Bruce Meyer on Collecting, Cobras, and Lowriders

Bring a trailer podcast. We'll Bruce, I'm excited to be here with you today on the BAT podcast for everybody listening. I want to tell everybody about a super special episode we have today, which is talking with Bruce Meyer from Los Angeles, California. We kind of need no introduction in the car world, being a collector and an enthusiast and a big backer of the Peterson Museum and just kind of the guy who has done all the

car things we all want to do. That's kind of how I described you Bruce and somehow along the way you also tripped across and bring a trailer which was meaningful for me and then we got to meet after that. So I just wanted to say thanks for chatting with me. Thanks for having me here today. It's a pleasure. Long overdue and I've been following bring a trader probably since its inception. Just I tripped across it. And as I recall, you just found cool cars in places that people didn't look.

And it intrigued me. So I always looked at them and enjoyed them and I've always enjoyed the fact that you're a true enthusiast. You didn't monetize this. I'm just speaking out of tune, but I don't think you ever did that with the idea of tinging toward this today. Maybe you did, but for me it was just an enthusiast sharing what we all love and that's the hunt and finding unusual things and so I want to say thanks.

No, for sure. My pleasure. We're all happy with where BAT is today and that one of the neatest things about BAT for me is kind of discovering who's lurking around on BAT. You know, and who's there? And some people you know and some people are more anonymous and sort of behind the scenes. You've been sort of behind the scenes but have always been very gracious to me whenever I showed up and said, hey, Bruce, remember me. It's Randy from Bring a Trailer, you know, I was this kind of young nobody trying to kind of pull on people's shirts leave a little bit at a car show or whatever. And you were super gracious.

I said, oh, bring a trailer. I know that deal. You know, like what are you doing, Randy? Good to see you. So anyway, that's been super encouraging for some other folks coming up in the car business like I have done and sort of following your footsteps. But yeah, people may hear a little bit of a echo today in our audio just because we're in a big beautiful room full of a few cars of yours in Southern California today, which is very inspiring. I'm looking out on a number of sort of dream cars and you've obviously curated a collection.

Of fun cars over the years, but you talk about the hunt, maybe why you like BAT was because of the hunt of cars.

You were doing that long before I was ever doing that on the internet, right? You were doing that who knows where, but could you tell us a little bit maybe about your start in cars and where that inspiration came from?

Well, it did not come from the family. We didn't have the money to waste time on cars and my parents had zero interested cars.

And, you know, if I even mentioned car they thought, you know, get a job. I mean, just do something worthwhile.

So I say the love of cars in your DNA. You know, I have three children, three amazing children. We do. My wife and I have 54 years of marriage.

And it took real strong on one, our middle son. The other two, you know, I have an interest because they like to see me doing what I enjoy doing.

But I just think it's in the DNA. You're either a car guy or not, you know, gals and guys and whatever pleases you, but I think it is in the DNA.

And friends of mine bring their kids by. Friends of mine that have no interest in cars, bring their kids by.

And they just love cars from birth and that was me.

And didn't you tell me a story once about how it started to be sort of a side hustle and making money for you?

What are you selling and buying motorcycles or something? Or how did that start when you were in college?

Did we talk about that?

We had to. You've shared some secrets with me. Maybe I shouldn't bust your bubble here on the secrets.

No, no.

You're selling Berkeley and doing something with motorcycles.

I was. Yeah. Yeah. When you went through orientation, they had different like stations.

And one of the stations was student loans. And my dad had given me tuition, money up front.

And and I, you know, hashed and found lodging. I was that was kind of on me, but there was a tuition loan line for whatever.

And I went and they said, no, well, we'll lend you money for tuition. No interest free as long as you pay it back at the end of the year.

And I thought, I'll take one of those. So that's kind of how it happened.

And I had some extra money. And I started buying motorcycles.

Now I let me go take a step back because my love of motorcycles goes back to when I was like 13 years old.

And my parents just forbid. I mean, that was never even. I never even mentioned motorcycle. I wasn't that stupid.

But I had the best paper corner in LA. I mean, I was making probably two or three dollars a day back, you know, in the early 50s.

When friends of mine were getting 50 cents a week for allowance. And we all got by. So I was making like real money really early.

And I had a little kind of a soap box derby ratio. My parents gave me a lawnmower engine because I just wanted something to learn about engines. So they did go with that.

Then I put it on a bicycle. And then I got a wizard going and then I bought a 1953 BSA.

And I could hide these things in friends garage. So I was riding motorcycles, you know, from age 13 on.

So when I got to college, that was my preferred mode of transportation. And at Berkeley, you go to downtown Oakland. And you could buy motorcycles really cheap.

And so I knew what the fraternity guys liked, you know, I knew the spec. And I knew the color. They liked yellow.

So I was buying bikes and painting my apartment house under rent. And I would probably sell a motorcycle a month. And by the way, I was maybe making a hundred dollars on a motorcycle.

Because it was kind of sport. I was bartending in a place called the Wrath Scheller, which was the bar in Berkeley and hashing and selling motorcycles, living the dream.

And my fraternity brother was a fellow named Bill Harland. And now he's a really famous wine maker.

But back in the Berkeley days, we both raised motorcycles. And when I say we both raised motorcycles, on the weekends we'd go to Pittsburgh and Richmond.

And you know, we'd go different places and raise motorcycles. Bill really raised motorcycles. I was just a back marker because he was a great motorcycle rider.

So, you know, I just, I love the whole motorcycle life. And that's what I lived pretty much my whole time at Berkeley. And it's carried on. When I came home, I still raised in the desert.

And you know, back then it was called TT scrambles. It was pretty casual affair. Kind of like sports car racing was in the period. Not professional, not state-of-the-art, not sponsored, but just fun.

So that was my motorcycle time. That's fantastic. And I associate you so much with Southern California. And I know you went to school up in the Bay Area. But did you come from out of state to go to Berkeley? Then stuck around or were you a so-called guy from birth?

Yeah. I grew up in Hollywood. I mean, on Saturday nights you could find me on Hollywood Boulevard or sunset Boulevard or tiny nailers or any drive-in. Just drooling on the cool cars.

Because that was never, I never would guess I'd have a cool car. And so I grew up and went to LA High School right in the middle of LA today. It's badass, you know.

But in the days it might have been, but I didn't know any better. And I was right in the middle. It was a great school. And then Berkeley, you know, from my finishing. And I mean, I lived that expression never let school get in the way of your education.

Because I knew how to game it. I knew what course is to take. I knew how to study. My dad gave me a tip when I went to college. He says, never miss a class.

And I think, you know, I had friends and for children brothers that just, you know, they read all the stuff. They did the homework, but they would occasionally come to class.

I went to class took copious notes. When the finals and the exams came, I knew they weren't going to go quizzes on anything that we hadn't talked about in school. So, you know, I probably didn't read half my textbooks. Just, again, I got my notes down pretty good.

So I had a great time at college, a great time. That's fantastic. And then so, I mean, I just think you kind of spent time down here in Southern California, both pre-college and post-college of just incredible eras. I'm looking out on these cars. Some of these cars now in your collection are from that era.

I presume that was a formative time for you to return to LA and start your career and start doubting cars. I presume you kind of graduated up from motorbikes and started doing a couple of other different things. Can you tell us kind of about the environment and the sort of car scene you came back to, right?

Things were moving fast. There were new models every year. Things were interesting, but you came back to Los Angeles and what did you discover?

Brandy, I was born to the day, the exact perfect time in history. I grew up with hot rods, dreamt about hot rods, and then my dad, who was my best friend, we were as different as night and day. He was best man in my wedding. We were super close.

He said, if you save your money, I will help you buy your first car. So I saved my money and this was back in like 1960.

And I wanted to buy a Chevy Biscayne, which was the cheap model with a big engine and a four speed. And really it worked for me in the fact that my dad did not understand cars. Did not understand what a 348 or a 409 or anything was.

And so I picked the cheap, cheap, cheap body style with a four speed. I knew he would relate to the cheap body style. And so I was just ready to buy that car. It was $2,700.

Excuse me, it's $2,400. And then I started seeing these porches running around. And I researched it, I went to the Porsche dealership in Hollywood where I lived. John Von Newman was the dealer. And I found I could buy a Porsche, get it delivered in Europe for $2,400.

$2,700, $2,700. 24 was a Chevy. So I convinced my dad that I was going to get a compact car. This was a way better move. And then I was going to go to Europe, I was going to get some culture.

And move on. So my dad went for it. You were a little bit of a salesman. I was a hell of a salesman. So my dad went for it. So in 1961, I picked up a Porsche in Germany. And that was the start of my Porsche world. I've been pretty much a Porsche guy since 1961. So what is it?

What is it? 63 years or something like that? You remember anything crazy from the European delivery story? I don't know if you see this on BET, but we list 356s and such. And so many of them were delivered in Germany or picked up by a serviceman in Germany or different stuff like that. But you got to do one of those.

Absolutely. And back then you can save three or four hundred dollars by picking it up at the factory. That's how it kind of came. It wasn't like I would rather have instant car right off the showroom floor. But if you picked it up at the factory, it was substantial savings.

And back then there was no US backer Germans, but maybe there probably was, but I mean, I just picked up a Porsche. It was 1961. And you know, that was my car. Wow. And drove it a little bit in Europe and brought it home. And then in the 60s, in 1960, Porsche was really good until like 67. And in 68, they came out with smog rules. And so they had to put a smog pump on it and wait down the front.

The inner Ralph Nader kind of got involved in the whole paper. And so I wanted to get a 9.11 s, but they weren't not available in the US. So I discovered you I could buy it from a dealer in Germany.

So I started bringing in 9.11 s as a 60 and in 67, 68, 69, 70. And so I would I buy probably two or three year. I'd be driving the coolest car of anybody.

I could sell it. My intent was to sell it for what I had in it. It cost me nothing. I would end up make him in a few hundred dollars and just having a cool car.

A small world story. There are Porsche's savants, guys that know every sure you'll never every license plate. And there's a fellow named Jeff Smith. He's from Washington, I think. And he came through my garage.

And he saw a picture of me with one of my cars that's on the shelf over there. I'll show it to you. And he said, I know that car. I said, how do you know that car? You don't know that car. And he said, no, I recognize the license plate.

And it was a picture of me in 1970 with a big mustache, a tie that looked like a bib. You know, I mean, it was I thought it was plenty cool. And my wife had taken a picture of me with this signal yellow 1979 11 s.

So, oh, probably a month ago is by and he called me back and said, you know, the guy that owns that car doesn't want to sell it, which was fine by me. I didn't want to buy it. I was just more just curious like who had it, you know.

And I said, who was it? He said, well, I can't, I have to ask if it's okay. So he calls the guy that owns the car and said, look at the fellow that bought the car brand new was just curious.

You know, who owned the car? Would it be okay with you if I gave him your name? He said, oh, yeah, who is it? Bruce Margaret's. Oh, come on. This was a feeling of Alex Spinnigan. I don't know if you know Alex Spinnigan. Yes, or another name Alex Spinnigan was the car guy behind Paul Russell. Yeah, back in Boston, Alex was like my brother and we were so close, so close.

And he was so excited that I bought the car brand new. I was so excited that he had the car and we kind of left it at that. We always talked about it was signal yellow 911 sports seats. I checked every extra and sadly, Alex died a couple two or three years ago. Right. So his family called and said, look, you know, we're going to sell the car. You know, do you have any interest in buying it? So I mentioned to my son, Evan and Evan said, I'd love that car. So I haven't bought it.

So Evan has one of my original owner, you know, 911 S isn't it. signal yellow, which is a great color. It's a wonderful warm yellow color. So I was just buying cars in Europe. And in most of them, I would buy from a dealer over there and he would buy them in light ivory. So I had a lot of light ivory cars. He also liked full leather, which was an option. You know, so you know, I had some really interesting cars, some good cars.

Well, we sell a lot of those on BAT now, but I don't know how I'm ever going to match the colors and the license plates to the ones that you were the original odor on. But if we ever see one, I'll definitely flag that and send it back your way. That's a tremendous sort of Porsche pipeline hearing to Southern California.

I'm going to show you the picture. It's right over here on my shell. Oh, you get a load of the suit and the mustache you mentioned. That's pretty great. So that may have one of the last black plates. ZZE.

Yeah, and it still has the plate on it. That's unbelievable. That's one of the easy. That's maybe the latest black plate. I've ever seen ZZE. Yeah, on it. It's got the 2.2 sticker in the back. And yeah, it's that yellow color. And it's an S. Do you like the S cars, right? You got the good ones always. Yeah, that's your that's your MO.

Always the good ones. So anyways, it's just a great story. I love that. That's fantastic. It's fun. I was actually going to ask you when you started saying that the the 356 you bought in Europe delivery and then all this sort of pipeline of 911. Well, that's fantastic hearing about the Porsche story.

So that got you sort of into the 70s, but I look out now and your taste, I think, is eclectic and interesting and kind of similar to a lot of people on BAT.

Like a little bit of this, a little bit of that and a couple motorcycles here in your display, a lot of sports cars, but some big cars and big sedans.

What would you say are sort of some of the influences that have made you obviously you had the Porsche story, but you've spread out pretty broadly from there in terms of checking a lot of boxes.

Is it based on different experiences they can provide or is it the design that kind of gets you excited about the colors and the histories and the designers or is it what is it that makes for this eclectic mix?

Sure. It looks like, you know, the only common thread of Indonesian cars is me and I've always been my businesses in the retail business. So, you know, it's got to be good looking or it doesn't sell.

So for me, the aesthetic is really, really important. It could be the most famous hot route of the most famous Bentley or the most famous anything.

And if it doesn't appeal to my aesthetic, I just don't have any interest.

So when you bring a trailer, you had an awesome famous car called the Go Cart. It was a road racer, Model T, built by Duffy Livingston, who was one of the, really the father of Go Cart.

And I just worked so hard to bring myself around to buying that because it checked every historical box.

And I'm, he's probably a bad word now, but I'm a patriot. I love the flag. I have a flag on every car in front of my house at home and everywhere. I just, I'm very proud of my heritage.

And, and this car was very important to American road racer because it raised against Maserati's and Ferrari's and all the so-called fancy, you know, foreign cars and one.

So that car, I think Ross Myers might have that back in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, but whoever has this, got a very cool car. And that was on, bring a trailer. And I love bring a trailer.

I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, I get my fix every morning. I look at it. I've told my family I'm not buying another car.

So, you know, I used to, but before bring a trailer, it was Heming's Motor News. And I would get Heming's first class. And before that, it was the LA Times. And I would get this Sunday paper on Saturday.

And I would go through there just searching for stuff. And I used to get the Heming's Motor News. And I would just like, when that came, just don't, I mean, don't bother Bruce because I'm going through every ad.

And now I stop subscribing to Heming's. By the way, Heming's is great. But the last couple of years I had Hemings, it would arrive and I deliberately wouldn't pick it up for a week because I figured the good shit would be gone.

And that's just what I like because I do not want another car. But I guess everything in here either has to be the first or the fastest or into the prettiest or whatever.

That kind of what is what drives me in. And it's the story. You know, every, every car out here has a story. Even a boat. It's all in the story. You know, somebody could walk by that yellow bird and never even coming on. It just looks like another yellow Porsche. But, you know, the story of Eloise Roof in the yellow bird, one of 29.

That's the first one. That's CTR 001. I ended up with a few firsts, but not because I went out hunting for firsts. I just happened that way. The gurney eagle, the form of the one cars, the first one, the cobras, the first one, and the CTR, the yellow birds, the first one.

So, it's all about the story. And I love Le Mans. Le Mans is the World Cup Super Bowl Olympic Games of Motorsport. It used to be the Mill Amelia, Targofloria, and Le Mans. Those were the three races that mattered. And sadly, the Mill Amelia, you know, went away. And so did Targofloria, both with tragic accidents.

Le Mans also had a tragic accident, but has remained. And that is the most important Motorsport race in the world. I mean, Andy is pretty cool. I like Andy a lot. And it's in great hands with Penske. The 24 hours of Daytona is probably the equivalent to the American Le Mans. But there's nothing like Le Mans. So, we have a bunch of cars that race at Le Mans, did well at Le Mans. That means a lot to me.

When we first walked in the room, you said, these five or six were, you know, players at Le Mans. And you could tell your eyes lit up that that's super meaningful for you, which is neat to see. I love the pictures you have behind the cars of them on track in period and that sort of thing.

I think picking one or two out to chat about that are in the collection would be super interesting to me. Some are pretty well associated with you. People may have seen pictures of you with the yellow bird or with the silver Ferrari that was in the Peterson for a while. But the first Cobra, you call it the first Cobra, right? That is the first Cobra. I love that sentence. That is the first Cobra. I mean, that's kind of unbelievable for me. And unbelievable in a great way. Like, I mean, it's presence right now with you.

If you could tell us obviously, I mean, if it's the first one off the line, that's fantastic. But how it came to you, maybe an interesting story for folks or something about the way you own that and are the custodian of that car. Now, how does that all work? I can tell it all. I love it. Oh, man, I love it.

I love it. I was here for it. So in 1965, I bought a Cobra. I've always had a Cobra. Is that right? Yeah, I did not say not always, but since the 60s since they came out. You always have. Yeah. Yeah, I like them. Oh, what's about his LA car. It's the GLA American and Shelby, you know, and I was I would say good friend of Carol Shelby's. So I would say my garage has switched from bull of our cars to race cars over the years is trying to trend it that way.

I had some fabulous street Cobra's, but I just always wanted to find a Cobra race car that had significant. And with Cobra's, and probably with a lot of and porches, they had a rough life. And in the world of Cobra's, there's probably a handful that I would even consider because, you know, sometimes they put a new chassis on it or they put a new body on it.

You know, it's just been, it's, it's compromised to the point where I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that car is the one. Even though it may have the CSX number, it just, it's just been to, it's too far gone and brought back. It's like Washington's ax. Yeah. You know, the handle has been changed once in the head only twice. You know, but it, but it's still Washington's ax. So anyways, with Cobra's, if you have a Cobra, the first thing they asked me is what you, what is your CSX number? Sure.

Charlie, Sierra X-ray, CSX. So if it's charged with a two or three, it's a real car in my eyes. And if it's a three or four or seven or whatever, they're still made by Shelby there and they're considered Cobras, but I just have to have like the real real. And so the very first first first Cobra was the prototype. And that was CSX 2000.

And that was a car that was built in Dean Moon shop, all hot rotors. By the way, my favorite car is the Scarab, the Scarab, you know, Cobra, Deacon Monza. Some of the great cars were total hot rod efforts. They were hot rotters building it, hot rotters engineering it.

The man behind the wind of, you know, at Le Mans for Shelby was Phil Remington. These, these guys don't spend so these guys were hot rods savants. And so Shelby, I was a great admirer of Shelby, not of his, the way he did business. I'll just leave it that because this is for public consumption. But, but, you know, he had a way and he was a great salesman. He worked on everybody else's money. But he built the first Cobra in Dean Moon shop.

It was painted a lot of different colors given to different magazines because nobody wanted to show the same blue car over and over and over. And then it was yellow for a period of time, right? And it was a bunch of different things. A bunch of different things. And that was CSX 2000. And that stayed in the Shelby family for his whole life.

So, one of the fellows that worked with Shelby is the founder of Ed Hugus. And Ed Hugus is a really famous name in motorsport. I can spend all the rest of the podcasts talking about Ed Hugus. But he really bankrolled and helped Shelby out when Shelby needed help. And he took delivery of CSX 2001, which is the car we have here, which is the very first car.

So, there's a book on it called the first three copers. It's 2000, 2001 and 2002. 2000 is the prototype. 2000 is the one that we have here. 2002 was their first works race car, the Billy Crosstroven, Ken Milesen. And it was a really great car. Raced in America. 2001, the car that's here, the black one, was sold to a fellow named Lucky Casner.

And it was Lloyd Lucky Casner. He had a race team called Comerati. They did a lot of Maserati's. They actually did Corvettes in 1960, but Birdcafe's, they drove the white Birdcafe with the blue one.

Exactly. Comerati. Comerati. And he was a good friend of Shelby's and Shelby drove with him. I think out of friendship for Shelby, he probably bought the car and took it to Le Mans in 1964.

And he ran the trials and did rather well, but in 1964, Shelby came through with his FIA cars, which were like the next Jan, you know, Weber's, Knox Bagdour, big rear wings, you know.

You weren't going to do well running this car as it came out against the FIA cars. So Casner sold it to a fellow named Jean Marie Vincent or Jean Marie Vincent song.

A wealthy Frenchman who took the car to Ford Racing and said, convert this to an FIA car because the FIA cars, I don't can't say this is a fact, but my guess is money wouldn't buy some of the works cars back in the period.

So if you wanted to buy an FIA car and you were some wealthy Frenchman, that wasn't going to get you through.

So he he bought this car, took it to Ford Racing and had it converted to FIA specs. That car here is full FIA specs.

It has rack and pinion steering, which was converted in 6364. It has, you know, GT40 wheels on it, a big back end like a 427, like an FIA car.

I mean, it's just aesthetically just checks every box for me. So how did I come about? There's that expression of blind squirrel, we'll find a nut. That's me with that car.

By the way, every car in here I overpaid for because it's all kind of targeted purchases, but that car just fell into my lap in France 27 years ago.

I was at an event called Retromobile.

Back then, I was in the bind mode, so I went to set up day because set up day is you get the preview look.

So I saw this carbon. Now I know, I know my carbon is pretty well and I saw this carbon and the way it's, you know, the profile of the way it's fit it just didn't make sense to me, but it was on a very credible stand.

This Luke is Hooney who is a very famous, the biggest stand at Retromobile, right?

And by the way, it was then too. So here is this Aston Martin Green Cobra, good looking thing with the big rear wheels.

And I think, you know, I got to ask about it. I mean, I wasn't interested in buying it because I knew it. I just figured it was just a made up thing.

So Lucas and I bought a Bugatti from Lucas and he says come with me and he's a big Swiss guy and he says come with me and I went with him.

And he said sit here and he comes back with like a milk crate full of documents. And he said this is the first Cobra ever built and I'm going real.

I don't think so. But he brought all the paperwork out. It's only had like four owners. I mean, it has had a clear tile and one of the things, you know, when you're buying a race car provenance matters and continuous history, continuous ownership.

Like if it goes away for four years, people don't know where it went. I'd be very careful. So he had every owner and it turned out that that time that I bought every owner came all the past owners came to Retromobile that year.

I thought damn, so I bought it. So I bet it was green at the time. It was green. It's now black with a big number one. Yeah, for those listening.

I kept it in Europe. I did a rally in Europe from Budapest to Prague. Then I sent it over here to a funny Mike McCluskey who's kind of the guru of Cobra restorations.

And we stripped it down. Absolutely. Positively the original body, original interior, original chassis. You can see where they where they grafted the, you know, rack and pinion on. I mean, it was so pure and so perfect and so authentic.

Like it's just, it just warmed my heart. So anyways, I painted it black, put a number one on it. It actually ran with number one, but I put number one for the significance of the car.

And that was 20 years ago. And we've had on the Colorado Grand. We take it to a lot of Cobra events. It's going to be featured next month in the Shelby American magazine. They just came into pictures.

Kevin Klein, a photographer. We're up in Maul and whipping around that thing. Did I answer your question? You did. You keep answering other questions that I haven't even asked.

It's so good. It makes me so happy. Well, anyway, that's a fantastic short history of that car. But let me just answer another question.

Oh, please. What's my favorite car? I love this. That one. That one's your favorite.

You know, it's something about that car that just, you feel good just sitting in it and starting it. And it's quick enough that, you know, you can hurt yourself in it.

And it's slow enough that you're not going, you know, three digit speed in a city block. And it's just, it's just, it checks every box for me. And it's my generation. And it is the first one.

And there's only one number one. And I can sell some of the cars in here and maybe buy them back at a later day or buy something equivalent. But there's there's only one number one Cobra. And that just resonates with me.

I love it. I hope we'll post some photos of the black Cobra. It's a very special car. Does it have a 360 or a 29? So it was born with a 260 and head at you just put a 289 before it went to Europe. Okay. Fantastic. Anyway, beautiful car. Thank you.

But what intrigued me about that story is you said you've had a Cobra continuously since 65. That one, it sounds like didn't come till around 2000.

So was there one that you kept for a super long time? And then you got that one and unloaded it or were there a succession of did you have the whole to 29? Then you had a 427. And then yeah, kind of rotated them through.

When I graduated school, I went back to Michigan, worked in Michigan, decided I want to get an American car when I come back. I drove my Porsche back to Michigan.

And so it was it was a Corvette or a Cobra, you know, and in 65 I bought a Cobra. But I couldn't get it insured. The insurers companies were just reluctant to ensure a 23 year old or 20 real quick on that. Where do you buy a Cobra in 1965?

Did you buy it from Shelby? You want to use one? Oh, no. I mean, I can continue to answer questions. I love this.

What's so fascinating about you to me, Bruce, is just that you were kind of there. You know what I mean? And so for me, just the total fantasy world that I was born in 77, I was too late for all that sort of just to sit about thinking about sitting across some desk from somebody paying cash for a Cobra in 65 is like total mountaintop for me.

So I'll just hear in your words about where did you get the car? I was so I'm old, you know, so show. So let me just take a step back before the Cobra.

Okay, so I graduated Berkeley and took a bartending job up at Lake Tahoe. Great. At what joint in Lake Tahoe?

Yeah, it was called the absolutely. It was called the forest and if you're old, you remember the forest and it was fine dining.

This is Tahoe City or is this South Lake Tahoe City? Is this Tahoe City? I love it. And so I was a bartender and, you know, did food service when I was at college.

So they hired me to work at this restaurant. It was owned by a family by the name of Faust. They worked Tahoe in the summer in Cathedral City in the desert in the winter.

So they would close it in Backfoot. So I went to work for them right out of college and up at Lake Tahoe, there's a boat coming on Sierra Tahoe boat.

I love it. I love that place. Oh, I love wooden boats as you can tell. So when you're a bartender, you go to work it for it in the afternoon.

So you got all day and so we would I would go to Sierra Tahoe boat company all the time. And in the back, I've been there in a few years, but in the back was a big indoor storage area.

I was looking at the hackers and, you know, Garwoods and Chris's and oh, it's just it was so great. And I went to the back of the boat place.

And here was stuffed in the back was a gallway. Wow. And a going even to this day is maybe one of the prettiest cars ever designed anywhere.

And I looked inside the going because that was a good dream machine for me. And it had a reverse lockout like a Chevy engine. Oh, my God.

So I would charging back to Dick Clark, who ran the boat company. I said, tell me about that going out. No, we put a Chevy engine in over the winter. Now to me, that was perfect perfection.

So to make to make a long story short, I bought the car $4,000 sold my Porsche took all my tips that ever it was my net worth in 1960, 64. And I bought that going. I drove it home. I was my everyday driver.

It was faster than a cobra. What was that? It didn't look 283 or what did I know 327 27. I'm telling you it was ridiculously fast.

And I have friends like fast cars and motorcycles. All of them begged me to slow down. It was it was I took it out to the drags and went 113.

That's faster than a cobra. Anyways, blah blah blah. I took the car up for a football game in Berkeley in 65 sold it to Bill Harlan. Is that right? He still hasn't. He hasn't still the Chevy in it. Oh, my goodness. What color is the car?

It was it was blue when I bought it. And now it's black. Okay. And Will has two children, Amanda. Bill has to. Will and Amanda. I think this is Will's favorite car.

Sure. Because it was interesting. Evan commented to me, you know, Dad, if you can ever get that going back. And I I just had a little chat with Bill. I said, you know, you love that going. Oh, yeah, it's Will's favorite car. I'm telling you.

And then if you drove this car, it would blow you away. Factory Rudge wheels, 327 Chevy. Probably I'm guessing 35400 horsepower light. It's everything. And you got it down here to LA. You drove it around the mountain. You brought it down here.

I drove it. I bought it at the end of summer because I had to work up the money. I drove it down here, drove it for the year and took it up to Berkeley for a football game.

The intention of selling it sold it to Bill. And then in 65 came back down here, bought a cobra, but couldn't get it insured because whatever algorithm the years, this is not the guy you want driving a cobra.

So I sold it to my roommate because he worked for a big company and he get insurance insured as a Mustang. Then my other roommate went out in 1966 and bought brand new a cobra for 27 from Robert Loudford and Pasadena. So now we had, I went back to I bought a Chevy Corvette. But they didn't like that as well as the Porsche then bought a Porsche in 60 in 66. And that's what started the whole, you know, bringing cars in.

So there were four of us. One guy was totally not a car guy, but the three car guys. We were just, whoever car was in front we'd take. So I drove the cobra, big block, small block. They drove my Porsche and that was just like a motor fool. You just take whatever that you felt like driving that day.

So I had that and then I bought a big block and then I bought a big block and converted it to an SC. Then I bought an SC that you could talk a lot about air cars because you have to be careful of where you are. And by the way, here's another question you didn't ask.

Your copywriting and bring a trailer changed the world of copywriting. I was reading some description of a car in R&M. And it sounded like right out of bring a trailer, you know, powered by, you know, with a cabin of every it was like, you made it like fair to everybody. You know, we're not going to say this was own or this did this. That is just facts. I love it. I love the way you've handled that.

And so I don't know where I'm going with this, but Cobras through the through the years of Cobras, but it sounds like did were you buying and selling some of these in the era where they. I didn't buy and sell Cobras like I was buying and selling Porsche. I was buying and selling Porsche. So I would have a cool ride every day. Okay, I got you.

That went in that in the 70s. Nobody wanted Cobras, right? I mean, didn't those those people couldn't give them away. Couldn't give them away. Amazing. That's right. And then in the middle 70s, I bought a cobra. Then I bought the big black cobra. Anyways, I've had a lot of Cobras. And one of them was an air car. I don't know if I know what you're talking about with the air car. So this is something you could write a book on. You need to scrutinize the guys that write the registries.

Because if you're dishonest and you're writing the registry, which shows a registry me every serial number, the history of the car, blah, blah, blah. This is like the Shelby Marin King Club book that they put out with the history of all the cars.

100% and is written by Ned Skutter, who is honorable as the day is long, great. But there were some people involved in the very beginning that noticed that some of the Cobras were like, am I a and they found them in quotes.

Oh, air. So you're saying like out of the air. That within air. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, because you could build a cobra. So you could buy a Brian Angles chassis or get a body from here and and put it there and all of a sudden you've got a cobra.

Yep. And by the way, it's probably as authentic as a lot of Cobras out there are now. But so I bought a car thinking I bought the world's best SC and it turned to be not so great.

So then I bought a great one. I just, you know, there are some there's some fake cars you got to be careful of out there. That's that's a fascinating one. I love here about those cars switching topics a little bit just chatting about some of the stuff you're involved in today.

I know you're passionate about a lot of parts of the hobby. I see you have a pebble beach and showing cars obviously these tours and events you do.

But the Peterson is near and dear to your heart. The Peterson Museum. I wanted to make sure we chat about that. We did a BET event at the Peterson.

We've done some charity events. We sell cars that the Peterson is liquidating to raise funds and different things, which is really exciting.

But you're sort of one of the statesmen there of the checker flag 200, which is their club and highly involved group there.

But tell us why that's so important to you and what that means to you.

Well, so I'm the founding chairman of the Peterson and there's a group that I really wanted you to join called YPO.

Because you would be in the hall of fame of YPO, which is young president's organization. But now, Randy sadly, he aged out.

Am I young anymore? Yeah, I don't know if I'm young anymore.

But I was a member of YPO. I joined it in 1977. And one of our members was Robert E. Peterson, Bob Peterson.

And Peterson was like one of my heroes, an awesome guy. He created Hot Rod Magazine, published it.

And I knew him over the years casually, really got to know him when the Peterson came about. But he was really not a car guy as such.

But he was kind of like Shelby knew how to put together a team. He knew like he would bring Randy Nuneberg in to run his online business.

You know, he knew how to pit. He knew how to pick winners. And he was what I call an opportunistic buyer. He could smell a deal.

He bought real estate here in town. He bought somebody's collection of gold nuggets. He had probably the finest collection of shotguns in the world.

He and Bob Lee and Rina Nevada. You know, Peterson just had such a variety of interest. And he was such a good buyer.

So he bought that whole city block. And he came to me and he said, let's do a car museum, basically. I'm dwarfing like it could be a long, like a whole podcast.

So I mean, somebody mentions cars to me, you know, I get all excited. So I said, absolutely great idea. And I didn't know what a car I didn't have visualized what a car museum was.

But we hooked up with the natural history museum in Los Angeles because with that, we could give our museum a capital M because they were a very highly respected natural history museum.

And that's like dinosaur bones and wild animals and stuff. And so they were our partner for the first number of years.

It was a partnership made in hell. They disliked us. Our executive director had a short fuse. So would tell them to f**k off, you know, whenever he felt like it.

It was horrible. And finally, we put this museum together. All the displays were dioramas. The problem with the dioramas that you don't just change it out every month.

You know, we kept it in there for 10 years. So you got, you saw a car stuck in the mud on Mahal on drive when you went there, you know, in 1992. And when you went back and, you know, whenever 10 years later, that car was still stuck in the mud, the same car.

So we found that, and I was a chairman for 10 years and trying to make it go and keeping everybody together and all the balls in the air. But when we first got together with the natural history museum, there were no car guys involved at all.

No. So when we were putting the museum together, it was not like constructed as a museum. It was constructed as a department store.

And so we got it at all. It was a shell of a building. And I started bringing in car guys, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, you know, Alex Exidius, Wally Parks, and then some of my car homies, you know.

And the natural history museum couldn't understand why anybody would be doing such a thing.

So that was should have been the first clue. But I started this group called the checkered flag 200 because I wanted to get 200 people that would give with a museum.

It's always a challenge raising money. And so I wanted to put together a group of people that would just donate for the love of donating.

And if we got 200 guys to give $1,000, a year, we raised $200,000 for whatever event or whatever the executive director felt was worthy.

And people were coming, Bruce, don't call the 200, call it the 100, you'll never get 200. So anyways, I got 200. But I got my banker and I got a accountant and a guy painted a building for me.

And so when it was, I got to 200. And that included Phil Hill and Shelby and some of these guys that, oh, I mean, we got to give 1,000 next year too. Well, some of those guys opted out, but we had people to replace them.

Now we have over 800 people. And now it's not $1,000 a year. It's $1,800 a year. And it's 50,000, 50,000 if you want to be a lifetime member. We have 125 lifetime members.

I mean, we are, the museum is just so smoking hot, runs so well. And that was, you know, the start of the checkered flag. We do an event every month. And I'm still the head of it. It's what I love. I love putting events together and calling friends and say we're going to come by. I mean, I'm Jay Leno. We've gone to his garage. We've gone to places that the average enthusiasm couldn't go.

They couldn't call Rob Walton or General Motors or Jim Farley at Ford and say we want to come by, you know, with our checkered flag. We went, we went back to the Henry Ford Museum with Bill Ford and Chip Ganassi right after the running of Le Mans. So we do stuff.

The members of the checkered flag get their money's worth plus we have almost no turnover. I would say 10% maybe 20% live out of state last month. We were in Dallas. We went to see Charlie Nierberg's collection, Aaron Shelby, the Rush Perot Museum.

And we always, I like to throw in a home, a big home, went to Tom Thomas's home, like is one of these ridiculous homes in Dallas, you know.

So it's fun. We try and appeal to everything. I would say of the group we have between 50 and 100, depending on where we're going. I would say two thirds are guys and a third are couples, you know. So we tried to do something cultural, something with a home.

But the group is working in what's really working as the Peterson Automotive Nissan. And I credit that with Terry Cargus, who's our executive director.

And Michael Bodell, who works with him and Anna Song, honest to God, any museum on earth would be so lucky to have a team like that.

They're fiscally responsible, a delight to work with, so deeply talented. Our staff there, I don't know when the last time you're at the museum, but when you walk in there, you just feel like you've come home.

The greeter at the door, the security, everybody welcomes you. Terry is just one of those one and a million guys that knows how to build a team, a team of big-hearted, enthusiastic, wonderful people.

So I really credit Terry with turning that museum around.

Well, fantastic. Thanks for sharing about it, but I can see your passion sort of in your eyes when you talk about it and the team and the checkered flag group.

I hope I haven't aged out of that group, too. I don't know. I think I probably may be able to slide in there if I can give it a shot.

Are you remember? That could be fun. I am not as a person. I've been to the museum a number of times. This is not going to air till you're a man.

Sounds like I'm going to be a recruit. So that's fantastic. I would gladly.

Which point? You don't do what people tell you to. Like the YPO thing you didn't do and now the checkered flag.

So I'm going to make a real good eye contact. You're going to make sure you're here.

Absolutely. Anyway, thank you for telling us about that. I'm hopeful that the Pearson has a good long run in front of it, of success and bringing new people into enthusiasm about cars.

So many cool themed events. So anyway, I encourage every car buddy of mine that's in LA. Like that's a stop on the tool.

When was the last time you all were there? It's been a year or more for me. Have you seen our low rider exhibit? It is amazing.

It's the best low rider exhibit ever created in the world. We have our creative director, Brian Stevens.

This guy could make a bar of soap look amazing. I mean, he is so creative and so talented.

And so he put together this low rider exhibit, which, first of all, the whole low rider community. I haven't seen a whole lot of low riders on bringing trailer.

We've had a couple interesting ones. It's not the main, but we've had some, yeah, they kind of sneak through.

Probably because most low riders like to work on themselves, create their own and don't want to sell them.

And don't air yourself. It's an air, you're 100% right. It's a family effort. And we did our opening. We borrowed every car in there.

And with every car, it came a wife and kids and they all know how to work on their cars. And it's just an awesome genre of cars.

You know, they just, there's nothing like a low rider. It's a very L.A. thing, right? It's a very, yeah, ground zero right around here.

Maybe I think so. Yeah, exhibition. So, anyhow, I'm excited to hear you talk about the Peterson.

I always, that's something I associate very closely with you and the checker flag group. I know it all has sort of your imprint on a lot of that.

So other than that, we've touched on the Peter. So we've touched on some of your early cars. We meant we could go around all the cars I see behind you.

Yeah, yeah, we would certainly love to have you back on the podcast another time, maybe to talk about some more things or go do one of these events together.

But overall, yeah, I just want to say thanks for your support of BAT. And are you sure with your friends, you've convinced folks to bid.

You've just been one of the folks in the early days that I think we've had some folks in the car community that kind of put their stamp of approval on BAT.

It said these are good guys. Go use this website and I put you at the top of the list of folks who have done that.

And it's been part of our success and we appreciate it.

Well, you know, I don't do anything that I don't want to do. And when you had to be my edge, you can kind of do that.

And I bought my Bugatti when you were in the early BAT, when you were just mentioning things, it was an auction in Austria.

And you just mentioned there's this auction in Austria. And it was, I remember because it was a holiday time when I was supposed to escort the mayor in my car anyways.

It just drew me down that rabbit hole and I went and I called, it was a quiz auction in Austria. And the next car up was this Bugatti that I had anyways.

I mean, I bought and bring a trailer. I sold and bring a trailer all very successfully, all honorably.

It's just the most real, honest, wonderful development. And everybody's trying to figure out how to get a little piece of what you do.

But, you know, and I get all the links. The only one I open every morning is bring a trailer.

Well, that's high praise, Bruce. We appreciate it.

The last thing I want to mention is you've got a cool item that you're bringing to BAT, which is sitting over my left shoulder,

which is this cool memorabilia. You can leave us a quick bitch on that.

You can lift it, you can have it. It comes in its own carrying case. It's a big wall clock, like a Hublot Ferrari watch.

It was given to me by Pierrot Ferrari for a favor I did for him. I just look at it. I don't know where to put it.

And I see, you know, things appearing on bring a trailer like Neon's and, you know, owner's manuals and things that I just, I think are very interesting.

So I think, and we'll find out that it should hopefully somebody will see the beauty in it, because I think it's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, it looks super, super cool in its carrying case here.

Yeah, it's about two feet across, and an operable, big, beautiful wall clock.

Yeah, anyway, anytime we can list something on BAT that comes from the Bruce Meyer building here, I think that's a pretty green light on our end Bruce.

And so anyway, just want to say what a privilege it is to sit here with you, and we appreciate your hospitality and your support of BAT.

So thanks for being part of the podcast, and I hope everybody listening just has a smile on their faces. They hear about your stories and your enthusiasm.

Well, thank you, and same to you, Randy. Thanks everybody for listening, and stay tuned for the next BAT podcast.

Bruce Meyer on Collecting, Cobras, and Lowriders

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