

I was at the quail, I'm like,

are you Matt the Motorator?

Just sitting across from me, it's fun.

Which I thought was really kind of funny, you know?

You know, Adam Carolla and I started a podcast

called CarCast about 16 and a half years ago.

Early.

Yeah, very early on.

You know, when Adam left radio

and was starting a podcast, the Adam Carolla show,

I think it was about six months later,

he wanted to do something in the automotive space.

I wasn't really involved too heavily in that space,

more a fan and an enthusiast

and a friend brought me in, his original co-host

brought me in and said, you know,

you're familiar with a bunch of people in the space

and aftermarket companies

and we're putting together a podcast

and would you like to come in and produce it?

And I was like, I don't know what that means,

but sure, let's give it a shot.

You know, let's figure it out.

And then at some point down the road,

Adam and I were sitting together

and hosting the show together,

but it's been a heck of a journey, fun show for sure.

Yeah, now let's, I know you're on a podcast with Goldberg.

Talk about some of the other stuff you're involved with

from a car content perspective.

Yeah, so our main show is CarCast

and CarCast now has evolved into a twice a week

automotive podcast.

I don't do it with Adam anymore.

Just his schedule has changed.

My schedule has changed,

but you still see us up in Monterey.

I'm, you know, we talk to him all the time.

There's plenty of car stuff that we do together,

but for the last maybe seven years as well,

I've been doing a weekly show with Goldberg,

Bill Goldberg, who's a WWE wrestler, former wrestler,

former NFL player, big car collector,

you know, has a love affair for Mopar.

And muscle cars in general,

he's been working on a Cobra kit car project

for a while that we've been following on the podcast.

So that version of our show is more on the enthusiast side,

our projects, more lifestyle show, stuff like that.

And then I do a second weekly version of CarCast

with a great guy named Alistair Weaver.

He's the executive vice president

and editor in chief at Edmunds.com.

And we've been doing that show for years as well.

He was a regular guest on my show with Goldberg,

and then we spun it off as a regular show.

And that is interesting because that covers

everything sort of in the new car space,

like car reviews and EVs and car testing and buying

and leasing and just kind of a bit behind the curtain

of the new car shopping world

and kind of what happens in the world of like vehicle testing,

what do they have to do to test it?

How do they produce that content

and come up with reliable tests?

And Edmunds is kind of special too

because they created like an EV range test

that has now sort of become the benchmark for the industry.

Oh, that's cool.

It's a robust route of highway and city

and everything's kind of the same and replicated the same

and all their drivers have like the air on 72 degrees.

So you can get kind of a real world testing

of EV range testing and compare them side by side.

So when you look at vehicles estimates, right?

Versus the Edmunds test,

the Edmunds test is much more comparable

because Porsche's Taycan estimates on range

may be different than Cadillacs escalate on range, right?

Slightly, slightly different

where Edmunds puts everybody through the same test.

So that's kind of cool.

And then one of the things that came up with them

that I really credit them with is

so many vehicles,

you do the track testing like the Edmunds test track

and you kind of crunch the numbers on it

like here's the slalom and here's the Gs

and here's the zero to 60 test.

And so I just straight up dragged race head to head

wasn't really fair.

So they created the Edmunds U-Drags.

And I think this really started

when they purchased a Shelby GT500,

a number of years ago when that late,

when the most recent version came out

with the paddle shift, DTC,

sorry, DCT transmission and all of that.

So then they turned this into a really amazing thing

where they drag race a quarter mile,

then they got to get on the brakes,

make a U-turn and drag race back.

So it gets the cornering,

it gets a lot more than just a drag race in there.

And it's so much fun to watch.

And of course for us to be able to talk about it

on the podcast kind of went down

what goes down behind the scenes, right?

How do they, how do they pit the cars against each other?

You know, as you can imagine,

a lot of it is just sort of scheduling

and getting two manufacturers to kind of agree

to do the race, which is kind of fun

and stuff like that.

So crazy leaderboard, I want to say the McLaren

like 720S and the 765 LT were always at the top

of the leaderboard when it came to pure gas engine cars.

But you definitely got to pay attention to the leaderboard

now because they got the new ZR1 out there.

So. Oh wow.

Okay, yeah, that's what, 1,061 horsepower or something?

Yeah, yeah, it's just crazy.

Yeah, 1,061, 1,062.

I don't think it really matters at that point, right?

Yeah, at that point, no.

And surprisingly, there's some big, heavy EVs

that are at the top of that board as well,

like a Lucid Sapphire Air, or was it Lucid Air Sapphire,

right?

Yeah, but anyway, so those are the two versions

of car cast that I do every week.

Those shows usually come out on Thursday

and Monday, and then kind of a fun kind of personal project

for me and a couple buddies is I've been doing a podcast

called Shift and Steer.

I do it with a guy named Brad Fanshawe.

He is the co-owner and founder of Bondspeed Wheels.

He's an established builder.

He's done a number of cars for the OEs

at the SEMA shows, won GM Design Award,

Ford Design Award.

He was the president of Boyd Cottington Garage,

Boyd Cottington Wheels back in the day.

Yep.

And I do the show with him and a wonderful guy,

Aaron Hagar, you've been around the quail.

Yeah, he's a trip.

You'll know his dad, Sammy Hagar from Van Halen

and Chicken Foot and so many other bands,

but he's just an incredible artist

and just the nicest guy in the world.

The three of us just spent several days in Vegas

at the SEMA show together,

and yeah, which is always kind of crazy,

but that show was just kind of us telling stories

and the show originated because our fourth man

on the show was Pete Shaporis.

Pete started SoCal Speed Shop,

well, Pete and Jake's a hot rod shop

and SoCal Speed Shop, very early,

maybe one of the founding members of SEMA.

You know, he has passed away a few years ago.

SoCal Speed Shop still run by his son and his family,

and we still do the podcast,

but just having a guy like Pete tell stories back then,

just taking hot rods and going up the sunset strip

when it was a dirt road.

Right, great stories.

Some amazing stories.

So if you've never even heard the Shift and Steer podcast,

it's 11 years, it's over 500 episodes in,

but even if you grab a few early episodes

with Pete on there, he's just got some amazing stories.

So anyway, yeah, that's the long-winded answer

as to sort of what we're doing

in the podcasting and content world.

It's been a minute, those shows are old.

So are you 100% content-driven at this point?

I mean, well, let me take that back.

I know we have something cool in the background there,

but in general, are you all content all the time?

You know, I do those shows.

There's three podcasts a week.

We've been starting to put more of that stuff up

on YouTube as well on the CarCast channel.

It's not necessarily my full-time job.

I am not one of those hard-working YouTubers

that are building cars and buying and selling

and just rebuilding and those guys, man,

some of those guys just work so hard

and they do some really amazing stuff.

That's not where we started.

We started in audio content.

All of this started with Adam Carolla.

And his business has been largely audio content

for so long.

He's done a number of TV shows and films

and things like that and he has this documentary division.

But now I do this and a couple of years ago during COVID,

just a sort of a turn in the other direction

started a beverage company called Bravago.

It's a hard-seltzer company.

Just wanted to make something that we thought was good

and we can enjoy at events and watching races

and we bring it up to Monterey with us every year.

We're at the track and when nobody's driving,

we're having a nice drink.

That's awesome.

Yeah, so if you want to learn more about that,

I'll put a link in the description

so you can check it out for sure.

Fruity flavors, what kind of flavors are you talking here?

Yeah, so I mean the short story is

there's three hard-seltzer flavors.

They come in a variety of six packs.

There's just one product you get.

There's a reindeer, cherry, vanilla orange cream

and a strawberry lemon.

Personally, I think they're all fantastic,

light carbonations, you don't feel bloated,

no junk in it, no artificial anything in it.

And 5.1% alcohol, they're great mixers as well.

We spike them all the time with vodka

and or gin or whatever, so yeah.

Were there any other names from a brand new perspective?

You said, ah, let's not do that.

You know, when you're starting a company these days

and even when you try to sell products online,

it's this combination of like,

do you come up with a really good name

and then is it available on social media

and can you get a domain name?

Like you have to do so much more than just name a company.

So Bravago, it's B-R-A-V-A-G-O

is something that I made up.

We wanted to make sort of a bold flavor product, right?

So unlike any other hard-seltzer,

white claws, junk, truly it's not for us, right?

So we did things a little bit differently.

So we knew it was gonna be bolder in flavor.

And then talking with a guy like Goldberg as well,

who's been such a, I don't know, action-oriented guy.

We both love racing and he was an NFL player

and a longtime WWE wrestler.

So I wanted to sort of show that action.

So I took bravado, meaning bold,

and go showing action.

And bravado is like bold action.

That's where the name came from.

That's interesting because back in my food days,

I worked for Kraft Foods when they bought Cadbury

and they had a contest and to name the company.

And I knew it had to be, I forgot what the other,

they had some product that came out

and I used the mindset behind that product.

It was like, oh, they're gonna use Latin words,

they're gonna mean something hidden,

you know, whatever.

And so I forgot the one that I put out there

and you could win a prize or something.

And they came up with the Mondalees,

which is the company today.

And they used exactly the logic I thought of.

Two Latin words put together,

I think that means like healthy earth or something.

It wasn't, you know, so I picked the wrong words.

But strangely enough, two people in the company

actually picked that for the name

and they won like a trip somewhere or something.

So.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

It's not the easiest process like doing that,

coming up with the name like that.

Especially like, if you think about it in the car world,

you know, when you sit down and go,

we're coming up with the name of a company,

the logo, the branding, it needs to last forever.

You know, and then you come up with Acura, for example.

Right.

Like nailed it.

There's nothing else like it.

And, you know.

Then you take like Jaguar and you destroy a brand name.

Right.

So, yeah, I mean, there's some things like that

are more literal like that.

Like Jaguar and well, you know, some roots there or whatever.

But then you have something like BMW,

which obviously has a deeper meaning,

but now it's just been sort of deluded down to BMW.

Yes.

Yeah.

And there's so many like that.

And Ferrari kills me because, you know,

the 458 used to be 4.5 liter eight cylinder

and the 355 was a 3.5 liter, five valves per cylinder.

You know, and now it's like,

I don't know what they mean.

You know, 812, I don't know.

Right.

So, yeah.

And, you know, Dodge was Dodge Brothers.

Ford has a Ford family, you know.

You know, GM now just is silly, right?

I mean, we all don't care because we all know what it is.

It's GM.

It's General Motors.

But it's like, well, you know,

I'm sure there's a story behind it,

but it just seems so generic, you know.

It's not like, you know, like Acura or something.

Or, I mean Ferrari, right?

What a great name and what a great brand

they built around that name Lamborghini as well.

And there's so many others, right?

There's probably dozens that people

haven't even heard of that you're familiar with

being in, you know, so deeply ingrained

in the collector car world and the buying and selling.

And, you know, still to this day,

like how many times do we walk around?

At least for me, myself, Adam Cruella,

walk around the lawn at Pebble Beach and go,

what's that?

I've never even seen that.

I've never even heard of that before.

Maybe if you've heard of the car company,

but you've never seen the car

because it's the only one.

It was some coach built version of whatever, you know.

And yeah, just kind of interesting how

there's still that. Yeah, then you got

previous podcast Gaff, Jeffrey Hacker,

bringing all the fiberglass,

fabulous fiberglass cars from the 50s

nobody's ever heard of, you know?

Yeah. You know, three or five cars out there,

like what the heck is that thing?

So, well, speaking about the Ford family,

I did want to talk cars with you.

And I, let me go through the list

behind you here in this picture.

So, left to right, I don't know the year,

but SVT Lightning, I would assume, right?

Yeah, that's a 95 Lightning.

And then is it a 93 Cobra R?

93 Cobra?

It's a 93 Cobra, it's not an R.

Okay, and then-

This one might stump you.

91 S-A-A-C?

It's a 92 SAC car, yes.

Yeah, 92, that's what I'm talking more about that.

Yeah, okay.

And then you got, what, a Mach 1?

The last one?

That is a 2021 Mach 1.

So, let's talk about the SAC car.

S-A-A-C?

Shelby Automobile?

Shelby American Automobile Club.

You see, I got the real, this is a legit Shelby banner

from the 60s.

Yeah.

The other banner up there.

Nice.

Yeah, so tell us a little bit about that.

I know they only made like, I'm a Fox Body fan.

And in my mind, with the exception of the 93

like, S-A-A-L-I-N-S-S-C,

one of three convertibles ever made,

I would pick your car.

And I think that car is totally undervalued.

It is undervalued.

And I'm glad that you noticed that.

Now, I think they made 62 of those.

I could be wrong.

It could be like 63, but 62,

I think it's 62 of those cars.

And the Shelby American Automobile Club,

the SAC Group, they, before the 93 Cobra,

they wanted to do a high performance package

on that car.

So they put together a facility and reached out to Ford,

probably Ford Performance at the time

or Ford Racing, the aftermarket catalog,

and said, let's dig into the catalog,

let's make something that's kind of cool and kind of fun.

GT40 intake, GT40 heads, five lug conversion,

disc brakes.

White with blue stripes, right?

Yeah, so the very first year was only

white with blue stripes, if I recall.

And then the second year,

I think they had a couple of different colors

and a few convertibles as well.

Really?

Yeah, you'll find them around.

You'll see them pop up a few places.

Most of them were naturally aspirated,

but with the GT40 intake.

And there's a handful of supercharged ones,

maybe just a couple.

Okay.

You know, and you kind of have to dig into the story

a little bit more about how this came to be.

And it ended up being a fairly expensive car.

I wanna say when it was done,

it was maybe $40,000.

Don't quote me on that.

And it was an interesting program,

but soon after that, after about two years into it,

the 93 Cobra came out,

which is that other car behind me.

And that was basically a lot of the same stuff,

similar idea for $22,000, $21,000.

So the SAC car kind of ended.

But to me, it just made it

an interesting kind of collectible car.

That is number 50.

And it had just a few thousand miles on it.

Now, unfortunately, this picture behind me

was my warehouse that we moved out of.

And I did sell off a few of the cars,

but because most of them are projects.

And then this is kind of interesting.

Maybe you can shed some light on this

or give me your opinion on this.

So the SAC car was the first car that I bought

as a pure collector car that you can't drive.

Because it had like 3,600 miles on it in my head.

I'm like, you know, maybe I can get away

with putting 100 miles on it.

Like when does it start to make a difference?

Does it have to stay 3,608?

You know, if it's 3,500, 3,800, does anybody care?

But then what if it's 4,000 miles?

Like when does it really start to make a difference?

So I found it frustrating.

Like I got the car and I cleaned it and detailed it

and polished it up and really went through

like every little detail.

We dry ice blasted all underneath it.

Did the engine compartment, door jams, hood liner.

Like I just cleaned the heck out of the car

because, you know, it was a little,

it sat for a little while with another collector.

And then I just realized, I just don't think I can drive it.

And then I got frustrated with just having one of the,

I never in my life had a collector car

that you couldn't drive or any car that you couldn't drive.

And I don't know, I just don't know that it's for me.

So as much as I love that car, I sold it

and I'm actually more interested in maybe picking one up

with 30,000 miles and driving it a few thousand miles a year

because I really did enjoy driving that car.

But every time I drove it, I think I put 30 miles on it

or something, but...

Now when you drove it, did you have issues?

Like from dry hoses and belt stuff spilling all the time?

No, everything was pretty good on that car.

Like it was, you know, it was from a collector

in New Jersey that had it.

Maybe it was the second owner.

Like it was always kind of garage cap.

It was part of a collection with someone

who would just kind of maintain all of the cars.

And, you know, I went through just for me

is if I was going to drive it just for a safety thing,

I changed the tires and I changed all of the fluids,

you know, brake fluid, diff, transmit, you know,

just like everything on that

just to kind of freshen it up anyway.

And like I said, just clean the heck out of it.

And everything else worked fine.

I think there was like a fuse blown for the radio

that replaced and seemed to work and that was it.

And just had all the good stuff with it.

With it, the car cover and the bag, you know,

the bag for the, you know, for the books

and all that stuff, you know, so.

And the best wheels.

Absolutely the best wheels on that car.

Yeah, yeah, it was a cool car.

And then the 93 Cobra, I've had a few over the years,

that one was a build for the SEMA show.

And then as I wrap that car up, actually,

I have a good friend of mine that's a big Mustang collector.

You mentioned some of the rare Salines

like the SSC, which ended up or the SA-10,

which they actually only made nine of.

Okay.

He's got one of those.

Not familiar with that one.

Is that a Saline?

It's a 93 Saline.

I believe it's a 93.

It's black with the yellow stripes.

It has little heat extractors on the hood

toward the back, toward the cowl.

Oh yeah.

The hood.

It was supposed to be, I believe,

a 10th anniversary car.

They were gonna make 10 of them.

I think he only ended up making nine of them at the time.

That's a rare car.

So yeah, Buddymine's got a big collection

of Fox body, 90s cars, right?

So good 90s Camaros and Fox Mustangs and stuff.

I think a 2003 Lightning that he's kind of a daily driver.

But anyway, that red car, I just sold it to him.

He hasn't picked it up yet.

And I'm gonna be off to the next project as well.

So that car was at SEMA years ago.

The Black Ford Lightning that I do still have

was at SEMA as well, maybe 2017.

I think the red car was at SEMA 2016.

I think the Black truck was like 17 or 18.

And now I'm going through and redoing a bunch of stuff

on that car, on that truck.

And then I think two or three, three years ago

that Mustang Mach 1 behind me was at SEMA as well.

That has the first emissions tested twin turbo kit

group called Hellion Turbo work with SEMA garage

and got the fully emissions tested twin turbo kit.

I think they're just waiting on some final approval

for paperwork or something.

And a bunch of carbon fiber audio system,

Steeda suspension lowered a bit.

And that car was also the car was the prototype

for the hood that we developed with Anderson composites

that has kind of a scoop on it.

Oh, right, right.

But it's all carbon fiber.

Well, I fell in love with Fox bodies

because the actual first V8 Mustang ever drove

was an 86 5.0 and that was a ton of fun.

They're not, they sound faster than they really are.

100%.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just looking up in the valuation trends here.

1993 Ford Mustang Sailing SC supercharged.

Now they didn't make a lot of them in 93.

I don't know the exact numbers,

but number one condition, $228,000 up 18%.

Yeah, I mean, that sounds about right.

I think if you've found an SA-10,

I think that would be probably

a little north of $250,000.

Wow, yeah.

That's a pretty rare, pretty rare car, pretty special car.

And again, did they have any miles

on what kind of conditions are they are?

At this point, I'm sure all of them

are in well-kept collections.

Yeah, yeah.

It's funny, because you mentioned the mileage piece

and I kind of feel like there's tears.

Like it depends on the car too.

Yeah, what's your thought on that?

Yeah, under 1,000 miles, you don't want to go above that,

but 1,000 to 3,000, I feel like you could probably go up,

keep it under five, almost like 2,000 mile increments.

If you're at five and go to just under seven,

but above seven, then it starts dinging you.

Then once you hit 11,000, 10,000 miles,

not nearly as much, you know?

Yeah.

I have a friend of mine.

He has three 1994 Mustang Pace cars.

And the first one has 11,000 miles,

because that's his driver.

The second one has, I think, 58 miles,

and it's in the wrapper.

Like even the convertible top

still has the plastic covering it,

the seats covering plastic.

I'm like, why do you have the third one?

He's like, because I thought, you know, whatever,

the 38 mile one was the lowest mileage one,

and then this one with 14 miles came up,

so I bought that one.

So he has two, he can't drive,

and he has 11,000 mile one he can drive.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess if you have the means,

you have the space and the money

that you can get a few then for sure.

But that was a lot of work to have these cars

and then build them for, you know,

doing a podcast and stuff.

You know, we've done a number of project cars

and we work with a bunch of great partners and sponsors.

So building up these cars is not my business.

I'm not normally a,

I don't have a shop where I build cars.

These were all personal projects of mine.

So, you know, everything is just expensive

and kind of money losing for me.

So I build up these cars

and then for me to do another one,

I've got to sell off something, you know?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Hopefully they'll come a day where I don't have to do that.

But in the meantime, I do.

So the most recent project

is going to be that 95 lightning.

That one runs and we've done some,

some kind of fun custom stuff to it.

A little bit more with something you'd see

at the SEMA show

and something a lot less you would see

at like Monterey car week or Goodwood or something, you know?

But, you know, we've scanned parts of the car.

We 3D printed like mirrors and door handles

and got them to fit the way we wanted

and then machine them out of billet and, you know,

took the, you know, the, it's a standard cab truck.

You know, but it had a quarter window

on, you know, on the, on the door.

So we eliminated that and went to a one-piece glass conversion

which allowed us to move the mirrors a little bit forward

on the door or some things like that.

And then, you know, then I've got a bunch of parts

that are going on to it soon.

We've got a full suspension kit

and rack and pinion steering conversion.

We've got adjustable shocks,

cockpit adjustable shocks that are going on it.

It's meant to be period correct.

So it's got the original like GT 40 intake,

but the engine, which is a 351 based Ford

is the new one is, it's a 351 block,

but now it's 427 cubic inches and it's all aluminum.

It's a dart block, aluminum dart heads.

So we're going to take probably a hundred or so pounds

off the front of that truck.

It's going to have a big supercharger on it as well.

And you know, we're going to go from 235 horsepower to 800.

So is this to possibly make some aftermarket parts

that are available to other people?

Is it just for fun and show?

You know, I'm not in the business

of making aftermarket parts for sale.

We made a few parts for it

and I thought about teaming up

with someone and making them available.

The door handles you could probably do,

those are pretty much bolt on.

And it's a really nice billet door handle,

eliminates the cast, you know,

potted metal and the rubber plasticky button

that's on there, it's got a nice billet button.

And we, you know, we 3D printed like a sleeve

so it slides real smooth.

That you could probably do,

but we're not quite there yet, you know,

for Gen 1 lightning owners to buy $500 door handles.

Right, yeah.

You know, by the way, three years ago,

FoxBody fans weren't that way.

And then go around the scene show this year

and there's, you know, two, $300,000 FoxBodies

being built in Roadster Shop chassis

and, you know, supercharged Coyote swaps,

you get $30,000 engine.

So who knows, maybe the lightning will get there.

The mirrors I think would be very cool to do,

but it's just not an easy installation.

We try to make it so it would bolt on,

but you have to kind of put a plate on the back of the door

and you have to put some stetted,

some threaded studs in there.

But to do that, there's a threaded plate in the door

and it's kind of spot welded in.

You have to drill those out and remove that plate.

Okay, yep.

And then you'd probably have to remove the glass

to get your hand back there to do it.

So, you know, we try to do it,

but at the end of the day we needed to pick,

do we want a bolt on mirror

or do we want something that fit the design

of what we were going for?

So I just went with custom.

Now, where does,

so I know of a lightning red

that's got like 5,500 miles on it,

but it's like in a warehouse where it's kind of deteriorating.

I should probably follow up,

see if that might be available for you guys to chop up

and do something fun with.

Yeah, or, you know, if it's been sitting there

and it's got, you know, like you said,

a fair amount of miles, you know,

like a load of mid range of miles on it, you know,

they're gonna go up in value.

I mean, if it's got all the original parts on it

and there's some very unique things, you know,

the seats and the center console

and the bumpers and stuff like that.

And, you know, if it's got all of that stuff on it,

that's a great entry level investment car.

You start talking about in the car world,

probably not something that crosses your desk,

but, you know, in the 15 to $30,000 range,

you can find these lightnings

and if you, you know, if you can bring them back

and restore them, it's not, you know,

it's a fun truck.

You know, in that same vein,

like the 454SS that was around that era as well,

that's a cool, you know,

I know everybody's thinking like Typhoon and Cyclone,

you know, those are cool trucks,

but those are getting up there in value now, right?

Like clean ones are, I don't know,

100 grand, close to 100 grand, something like that, right?

I don't think you can get anything

for less than 50 or 60,000,

where, you know, something like the Gen 1 Lightning

you can get for half that, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

So where's the love for early 90s Ford's?

Where'd that come from?

It didn't start to be Ford specific.

You know, my first car was an 87 Camaro that I bought used

and I liked it.

And then when I can afford the...

Was it a stick shift with the big round, you know,

a cue ball?

Yes, it was, but it was a 305, you know,

but it was slow, it was V8, it was manual,

it was a fun, you know, a T-top car,

it was just, you know, did a little work on it,

did a few mods on it.

But, you know, to get that car to go fast back in the day,

it's like, you just gotta do like, you know,

big displacement.

You gotta just start getting stuff to it.

Right.

And then, you know, the 93 Cobra was announced,

it was coming out and, you know, for me, you know,

in high school working two jobs,

going, oh man, can I afford this car?

It's, you know, 27,000 bucks, 21,000, 22,000 bucks.

You know, working, working a couple of jobs back then

and, you know, manage, you know, got a little help,

managed to, managed to get one.

So my first 93 Cobra was new in 93.

Wow.

And I was living in South Florida at the time

and unfortunately that car got stolen

and completely stripped, like completely stripped.

And they took the unibody and even chopped it in half

so they can just like dump it

in the back of like a panel truck.

So you know that car's gone.

It's gone.

Yeah, so we found it.

So we found just like the unibody shell

and nobody thought about it at the time,

like what could that be worth?

So, you know, you try to get the insurance money

and you move on in life, right?

And especially when you, you know,

you're a high school kid, you don't have any money.

Like what do you do?

You're devastated.

But love that car.

I got the bug for Mustangs with that car.

Years later, you know, when I was an adult,

I tried to contact the insurance company and go,

how do I buy back whatever this car is?

Like how do I just buy back like the VIN number

or something with the car?

And even then they were like,

we weren't even using computers back then.

You're like, the agent had had it on paperwork.

That agent, like, I don't even think that dude was alive.

He probably passed away and you know,

that office has been closed.

There's no paperwork.

So that car is just gone.

Like so gone, there's no way of like digging that out

because I tried.

I was just like, you know, I can just build one

and just like tell the story about it

and you know, see if I can survive.

Yeah, great story.

You know, find, you know, something on that car

but it's too old, too gone.

Wow. Yeah, that's nuts.

So what about SN95s?

You're cool.

Didn't own many in that space.

The next gen, the new edge, you know,

had a Cobra convertible, you know, like that car.

And then since then it was just building up relationships

with all the car companies.

And then I don't know, just sort of a natural fit for me

to build a strong relationship with Ford.

So since then I've been, you know,

lucky enough to be invited out to a number of their events

and drive a bunch of their cars and get the press vehicles.

We just went to the SEMA show and back

in the Ford Bronco in the Strupp edition,

the Bill Strupp edition car.

And I'm sure you know some history on that.

Of course I'm driving down the Strupp.

If you guys have seen this car, it's the two door Bronco

and it's paying homage to kind of Bill Strupp

who modified Broncos, it's Baja stuff

but it's orange with white

and black.

A blue top, a black, okay.

So I'm driving down the Strupp leaving

and a bunch of guys roll up to me in an escalator

like, are you a Denver Broncos fan?

I'm like, what?

I was like, oh no.

I was like, no, it's a Strupp edition.

It's a Baja thing.

And they were like, eh, it's fine.

And they just drove away.

Are those Raptor-based or you can get it not-

It's not Raptor-based but it has some upgrades

like Fox shocks and stuff that are on the Strupp edition.

Right, yeah, okay.

Yeah, I was at the launch in Marriott of Georgia

for the big unveil of the SN95s and 94.

And they had the car in the courtyard of a Marriott

and all the local car clubs showed up.

I think I saw pictures of it and they unveiled it.

And I was like, eh, it wasn't my cup of tea now

that when they did the Terminator,

is it Terminator later?

Yeah.

Now the new edge design,

that cleaned it up quite a bit for me

and I liked it more, you know?

Do you remember before the SN95 came out,

they were like, we're not sure if we're gonna do the Mustang.

The probe was a spurs.

The future was the Ford probe.

They're like, that's our future.

And then people are like, it is not.

It is not your future.

Try to find a Ford probe now.

I know, I think the people were right.

I think the people were right.

Another car that I've been getting my attention recently,

like just thinking about the topic of affordable cars

that are a little bit unique, like the 95 Lightning.

I'm digging right now the 2003 and 2004 Mercury Marauder.

Hell yeah, black and what, is it only black?

They did a silver, they did a silver,

they did like a maroon red and a very rare blue.

Okay, I'm not eating that confused with the Impala

because the Impala had like that purple, had the black.

Yeah, okay.

I think like 11,000 or 11 and a half thousand Marauders

are made over two years and 8,000 of them were black.

So it's rare to get any of the other colors.

You'll see silver pop up like on marketplace and stuff.

But you know, that car had the mod motor from the Cobra.

Well, the mod motor that started in the Cobra,

then it was in the Mach 1, you know, like 2003 Mach 1,

which had the little hood scoop attached to the engine.

It's something like 320 horsepower, you know,

four valve overhead cam engine in it.

That's what the Marauder had

with a four speed automatic and four seats, right?

Like, you know, you know, wasn't really fast

and it kind of looked like a cop car, but yeah,

kind of interesting.

I think that Panther platform that was on,

it had rack and pinion steering.

So I think anything before that probably didn't.

So yeah, it was just kind of getting

into some interesting features, you know?

And I think you can get those things for,

you probably get a really nice one for 30 grand or less.

And then everything else is probably cheaper than that.

So yeah.

Well, that whole platform there,

because a friend of mine, he's got like 25 cars

and yeah, Shelby has all sorts of stuff,

Jaguars and he is daily drivers,

like a 2005 Lincoln Continental, you know,

the same platform, you know?

And he's like, I love this thing.

Cause it is like a couch on wheels, you know,

back then when you could actually

not even feel the speed bumps.

And I ran into one the other day,

I probably should have bought it,

but it was the Jack Nicholas edition.

And so it was Emerald Green with tan,

Cordova Roof, two-tone green and tan interior.

And at 40,000 miles, you opened the trunk

and it had green and tan Jack Nicholas golf club bag,

unused, everything was right there.

And I'm like, I'm not that old yet, you know?

But I thought that's kind of neat, you know?

Just a period thing that's you never see, you know?

Yeah.

So I gotta ask, cause we haven't caught up in a while.

What's in your garage?

So I've got a unrestored 66 Pontiac GTO.

Cool.

So I opened the original family

and the guy special ordered it to match his race car.

So it's tiger gold with a custom, from the factory,

red pinstripe and, you know,

389 tri-car four-speed AC car, which is rare.

Yeah.

And that thing is super sweet.

I just bought a 65 K code hypo Mustang convertible.

Okay.

Found that in California accidentally,

just having a conversation with a guy that said,

I gotta get rid of this hypo Mustang.

And I was like, well, tell me more about this hypo Mustang.

Yeah.

I wasn't looking for it.

And I got my wife a little Boxster S05,

had never really been driven, 1900 miles on it.

Wow.

Six speed, and that's a great little car.

Those things are really nice.

And it's got about 5,000 miles on it now.

So that's it.

Yeah, that's good.

Just a couple of cars there, you know?

Yeah.

Now do you have like a daily driver

that's, you know, just like great to drive?

2014 Toyota FJ.

I was gonna say, yeah,

drive like a Toyota or Lexus or something.

I love the Toyota FJ.

Yeah.

111,000 miles.

I wanna take it another 100,000 miles

because 14 was the last year.

And so we've had it since 16.

And I'm just gonna keep on.

I just put on new running boards on it, you know?

I just love that thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

Gava, what's your daily?

This is kind of interesting, I guess.

It's a 2022 F-150 Lightning.

So I have the old Lightning

and then I have the new electric truck light.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Now that one was just supposed to be a daily driver,

but we ended up doing some work on it

and it went to the SEMA show last year.

It was my fifth SEMA car.

Oh wow.

Okay, that's cool.

That one was a little bit easier to do

because we just lowered it

and then did a bunch of stuff,

worked with real truck on,

they launched a new running board with an LED light

on it, power step vision, I think.

So we launched that, power tonneau covers

and did some bike rack stuff on it.

And it has some Shelby wheels on it

and I did a big brake conversion.

It's got big Brembo brakes in the front.

And yeah, it's a cool truck.

So at SEMA, who do you show your stuff with?

Does it vary?

Yeah, different partner.

So we've done a few vehicles

that ended up in the Magnaflow booth, Magnaflow exhaust.

This one was real truck

that must say Mach 1 was with Anderson composites as well.

And then the Mach 1 also showed up

at like Fabulous Forts Forever

and Long Beach Grand Prix.

So you do a bunch of different events

with the cars when they get built.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, like any other car fanatic, I'm sure.

I've got a list of cars.

Like I might have to sell my Pontiac GTO,

not cause I want to,

but because there's these cars I see coming

available privately that I wouldn't mind having a shot at.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh, that would be nice.

Oh, that'd be nice.

Yeah, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Cause a lot of the stuff we come across

isn't available to take to either auction

or it's difficult private sale.

And it just goes elsewhere.

And I'm like, I'd like to have a shot of that.

So when you talk about things that you kind of like

pick up for your own personal collection,

did you go ahead and throw a bid on that 62 Ferrari 250 GTO

that you sold for $52 million?

No, I didn't.

Well, if I did, it was all mental.

I did drive that and while I was driving it,

the sun was filming me three or four deer

across the road.

He told me to slow down quickly.

So you don't want to wreck a $50 million car

right before it sells.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, you definitely do a lot of it.

You know, it's the thing about cars though,

it's you want to try new stuff.

And so I definitely fell in love with limited edition

all aluminum Ferrari race cars that day,

but I don't know that I'll ever be able to buy one,

but at least I can try to enjoy them through others.

Yeah.

You know, a collector car that I've been cheering for

for a while, I keep going, this is going to go up.

This is going to go up.

You guys are missing the boat on this.

And it probably hasn't really gone up in years,

but I just think we're missing out on the XJ220.

I yeah, I think I think there are some super cars

that are really kind of bringing.

So in the collector car world, like the world that you're in,

the big brother brings up the little brother, right?

Like every time a Gullwing goes for more money,

you know, like the 280 goes for a little bit more money,

right? Like it just brings up.

And and I'm looking at in the world of of, you know,

eighties and nineties super cars and where they're starting to go.

What's happening with Ferrari?

What's happening to Porsche?

You know, look at Porsche 911.

Look at air cooled.

The end of air cooled 911 turbos, turbo assets,

like where they're going.

And I'm going, we're we're sleeping on the XJ220.

You know, I just think that's, you know,

the wheels date it a little bit.

And I think people kind of like frown upon

the twin turbo sex, but like looking at four GT, like four GT,

the six cylinder, you know, it's not the worst thing in the world.

Yeah, I totally agree with you

because it's such an iconic, beautiful, ageless design, you know.

And obviously it can never,

it never got over the fact that doesn't have a V12, which they advertised.

It was faster than the F40.

And it's faster than almost everything in period.

You know, you look at F40, they're hitting four million dollars now.

And the XJ220 is at 450 to 650, depending on color.

Yeah, I was going to say, they're probably around 500,000 bucks.

Yeah, so in the right in the middle there. Yeah.

But it also should have been called the XJ217

because it never hit 220 miles an hour.

Maybe a little tail wind or downhill or something, or, you know,

we retire technology today, maybe we can get it to 220.

I did meet a guy at the quail.

I think it was two years ago that had an XJ220

and then I don't want to say he took it to a hot rod shop,

but he definitely took it to a restore and high performance shop.

And he said, let's make the XJ220

of a modern version of this.

So they went through and like rebuilt the engine and modern day turbos

and and revised the suspension and did like remote reservoir shocks

and all kind of, you know, adjustable stuff and just turned it into, you know, like.

And I hate to say this every single time,

sort of this singer of XJ220s, right?

Like it seems like we beat that term to death all the time,

but probably still a badge of honor.

Like everybody wants to be the singer of everything, right?

You walk around the quail these days.

There's Superleggera doing five fifties and and, you know,

roof's been around for a while, but what they're doing.

And then just the Alfa mail company popped up

and Cayenne, the Volvo company popped up like everybody's doing

sort of this reimagining, if you will, of something new.

And they're all done great.

Like there's some amazing cars out there.

But without singer, do we have any of those?

I don't know. But that's an interesting point because.

You know, you got to pick your base carefully,

you know, your base car, like where can you source from?

That's why I've been impressed with Vrivology

doing as well as they have because of the price point of a Mustang.

You know, the price of 9-11 is much higher, obviously.

And, you know, I saw someone locally here in Ohio.

They had done a really incredible job

on a 9-14 singer-esque with like carbon fiber panels

that look like Brutus.

Yeah, like, dude, you ought to just go in business and making that.

But he's like, you know, I mean, 9-14 guys

are going to spend 400 grand for a car.

That's a good point, you know?

You got to think about the base.

That is tough. But I mean, companies like Vrivology

and Velocity and Restorations, like they're doing 200,

$250,000 cars.

They're not doing 800,000 cars, right?

What is that?

Superleggera does their version of like a 550 carbon.

Those are nice. Yeah, that's a nice car, right?

That's a nice car.

But yeah, what's the price point on that thing?

It's like, it's like 800,000, something like that.

Yeah. And I was just at the Hilton Headcon Corp.

And they had an all gorgeous carbon fiber, basically an Eleanor,

but it wasn't an Eleanor.

It was a gorgeous like maroon.

But you can see the carbon weave through it, metallic maroon with carbon weave.

Stunning car. I think it's called Classic Recreations.

Yeah. Classic Recreations.

Velocity, right? They bought them.

The carbon fiber one that you're talking about was Classic Recreations.

You're right. I'm not sure who owns it now.

But Classic Recreations did have a license with Shelby.

A guy named Jason Engel had started that company.

He since sold it and he's got a new company called Trickrides.

And it was a limited run of the full carbon fiber body versions of that.

And yeah, expensive.

Five eighty. Yeah. Five. Yeah.

It was gorgeous, though. I was like, I'm so tired of Eleanors.

I'm all on board with what you're doing here.

This is pretty slick, you know?

That car was slick.

That the thing about the Eleanor cars, first of all, I like what it did

to the industry, it kind of brought back like,

let's do something kind of interesting and fun and modifying these cars.

And it took sort of the classic cars and turned them into wild builds, right?

So it created a lot of attention.

I'm a fan of motorsports movies like that, too, like Rush and F1.

Oh, yeah. I'm a fan because it just it just elevates Ford v Ferrari.

It's just like elevates the industry that we spend so much time in and we enjoy.

Right. The Ferrari movie, unfortunately, wasn't that good.

But I still like that it happened, you know?

I think it was better than the Lambo movie.

Yes, which nobody saw.

We have a Kuntas going against the 400 400 I and the Kuntas is losing.

I'm like, you didn't get the cars right, you know?

Yeah, right. That's that's that's kind of the issue.

And then the Ferrari movie was such a long project that Michael Mann was working on.

Adam had interviewed Michael Mann on the Adam Carolla show.

And it's a great story to hear about how that was came to be.

And then the movie came out and didn't do that well.

And then, you know, yeah, fortunately,

fortunately for Adam, he did the interview before the baby came out, you know?

But yeah, I like all of that.

I always love I always love the Eleanor.

I thought it was just a beautiful car.

I just think it's so over done.

And there's so many crappy Eleanor cars out there.

And it's just over over done.

Like give me the original any day of the week, you know?

Yeah. So what what I think hurt that car was

so many companies were trying to like capitalize on the popularity of that car.

People were making body kits and some companies were trying to do licenses

and then they were going out of business and then somebody else was trying to get a license.

And then eventually a judge ruled that you don't even need a license

because it's a it's a character of a car.

It's not like it's not like the family from the original movie.

Like so now, you know, something rolls across this, you know, the auction block.

And you go the officially licensed Eleanor car, you know, built 10 years ago.

And then you got one that's not officially licensed.

Like it doesn't really matter that much.

Like I get somebody paid for that license at the time.

But it doesn't which was an expensive license.

It was like $30,000 a car, something like that.

It's an expensive license.

It the value of that license doesn't really carry over quite as much.

And now you're just buying the quality of the bills, right?

Because yeah, there were some really crappy, built, officially licensed cars.

And there are some that are really, really good, you know, coyote swapped and things like that.

And you're going, oh, that's got all the good parts and the great craftsmanship

and the gaps are right and the hood's not wavy.

It's like that's the car you're spending money on.

So yeah, you'll go to auctions and you'll see the $200,000 Eleanor

and you'll see the $400,000 Eleanor.

Unfortunately, from 30 feet away, they look the same.

But when you get up close, you see the difference.

So if you have an expensive one, you just want to show it to everybody up close.

Yeah, I had a buddy look at it at an Eleanor local lady the other day

and the guy wanted like 350 and I'm like, I walked away and I said,

I got to assume this is based on a six cylinder coupe and not even a fastback,

you know, because they can put those tops on.

And all right, if I start with a six cylinder coupe,

is there $300,000 worth of craftsmanship in parts and engine

equipment? I said, this could be $150,000.

I mean, I'm not going to give my opinion on something

where I think the wiggle room is 200 grand, you know, just hard.

They're hard, you know.

Yeah, they are. They're hard.

The one thing that bugged me about it was the hood.

I was never a fan of the hood.

It's too big and wedgy and kind of other than clearance for the engine,

which it didn't really need when that car came out.

It's like it's just kind of a goofy hood.

It wasn't functional.

I thought that was your cat in the background.

That's my cat. That's your cat.

That's your cat.

And I think a company like Classic Recreation

fixed that they ended up going with like more of a Shelby style hood.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, cool, man. Well, what's coming up in your world?

Where you be at any?

I know you just came from SEMA.

What do you have rest of the year kicking off in the next year?

You know, it's a good question.

We're still kind of downloading from SEMA.

We we grabbed a handful of interviews

that we're still rolling out on the car cast podcast.

That we grabbed live from the show for some incredible builders.

Jason Engel, what we mentioned about his new company, Trick Rides.

Steve Strope, who's an amazing car builder, the Ring Brothers.

They just did that Aston Martin that launched at the Quail.

Yeah. What do you think of that?

Because I did do an interview with them at the Quail.

Well, I've known them for a long time.

They're good friends of mine.

I just spent a lot of time with them at SEMA,

just the nicest group as well.

Those guys are so awesome.

The amount of work and that went into that car,

we don't even have time to go through it.

I think they did a phenomenal job on that car.

There's very little Aston Martin left,

I think like a VIN plate and window regulators.

But that's all carbon fiber.

So to do that now,

to get a car that precise

and carbon fiber as a custom build.

But if you think about it like that is

probably tougher than doing it in metal.

Like if you're doing it in metal

and the gaps aren't perfectly right,

you can shave it down a little or add a little weld

and get the door gaps right.

And the carbon fiber, you make the piece and it's not perfect.

You're back to square one.

You're making another piece.

So those guys going from

from evolving as hot rod builders

just being amazing metal crafters,

which they still are to getting into this world

of carbon fiber and machined pieces

and scanning and CAD.

And there's so many great hot rod shops

that are that are doing that, too.

But they were fortunate enough

to have a client come to them and go,

I want to build a Ring Brothers car.

And they said, what do you want?

And they're like, I don't know.

What do you guys want to do?

And they said, I don't know,

maybe not another Mustang.

And he goes, how about an Aston Martin?

How about a 70?

I think that's brilliant.

It's such a gorgeous car.

Oh, and it was it was a great interpretation of that.

They did such a great job.

And if you think about that, that car is a transaxle.

So like the Ben Collins, the Stig before SEMA,

they took it to a track and did a track day

with some some crazy supercars.

And then when that was done, Ben Collins was like,

I just want to do laps in this thing.

He's got more laps than that than anything.

If you saw that car at the floor on the SEMA show,

the those tires are damn near toast already.

Like he like.

And those are the sexiest wheels on a car

I think I've ever seen.

Those things are amazing.

Amazing, right.

And all based off of of what was on that car originally.

Yeah, you know, taking that

and interpreting it to something modern.

Funny, even so my podcast,

Shift and Steer podcast I do with Brad Fanshawe

that owns Bond Speed Wheels.

When I was doing my lightning project,

which has kind of that turbine fan kind of wheel

on on the 95 lightning,

I told Brad, I said, we're going to SEMA.

We need to make some wheels.

So we scan the original wheels,

the cast 15 inch wheels or 16 inch wheels.

And he custom made a set of billet 18 inch wheels,

but they're staggered,

9s and 10s front and rear.

And they're directional,

where the cast ones one left and right side.

Now they're staggered and they're directional

and they're 18 inch and we fit big

willwood brakes underneath.

So when that car was at the SEMA show,

people from, you know, 100 feet away, I would go,

that's a lightning I can tell by the wheels.

And then they get up on it going,

oh, that's really cool.

That's a modern version of the wheel.

It was painted silver.

It wasn't like chrome or anything.

It was like, we just made a really, really nice version.

And then when we went,

when we did all the press on that vehicle

and all the photos,

so many people on the forums and Facebook groups

were like, how do I buy those wheels?

I'm like, we can make them for you, but here's the price.

It's the price, it's the value of your truck

is right now.

And people are like, oh, I don't want to do that.

That's the hang up on it is like,

is yeah, you could buy a truck for $10,000

or you could buy a set of wheels.

So for Ring Brothers to work with HRE again and again.

And I've worked with them many times as well.

The Mach 1 and that photo is HRE wheels as well.

They're a great company, Bond Speed's a great company.

But yeah, you kind of have to do some really special

gotta get creative.

Yeah, yeah.

For sure.

Yeah, well, so where will we see ya?

Like what, anything rest of this year?

Yeah, thanks.

So this year, I think we're just wrapping up

with LA Auto Show that's on the new car side of stuff,

the stuff that I do with Edmunds.

We're gonna be releasing more of the SEMA interviews,

the new car stuff, and then we'll see,

we'll be back at it again next year to,

you know, it'll be year 17.

So yeah, I'm sure there's gonna be plenty of stuff

to talk about for sure.

I, we love to get out to Goodwood,

but that's always tough with the schedule for us.

We, Monterey, we do every year for sure.

Adam Cruller does racing up there.

So that's always a fun trip,

but I'm not sure what else is gonna be on the docket yet.

Oh, before you go, we haven't talked about it.

Oh my gosh.

So here's Paul Newman, 9-11.

Yeah, so Adam's collection of Paul Newman racing cars

actually includes 15 of the Newman cars.

14 of them, I believe are,

I think it's 14, along with some of the memorabilia

are at the Reno Automotive Museum.

So if you're in Nevada, you can check that out.

There's some racing suits and helmets.

It's a really, really great collection.

One of the cars that was acquired fairly recently,

I don't know, like in the last year,

is with a friend as part of his collection

in Texas currently.

That's Paul Newman drove a Ferrari 308

as the rare like fiberglass body 308 with Budweiser.

And he teamed up with some of his friends

because they would just like to drink beer.

So the transporter was like a panel truck

that the Ferrari would go into.

And I believe it said that the drivers were Paul Newman,

Clint Eastwood and James Brolin.

And the team manager was,

I don't know if they're gonna have Jean.

Hackman?

Hackman, Jean Hackman was like,

they were just drinking.

They're all there for beers.

So we were fortunate enough to add the Ferrari

and the transporter to Adam's collection.

So yeah, there's 15 Paul Newman cars.

He's got the 935.

Yeah.

What's the 911?

There's a 74, 911S.

So here's my, you wanna hear my story on that?

So here's my story on that.

My dad and my parents were living in Holly Springs, Georgia.

And whenever I would come to visit,

on Highway 140, going towards Canton,

on the right hand side, there was this old body shop.

And it was chain link fence and gravel.

But there'd be these crazy cars sitting out front,

every once in a while.

Like I drive by and it's all junk.

Drive by and there's a mirror.

Drive by and I can never stop

because it was so tight with family visits.

There's always that Thanksgiving.

And it was killing me.

I can't stop and see these cars.

And finally one year I was in town just for fun

and I had time and I pulled over there.

There was nothing in there at the time.

And the body shop guy, I'm drawing a blank on his Roy.

Oh, he was the paint man.

Anyways, the guy gives me a tour.

And it's all rare stuff.

And I'm like, wow, this is amazing.

He's like, hey, you wanna see Paul Newman's Porsche?

I'm like, all right, why not?

And so going to the back and that car is there

being restored and it's in primer

and I took some pictures.

And he had like a lightweight alloy Jaguar

and some rare stuff.

And then a couple of years later, I see it at Meekam Indy.

And the owner was telling me, he's like,

hey, if you wanna sell this privately,

this is when I started consulting with RM Sotheby's.

He's like, yeah, let me know.

And I'm like, well, what do you think the car is worth?

He's like, oh, I had him Corolla bought that Porsche

for 5.5, so even if you give me $5 million,

I'd be happy.

I'm like, well, that's way out of the crazy number.

That one won Le Mans.

It won its class in Le Mans

and it's the winningest 935 in the world.

Right, and so this guy goes off as rocker.

Well, fast forward another two years,

I see the car at Meekam Indy up for sale

with an estimate of 450 to 550.

And I see the painter there.

I'm like, what's going on?

I didn't know you guys were selling this car.

Well, the owner died, had a heart attack

at 61 and died or so.

And so the painter Roy was representing it at Meekam.

It was a no sale.

Yes.

And then eventually ended up in you guys

in Adam's collection.

So I actually have pictures of that car

back when I was being restored.

Yes, it was in Monterey at another auction

years before that, Orange.

And it wasn't really in like the Newman livery.

It was something else and but it had like

the Beverly Hills Porsche thing on it.

It was sort of like a hodge podge

of like somebody put stickers on it

but not the right paint bodywork.

And then, yes, when it went and got restored

back to the Newman spec,

I was following the car for years.

I spoke to the auction companies.

We bid on the car.

I spoke to the family.

And yeah, it was just wasn't the right time.

And I just didn't think it was the right price.

But until it became the right time

and the right price and made some calls.

And I was happy to see Adam acquire that vehicle.

Like the other car.

Yeah, the other car there that was running and driving

I wish I'd bought it was like a 57 ferret.

Like they made like five of them

and they were British magnesium bodied

like a little climax.

Magnesium body.

Yeah, one of the five of them.

And I just saw one in an art gallery.

But anyways, running and driving

and I lost track of that car,

I would have loved it.

Like 57 ferret, it's dark green.

There's video of YouTube of this guy driving around

and it sounds like a monster.

Yeah.

That's gotta be cool.

Just a high red and a little four cylinder, so.

Well, Matt, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

That's what we got up.

Wow, this one quick.

I know.

We just got on a roll there for a minute.

Yeah.

One of my longer interviews,

which I really love it

because the passion's there for me, you know?

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

And looking forward to the next event.

I'll be sure to see you at Quale

with nowhere else.

Yep.

397: Matthew D'Andria ("Motorator") on Fox Bodies, XJ220s & the Future of Collector Cars

About this episode

Lexus F-Sport

Fiat Jolly

Ferrari 246 Dino

$40,000

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from The Collector Car Podcast