Classic Auto Mall - #078 - Stewart Howden with Steve Saffier
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Car
Renault Wind
The Renault Wind is a small car that can turn into a convertible, meaning you can take the roof off and enjoy the fresh air while driving. It was made for a short time and is known for being fun to drive. People like to talk about it because of its unusual design.
Term
entry-level car
An entry-level car is a car that doesn't cost too much, making it easier for new buyers to get into the hobby of car ownership. It's a good starting point for people who want to learn more about cars without spending a lot of money.
Term
boutique area
A boutique area is a special part of a car dealership where fancy or expensive cars are shown. It's designed to make those cars look even more special and appealing to buyers.
Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is a well-known SUV that was first made in the 1960s. It's popular for off-road driving and has a strong fan base due to its classic design and performance.
Car
Chevrolet Tri-Five
The Chevrolet Tri-Five is a nickname for a group of classic cars made by Chevrolet in the 1950s. They are popular among collectors because of their vintage style and charm.
Car
Ford Mustangs
The Ford Mustang is a well-known American car that's sporty and fast. It's been popular for many years and is loved for its cool design and powerful engines.
Car
Chevrolet El Caminos
The Chevrolet El Camino is a special type of vehicle that looks like a car but has a truck bed. It's known for being useful and having a cool design.
Car
Porsche 962
The Porsche 962 is a famous race car from the 1980s and 1990s that competed in long-distance races. It was very fast and had a unique shape that helped it go quickly.
Car
Porsche 935
The Porsche 935 is a race car that was built on the Porsche 911 design. It was very successful in races during the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a unique, wide look.
Term
low mileage
Low mileage means the car hasn't been driven very much. This can be good because it usually means the car is in better condition.
Car
Chevrolet SS
The Chevrolet SS is a sporty car made by Chevrolet that is known for being fast and fun to drive.
Part
5.7 liter LS1
The 5.7 liter LS1 is a type of engine made by General Motors that is powerful and often used in sports cars.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster the car can go.
Car
Lancia Delta
The Lancia Delta is a small car that was popular in racing events a long time ago. It has a unique look and is loved by car fans for its history in competitions. People talk about it because it's different from many other cars.
Car
Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale
The Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale is a big car made by Oldsmobile that was popular for its comfortable seats and classic look.
Term
crate motor
A crate motor is an engine that you can buy already put together and ready to use. It's called a crate motor because it usually comes in a crate for shipping.
Car
Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat
The Hellcat is a super-fast version of the Dodge Challenger, a muscle car. It has a really powerful engine that makes it one of the fastest cars on the road.
Car
Oldsmobile Delta 88
The Oldsmobile Delta 88 is a big car made by Oldsmobile, popular in the 1970s. It has a classic look and is known for being spacious.
Car
Pontiac Grand Ville
The Pontiac Grand Ville is a large car that was made by Pontiac in the 1970s. It was popular for being a comfortable and stylish convertible.
Car
Pontiac Grand
The Pontiac Grand Prix is a car that has been around for many years and is known for being fun to drive. It has a sporty look and is comfortable for passengers. People remember it fondly because it was popular in the past.
Car
Pontiac Catalinas
The Pontiac Catalina is another large car made by Pontiac, famous for its stylish design and comfort, especially as a convertible.
Car
Pontiac Bonneville
The Pontiac Bonneville is a large car that was produced for many years by Pontiac, recognized for its luxury and performance, and it also had convertible versions.
Car
Buick LeSabre
The Buick LeSabre is a big car from the 1970s that could fit a lot of people inside. It was comfortable and great for family trips.
Car
Plymouth Barracuda
The Plymouth Barracuda is a classic muscle car from 1970. The '340' means it has a strong V8 engine that makes it fast and fun to drive.
Term
In Violet Metallic
In Violet Metallic is a bright purple color used for painting cars. It makes the car look unique and eye-catching.
Term
numbers matching
'Numbers matching' means that the important parts of the car, like the engine and transmission, are the original ones that came with it. This is a good thing for collectors because it shows the car is authentic and can be worth more money.
Term
727 automatic transmission
The 727 automatic transmission is a type of automatic gearbox made by Chrysler. It's known for being strong and reliable, and it was used in many muscle cars from the 1960s and 1970s.
Car
Plymouth Cuda
The Plymouth CUDA is a fast and sporty version of the Plymouth Barracuda, made in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's famous for its powerful engines and cool looks, which make it popular among car collectors.
Car
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The Chevrolet Monte Carlo is another car that was made by Chevrolet, known for being stylish and comfortable. It's similar to the Pontiac Grand Prix and was popular in the same time period.
Car
Jeep
Jeep is a brand of cars that are known for being tough and good for off-roading. They are often used for adventures and outdoor activities.
Term
4.3 liter V6
A 4.3 liter V6 engine is a specific kind of engine that has six cylinders and is 4.3 liters in size. It's designed to provide a good mix of power and fuel efficiency.
Car
GMC Typhoon
The GMC Typhoon is a sporty SUV that was made in the early '90s and is known for being fast for an SUV. It has a powerful engine and handles well, which makes it different from regular SUVs. People talk about it because it's a rare and exciting vehicle.
Car
Lucid Air
The Lucid Air is a new electric car that is designed to be very fancy and high-tech. It can go a long distance on a single charge, and people are excited about it because it competes with other popular electric cars. It's a sign of how cars are changing to be more eco-friendly.
Car
Ferrari Dino 246 GTS
The Ferrari Dino 246 GTS is a famous sports car from the 1970s. It's popular among collectors because of its unique style and performance.
Car
Ferrari Dino
The Ferrari Dino 208 GT4 is a classic sports car from the 1970s that is known for being fun to drive and having a unique shape. It's special because it was named after Enzo Ferrari's son, who passed away. People like to talk about it because it's a piece of Ferrari history.
Company
Classic Auto Mall
Classic Auto Mall is a website where you can buy or sell classic cars. They have a large selection of unique and special interest vehicles.
Car
Ferrari 250
The Ferrari 250 GTO is a very rare and expensive sports car that was made a long time ago. It's famous for being beautiful and fast, and only a few were ever made, which makes it very special. People talk about it because it sells for millions of dollars at auctions.
Car
Tesla Model Js
The Tesla Model S is a high-end electric car that is known for being very fast and having a long battery life. It has a simple and modern look inside, and it can even drive itself a little bit. People talk about it because it's changing how we think about cars and energy.
Car
Gordon T50
The Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 is a super fancy and very fast car designed by a famous car engineer. It's known for being really light and having a powerful engine, which makes it special. People talk about it because it's a unique and high-performance vehicle.
Car
Chevrolet Impala
The Chevrolet Impala is a large car that many families use because it's comfortable and has a lot of space inside. It has been around for a long time, and people like it for its smooth driving experience. It's a car that you might see a lot on the road.
Car
Toyota Supers
The Toyota Supra is a sporty car that many people love because it's fast and can be customized easily. It has been around for a long time and has a strong fan base. People talk about it because it's fun to drive and looks cool.
Car
Dodge Challenger
The Dodge Challenger is a big, powerful car that looks a lot like the older versions from the past. It's popular because it has strong engines and a cool design that many people love. People talk about it because it's a fun car to drive and has a lot of history.
LIVE
This is the Classic Automall Show.
Broadcast from the studios inside the Classic Automall in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, just one
hour west of Philadelphia at Pennsylvania Turnpike Exit 298, featuring nearly 1,000 classic
vintage and barred-fine vehicles for sale under one climate-controlled roof.
Now, here's your host, Classic Automall president and the man with all the toys
Stuart Howden.
Good morning.
Welcome to the Classic Automall podcast from the Classic Automall studio in wonderful downtown
miserable, muggy, foggy Saturday, Saturday, the 4th of March.
Super windy outside.
Super windy.
In like a lion.
Not just regular windy.
You're super windy.
So, yeah.
It's a different kind of windy.
Well, you know, I take the Turnpike on the right here and I have a fairly low
profile.
It's a forester.
We took the forester to now.
It's all over the road.
It's crazy, isn't it?
Think about those big trucks that are running down the road with the billboards on the side.
Oh, my goodness gracious.
Those things are, I mean, you think the way the wind blows around the car, I can only
imagine.
I've never driven a semi.
That's one thing I've never driven.
That or 747.
Great.
Well, I'm dreaming.
Anything bigger than a van, I get a little nervous.
Yeah.
Well, it's just because of that wind.
It'll just catch.
I'm surprised some of these trailers in our lot haven't gotten knocked over.
True.
Anyway, it's March the 4th today.
We'll first hear this on March the 11th.
Amelia Island is going on as we speak.
I should be there, but I had to go into the knife.
You did.
I did.
Nothing serious.
I'm good.
I'm all good.
It's all good.
It just looks like you got beat up.
Like I got in a knife fight and I lost painfully and I got a little spot on my
face.
It'll go away though.
And they said in 8 to 10 years.
8 to 10 years?
No.
They said plenty of time.
You know, a few months or whatever.
So, you know, it's just you got to sleep on one side.
You know, that's a whole hip thing too.
Do you wear a CPAP?
No.
No, I do not.
That's right.
Oh, that's right.
Where the strap would be.
Oh, that would be terrible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those are terrible anyway.
Yes, they are.
I feel bad for anybody.
Thank you.
Oh, you would.
15 years.
No, kid.
Oh, my God.
I don't fit the...
The profile.
...structural inside that's messed up.
Yeah, so...
I'm fairly young and not over super overweight.
So, welcome back to Dr. Halden's show today.
We're discussing medical maladies and the joy of getting
old.
Right.
I'm telling you the reason I don't go to the doctors because I don't want to go in there
for the flu and they say, oh, the flu's fine, but you have a brain tumor.
I'm like, no, I just came in for the flu.
And as I said, I'm the total opposite.
I go for a headache thinking it's big and I need to hear them say it's not what you
think it is.
It's actually you've burst a blood vessel in your head.
Right.
Stay off the internet.
That's the number one.
Oh, yeah.
I never thought about that.
How much time you spend on a screen and all that.
Well, no, no.
I mean, medical...
Oh.
...looking up your medical maladies on the internet.
Here we go.
I'm so sorry, guys.
I hate that you're going to have to listen to this, but there we go.
Now they send you your test results before you see the doctor.
So if you go get a blood work on Tuesday and then you see the doctor on Thursday, Wednesday,
ding, ding, ding, you get an email.
Oh, and now I'm an expert at these things.
I know how to read my PSA, my testosterone, my whatever, whatever, whatever.
It's like, oh, my God.
And you know, they said, they told me, they said some people are better off
not looking at...
Like, don't open the email before you come see the doctor because you could miss, obviously
you could misdiagnose something.
I mean, because, A, you're not a doctor.
And so, you know, one of those things.
Anyway, fascinating stuff.
We could do a whole show on medical stuff, but this is a car show.
But this is a fun car show and it has nothing to do with medical blah, blah, blah.
Well, you know what?
Sold a bunch of cars last week.
Yes.
Big week.
Where?
Where do they go, exactly?
Well, how about Lancaster, Pennsylvania?
New York, Pennsylvania, Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, Royal Oak, Michigan, Quaker City, Ohio, West
Grove, Pennsylvania, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, Houston, Texas, Lake Bluff, Illinois, or Noyes,
if you...
Or Hillbilly, Arlington, Texas, Middleboro, Massachusetts, Havertown, Pennsylvania, Lewis
Berg, West Virginia, Clear Spring, Maryland, Barrington, New Jersey, Williamsburg, Virginia,
Durham, North Carolina, Bronx, New York, Hortonville, Wisconsin, Ashland, Ohio.
How many would that be?
Before Ashland?
Hortonville, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin.
Wisconsin.
13 states.
13 states.
Amazing.
Isn't that crazy?
It is.
It is, really.
And there's a handful.
I mean, we've had...
How many in Pennsylvania?
We had one, two, three, four, five, six of the 20 in Pennsylvania.
And the least expensive car, $7,500.
Most expensive car?
Over $100,000.
Yeah, that's right in the wheelhouse.
Right in our wheelhouse.
Where we like to be.
But we are starting to get more and more expensive cars in.
In addition to our bread and butter stuff, the less expensive stuff, we will never...
It's not like we're trying to become something we aren't.
Or it's not like we're trying to become all fancy cars or all high-dollar cars or
all of that.
No.
We like getting the higher-dollar cars.
They're fun.
And they make us more money, obviously, because they sell for more.
But we like those, too.
But we also like the entry-level stuff.
Because it's fun to see a started guy in the hobby on a car that's in the $15,000 range.
You can watch them progress through the trials and tribulations of that until they get up
to their own $50,000 or $60,000 car.
Well you talked about creating a little boutique area here where the high-end cars sit
in special lighting or whatever.
Is the Rob report still around?
It is still around, actually.
I get an email from them every day that tells me about stuff that I'll never
be able to afford.
Yeah, but I can see us having a little presence there with the higher-end stuff.
Yeah.
Our DuPont registry is the same kind of way.
And we are actually clearing out this room, which is right behind us.
If you've ever been to our facility, when you enter in through the north on the left
hand side is what we appropriately call the truck room, because it's full of...
That would be trucks.
Trucks.
There you go.
Right.
Three Broncos, by the way.
Three Broncos.
Yeah, classic Broncos.
And a Weedman, 23 Weedman Chevrolet camper, which is one of the coolest
businesses in the building.
So the Depression-era tractor is pretty darn cool.
And this is...
It's hard to describe, but it's a tractor that somebody who had no money but needed
some way to farm to make a living built.
And it's got every kind of part that belonged to something else on this tractor to make
it a working tractor.
And it's amazing that the kind of level of anti-engineuity, if you will, to
make this thing and to make it work and to make it provide a living for the family.
So you know...
Sounds like a Johnny Cash song.
Yeah.
But what's happening with the truck room?
The truck room, we are moving on out, head on out.
We are taking all the barn finds out of there, except for the most favorite piece in there,
the Weedman camper.
And we are going to determine once we move all those barn finds out of there what
we're going to do with it.
We're moving about a hundred of my partner's barn finds out of the building because
we're running out of room.
I'd say running out of room would be an understatement at best.
We are out of room.
So they're going to go back in a barn?
They're going to go back in a warehouse.
And then, you know, because the whole idea to have this building was to have a place
for him to put his barn finds in.
Ironic, really.
Now I've ruined that for him, so thanks a lot anyway.
So we're going to take those out and we're going to gain some space and free up the
mallways a little bit.
We're a little tight in places and probably could use a little bit of breathing room.
We're talking about making a high-end showroom here when you first walk in on the left-hand
side, what we call our truck room and our studio is in, and make it a high-end showroom
that's got the higher dollar stuff that we have here.
And understanding that that is just a small, minute amount of space compared to what we
have in the building.
And again, never going to get away from our beloved Corvettes and Camaros and Mustangs
and Tri-Fives and El Caminos and the stuff that sells on a regular basis.
But we do have more and more call and more and more consignors who want to bring us the
higher-end stuff.
And some of that stuff is arguably worth, the stuff that we're going to be getting will
be worth half a million plus.
So you have to treat a car like that a little bit differently, right wrong or, you know,
doesn't matter.
Indifferent.
Thank you.
I couldn't think of that word for some reason.
I could see carpet.
You could see a dark lighting, mood lighting, some incense burning, cigar room, massage parlor,
some simulators or simulators as we say, nuclear and simulators we say in Tennessee.
So we're sussing it all out.
We're also looking at doing some remodeling of the building as well too.
We're at 900 and what was it?
922?
No, 922.
Is that hard to believe?
It is.
I remember it wasn't that long ago that you could stand in the center of our building
and look 360 around you and you wouldn't see but a handful of cars.
And now each mallway in addition to all the stores, I mean if you've never been here,
imagine a mall of any size and it's storefronts but in each store is classic cars or special
interest and classic cars I should say.
And then the whole hallways instead of kiosks selling you back massagers and
back scratchers and cell phone repair and a carousel, it is full of more cars.
It's cars, cars, cars, cars, cars.
It is cars on cars.
It's on cars, cars, cars, cars.
So we've been at a point lately within the last probably six months where we're just
getting more and more cars, cars, cars, cars in and we don't want to say no.
You can't.
We can't.
We talked about that last week.
Once you say no then you get the reputation that they're not accepting any cars.
They're not accepting cars or you've got to go on a waiting list and so.
But what we are going to determine is how many cars can we comfortably fit in the building
that's reasonable amount, have enough space to get around them completely, all of that
and what's that number and then what do we do if we're going to go above that number?
Do we add on to the building?
What do we do?
Well, it becomes an issue for the public.
Right.
What do you do with the public when they can't walk around the cars or it becomes
a liability for them to walk around the cars?
Sure.
So we've got to figure all these things out.
All good problems to have.
Yeah.
Good problems.
That's the first world problem.
Yeah.
I mean, if the problem was is that we have too much space then we got a real problem.
And we do have two expo rooms down on the other end of the building down towards
the holiday where we do car events and other events, gun shows and sporting
club shows and banquets and things like that but hopefully we'll figure all this
out sooner rather than later.
Right.
And in the meantime, don't stop bringing your cars.
That's right.
We'll take them.
Just come on.
We're here Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, Wednesdays till 8, Saturdays 9 to
noon.
Call us, get the paperwork sent to you ahead of time and then email it back to us or
mail it back to us and then tell us, you don't have to tell us, just bring
your car.
Once you get the paperwork to us, you can bring it any time.
And no matter where it sits in this mall or the condition of your car or the value
of it, it gets the same treatment as any other, as the $500,000 car that's
going to be coming in.
It just won't be in that room.
Absolutely.
And you know, the thing about that is, is that we talked about this last week
as well.
Your car is always front and center on the Internet.
So just because it may not be in the main first showroom here at our place,
it doesn't matter.
When people are online, all of the cars are in the main showroom.
So get that out of your head.
Right.
Because as you can tell by the 13 states we sold to, most of the sales
come from the Internet.
But 99% of our sales come from the Internet.
And the 1% that don't technically come from the Internet come from the
Internet because that's how they found the car.
So again, and a guy will say, okay, we found, I found this car.
I'm going to call Classic Auto Mall.
He calls us, says, hey, I'm interested in buying it.
We have it all pulled out for him, ready to go.
So it's in front and center.
He doesn't care where it was before or where it's going to be afterwards.
What he cares is where it is right now, and where it is right now is
right here at the front of the building so he can look at it.
And if we come to all the terms and agreement, he can buy the car and
it's all good.
So don't get hung up on that because it doesn't really matter where it is.
It gets the same attention as any other cars.
A matter of fact, one of the things that we've noticed on our YouTube
channel and also on our listing sites is that the less expensive cars
seem to get more views on YouTube and TikTok.
And they get more views on our listing sites on eBay and Hemings
because more people can afford a less expensive car.
So more people are looking for those type of cars.
So when you get to that...
Set transams, which I really want to get back into, but apparently
I'm going to have to wait it out or make more money.
Or make more money.
There you go.
It's like anything.
Our tastes change and evolve and grow.
Or we can maybe get closer to affording something that we always wanted.
And then the market shifts on us.
They don't stay the same price.
I just want everything I always had and I had really good taste,
apparently, because everything I had has gone skyrocket.
Well, I just wish I'd have bought, you know, I look back to condos
down in Florida when I was down there back in the late 80s
and early 90s and the prices of those is just ridiculous.
And same with cars.
I mean, if you look at the Ferrari market, if you look at the sports car
market, 9.62 porches and 9.35 racing porches and all of that stuff
has just gone crazy.
So when we return, we'll talk about some of the new inventory
that's here at Classic Automall.
If you haven't been to our website, classicautomall.com.
If you have a question for the podcast,
podcast at classicautomall.com.
And we'll return in just a couple minutes.
See you then.
It's a museum.
It's a showroom.
It's an experience.
The Classic Automall in Morgantown, Pennsylvania
is 336,000 square feet of rare custom and specialty
automobiles on display and on consignment.
From the earliest production cars to modern exotics,
Classic Automall is a feast for the eyes and the memories.
Stroll through time in any season in this climate-controlled
facility that you simply have to see to believe.
Admission is free.
Just remember to bring comfortable shoes.
And we're back with the Classic Automall podcast.
I startle you there.
I know, I didn't hear his countdown.
Yeah, he was doing a subliminal.
He and I are on the same wavelength today, Ethan.
Thank you, Ethan, for that subliminal message
that you just sent me.
Anyway, we were talking about some of the new inventory
that we've gotten in this week.
And how about the 2002 Chevrolet Camaro SS,
35th anniversary, bright red over ebony.
That's the right color for that car, by the way.
Those are nice.
And how many did they make?
They didn't make a whole lot.
They didn't.
Yeah, they're sweet.
8341 pampered two owner miles.
So you're talking about a car that is now 21,
almost 22 model years old and to have 8300 miles on it,
which is, I like that it doesn't have 80 miles.
At least it's got some use and some ability
to have been used and driven and sorted out
and not just left to sit.
Because when they're sitting, obviously,
there creates other issues from time to time
that you may or may not find out about from time to time.
A lot of guys buy these as collections
with 80 miles on them or 50 miles on them or five miles on them.
And they haven't been driven in 22 years but five miles.
So if you were ever wanting to drive it,
which really doesn't make sense to do,
then you'd probably have to do quite a few things too.
It'll be rubber and seals and things that need to be fixed.
So one with 8300 miles on it,
at least has been driven and utilized and lubricated
and started probably on a regular basis.
And that helps, that's all important.
I'd much rather have a car that was restored
that's got 5,000 miles on it than a car
that was restored that has five miles on it.
Because nothing's been sorted out
and there are things that could or could not go wrong.
And so you've just got to be so careful
on these low, low mileage cars in as much as
what are you planning to do with them?
Are you planning to drive them?
Which, again, I don't recommend.
If you're gonna buy a 2002 Camaro
and you wanna drive it as your daily driver,
then don't buy one with 8300 miles.
Buy one with 60,000 miles,
because the value's different, the price is different.
And yes, you'll have to fix things,
but it'll be no different than the low mileage one.
And so, as long as you know what your end use is
and when you're talking to somebody,
whether it's one of our guys or anybody you're
buying a car from, let them know that.
Let them know what your thought is
and what your plans are for the car.
Cause they may say to you,
that ain't the right car for you.
Or, maybe this is a better example
or this is a better something for you.
And so, it's, excuse me, one of those things that
the usage and what you're planning on doing
is almost as important as what the car is.
Because if you don't let them know,
then they're gonna maybe sell you something
that's the wrong car.
So we don't wanna do that.
So this one, got the original window sticker,
it's the SS, the 35th anniversary,
5.7 liter LS1, 325 horsepower,
which in O2 was pretty respectable, right?
It's fine, yeah, I don't move.
That's not nothing.
Everything doesn't have to have 500 horsepower, right?
No, it doesn't, that's quick enough.
Yeah, plenty quick enough.
And leather seats, and also one of my favorites,
the 73 Osmobile Delta 88 Royale convertible.
Have you seen this car?
I don't think I have.
Well, did you go to the Filiota show?
Yes.
Then you saw this car, it's cranberry metallic.
Oh, okay.
It's red with a wide white walls.
We had it at the Filiota show?
Well, we were supposed to,
I'm not sure if it's actually, why not?
So it's got 15,000 miles on the Crate 350 Rocket V8 motor.
Excuse me, when we say Crate motor,
you know what that means?
Of course you do.
Came in a crate.
Came in a crate.
No, it means that you buy it directly
from the manufacturer,
and it usually does come in a crate,
but it just means that it was a brand new motor
as opposed to buying something out of a 350
out of a junkyard or from your neighbor or whatever.
So crate motors are factory built motors,
and I don't know, all the warranties are different on them,
but you can buy just about every engine
that comes in any car pretty much.
I mean, even from a Hellcat to a...
It's all about your wallet, really.
Really true.
Yeah, anything's doable,
but I mean, I think that there's quite a few
out there on a real available basis.
At least there was pre-pandemic.
That's true.
I'm not sure, I haven't talked to many people
who have bought many crate motors lately,
so that would be interesting to learn more about
is to the availability of those,
considering the shortage of parts,
the shortage of chips and different things.
I think China has a bunch now.
Oh, do they?
You know what, you get one crate from China.
It's a one-cylinder.
They're all one-cylinders.
They have nine horsepower.
So anyway, the 73 Oldsmobile Delta ADA
it's got service records.
It is cranberry metallic, wide whites.
It's a big old beast.
I love those big old convertibles.
They're just so cool.
They are so fun.
Remember the Pontiac Grand Ville's
back in the day convertibles
and the Catalinas and the Bonnevilles?
Two minutes to complete.
Yeah.
There was a lot of those cool,
big luxury cruiser convertibles of the day
and they were fun to drive in their place.
You know, they weren't carving corners
and they weren't going zero to 16 any fast,
but to load up 20 of your buddies
and go cruising, you know, literally,
I think my mom had a Buickless Sabre in 1974
and it had two front bench seats and rear bench seats.
And we could comfortably put about eight or nine,
maybe 10 people in that car.
Carpool the kids to kindergarten?
Yeah.
Well, we were out doing other things.
Oh, all right.
Not carpooling.
Yeah, we were older.
We were heathens.
We were out stalking the neighborhood,
looking for girls or whatever it is we were looking for.
Fun stuff.
Yeah.
So if you want to relive those memories
right here in the 73 Oldsmobile Delta ADA,
how about, now this one's been very popular.
I'm surprised it's still here, actually.
I think we may have a deposit on it.
So I could be wrong.
1970 Plymouth Barracuda, 340 hard time.
This car is really cool.
It's In Violet Metallic.
That's the name of the color.
In Violet.
Violet Metallic.
Over black.
Numbers matching 340.
Numbers matching a 727 automatic transmission.
A true CUDA, lots of receipts
and nearly flawless restoration.
Because you know we don't say flawless, ever.
Near flawless.
We don't say perfect.
What did Alex Rousey say last week?
There is no perfect car,
only a perfect representation of a car.
Which I love that.
That's right, that's right.
I love that.
That's my new motto.
I told him I was stealing it from him.
Do it.
I already did.
Because I'm already talking to him about it.
How you doing today?
We've got a fan club, Steve.
My goodness.
I don't know who that is.
I don't either.
I hope he knows who we are.
Hello.
Maybe we owe him money.
Or he owes us money.
He's waving like, hey, you can't come get me.
Right.
Also got in an 87, 87 Pontiac Grand Prix hard time.
When do you see an 87 Pontiac?
With this mileage?
Yeah, black.
And it's beautiful black.
It's a cool looking car.
Wow.
It looks like a classier version of a Monte Carlo.
Don't send me letters and all that over the Monte Carlo thing.
I love Monte Carlo's.
Don't get me wrong, I think Monte Carlo's are very cool.
But this looks like the upscale version of a Monte Carlo
from that era.
Is it a Jeep body?
Like a Jeep body?
Yeah, yeah, it's really cool looking.
It's got 17,000 actual miles.
Wow.
Garage kept.
Original paint, original interior.
It's got the 4.3 liter V6, which is, you know.
Decent.
It's a good engine.
It's polite.
That's what I got in the Typhoon.
It comes with a 4.3.
Yeah, but it's got a turbocharger.
Yeah, I know.
Just a little bit different.
A little bit different.
And bigger pistons.
But that was used in a lot of cars.
Oh, yeah.
Well, was that the same?
What was the transverse mounted?
Oh, is this one is rear-wheel drive though,
right, 87?
I think it is.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
It's a Jeep body.
It's rear-wheel drive.
What were the motors they put?
3.8 liters.
They mounted longitudinally.
And they were head gasket eaters.
Yeah.
Oh, man, I had one.
I've said this before.
I had an Oldsmobile silhouette.
I'm not proud of it.
But I had an Oldsmobile silhouette,
which, as John Travolta said in whatever movie,
it's the Cadillac of minivans.
It's the Cadillac of minivans.
Get Shorty was the name of the movie.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And he was driving an Oldsmobile silhouette.
And you know, it's funny.
My friend Jerry Darnell, who used to be the publisher
of Automobile Quarterly, was a huge car guy.
And his favorite car he had was a van, a minivan that he had.
He could just take all the seats out and haul stuff
and carry and never worry about it when you parked it.
And just loved it.
And he was the car guy's car guy.
Publishing Automobile Quarterly,
if you're not familiar with Automobile Quarterly,
it was called a magazine.
But to call it a magazine is almost criminal,
because it was a hardbound four times a year book
that you got.
Was it British?
Was it British?
No.
It was American.
Yeah.
And this thing was just really well done.
Great articles, very in-depth articles
about private collections before you would see lots of.
Nowadays, we know just about every private collection
of cars there is.
But back then, you really didn't.
And this would have been back in the late,
started in the 50s, I guess, or even probably 60s.
And but he drove a minivan.
So here's the car guy's car guy,
putting around town in a Chevy Astro van
or whatever the heck it was.
They are useful.
Very, very, a lot of storage and relatively comfortable.
Good gas mileage.
We had one for the kids with the TV in the back
and everything.
Sure.
Well, you're really selling these minivans, aren't you?
I saw one in, remember anything I saw one in Manion
yesterday for sale?
I go, look, there's a minivan for sale.
Look, Ethan, a minivan.
He was like, yeah, nice.
Appreciate that.
Thanks for pointing that out to me.
Couldn't have got through the rest of the day with that.
So the other thing we just got in was the 1968 Cadillac.
OK.
Miller Meteor Ambulance, ambulance.
This thing is so cool.
It's red and white over oxblood, our favorite interior
color, just because we like to say oxblood.
60,000 actual miles, one of a kind survivor, 472 cubic
inch V8.
Of course, you're hauling a lot of steel around in this
thing.
I bet you this thing's got away over 6,000 pounds,
wouldn't you guess?
I don't know.
Yeah, it's got to be pretty heavy.
Yeah, there's a lot of empty, open space in the middle of these.
Fully equipped.
I mean, it's got everything.
It could take you to the hospital.
So there's a whole professional car society world,
love herces and limousines.
Limousines, right, ambulances and stuff.
And I'm on their Facebook page.
And my dad was the president of a volunteer ambulance
corps in Northeast Philadelphia in the late 60s, early 70s.
And he drove one just like that.
So it brings back a lot of memories.
Because I used to sit in that little, the nurse's seat
or the little side seat there.
And it used to play in the ambulance while he was working.
And those were awfully fancy for a volunteer department.
I mean, nowadays the volunteer departments
don't have quite as fancy equipment as they did back then.
So of course, a new Cadillac wasn't that
expensive back in the day, back in 68.
What was it, $5,000 or $6,000?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know what ambulances went for back then.
But it's cool.
My dad was an architect.
And he was designing a fire station
for the local airport in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I grew up.
And he got to go to Oshkosh, Wisconsin,
to help design the fire truck.
Because each one was designed based around the building,
not around the fire truck, based through the building.
So you would come up with a building idea
what worked best for your property and layout
and entrance and exit and size and height and da, da, da, da.
And then you'd go custom build the fire truck.
And he said it was the coolest thing he ever did.
It was just, and here's a guy who was a diehard architect,
loved designing houses and crown molding
and all the fancy columns and all that stuff
you do in high-end houses.
But he really loved designing that fire truck
because that's just not something
you could put on your resume every day.
Yeah, designed a fire truck in Oshkosh.
That's really cool.
And then Oshkosh also has the big air show, too.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
So anyway, some of the new inventory we got in this week.
And we were talking about Amelia going on this week.
All our buddies are there.
We're not.
Next year, maybe.
But we'll go to Greenwich this year
and we'll be sure, we'll be thankful for that
because that's a great show.
And Radner.
And Radner.
We love Radner.
We absolutely love Radner.
But yesterday was watching some of the Gooding and Company
which is another high-end auction house.
There's RM, the four that are,
or three that are having auctions there this week
is RM auctions out of Canada.
Gooding and Company out of California
and Broad Arrow out of Michigan.
And these are all the catalog sales.
They're all the high-end stuff.
They're probably the cheapest car you could buy
at any one of these auctions would be either one of the
first or one of the last cars they run across the block
in the 20 to 30,000 range.
Whereas most auctions, that would be the average price
of the selling car, Meekum and those guys,
although that's gone up a little bit as well, too.
But some of the cars they sold,
Gooding and Company yesterday sold a 74 Ferrari Dino 246
GTS, $967,000.
Those used to be 400 and then prior to that,
not that long ago, they were $200,000 cars
and they were hard to sell.
It's unbelievable.
And now the market is just...
I'm out of the Dino market now.
It is.
Yeah.
It was on the list.
Yeah, it was no longer.
And when we return, we will talk more about some of the
cars that have sold down there
and some other interesting stuff
here on the Classic Auto Mall podcast.
Again, if you wanna reach us,
podcast at classicautomall.com
and if you wanna go to our website
and check out the 922 cars on offer,
just go to classicautomall.com.
And if you wanna hear our podcast,
you can go to Spotify and Apple Play
and even our website,
there's a link from there as well, too.
Other thing we added to our website
is some of the events coming up.
So if you're interested in coming to the events,
the contact person for the events,
understand that these events that happen here,
we don't put on.
We just give them the space.
So if you wanna know more information
about the swap meet coming up in April
or any of the events,
you gotta call them directly
because we don't know the information
other than the days that they're here.
We give them the space and they run the event.
So go on our website under events
and you'll see what, for the coming year,
what some of the events are.
And we'll be adding to those as we add events.
So when we return, more information about cars.
Talk to you in a bit.
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a classic collectible or special interest vehicle,
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And we're back with the Classic Auto Mall podcast
with the Classic Auto Mall studio
in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.
Right next to the casino, I went there last night.
It was fun, had a good time.
When I start sleeping over Friday, Saturdays,
I'm gonna be hanging out there.
Yeah, it'd be a regular over there.
They have your name on a little plaque on the bar.
This place belongs to Steve.
You know, it's funny, it was busy over there.
Of course, this time of year it's cold outside,
there's not a whole lot to do now, obviously outside.
There's not a lot of car events going on.
So people tend to do more indoor things.
We're busier actually in the winter time
than we are in the summertime here at Classic Auto Mall
because in the summertime there's plenty of things to do
and you don't wanna come necessarily
spend all day indoors.
Is there a strategy where you watch somebody sit at a machine
for a long time and they're just doing bad
and then they get up?
There are guys that watch that,
that look at the payout, the last payout from the machine.
They'll stand and analyze the machine
before they'll play it and they're looking at things
and I don't know if this machine's talking to them
or what the deal is, but there's rules of thumb
that guy says once it hits a big one,
it's not gonna hit a big one again and I don't.
It's like an algorithm, it's like.
Yeah, and there is an algorithm
but I don't think it's,
I think that you could hit the biggest hand
and then two hands later you could hit it again.
You might not hit it again with another 40,000 hands
but you never know.
I mean the Royal Flush No Deuce on Deuce as Wild
is the King Daddy of all.
That's if you're playing quarters
and you're playing five quarters at a time
or $1.25 a hand and you hit that,
it's 4,000 quarters you win.
So yeah, it's $1,000.
So on a $1.25 an investment, that's not bad
but you can't look at it that way.
You can't say, well I only invested $1.25
because you invested way more than that to get to that.
Yeah, week after week.
Week after week, after day, after night,
after it's four in the morning and you got it.
No, we don't do that.
What time do they close over there?
I don't know.
Oh, you don't stay till the midnight hour.
No, gosh, no, we were, we were home.
Attention, ladies and gentlemen,
we are closing in five minutes.
Please finish your hand.
We were home last night at 7.30.
Oh, okay.
That's like when we went to visit my dad
and went to visit my grandfather.
I told you the story when Sun City Center, Florida
went out for cocktails, dinner,
after dinner, drinks and dancing
and we were there home by 6.45.
So that's the way we felt last night.
We went over and had dinner at a great Chinese restaurant
Red Lotus and had some great food over there
and then gambled a little bit
and realized, gosh, it's only 7.30 and we went home.
They should sponsor us.
They should.
Hey, if you're listening over there, can you hear me?
So anyway, talking about Amelia Island,
Gooding & Company yesterday also sold a 62,
1962 Ferrari 250 GT,
short wheelbase California Spyder for $18,045,000.
Is that all?
This thing, it's insane.
It's insanity.
It's just how, what's your net worth
gotta be to buy $18 million?
I don't know a lot.
I mean, it can't be $50 million, right?
Couple hundred million.
At least.
At least.
You can't be a $50 million guy.
No, that's-
$18 million on a car.
And then try to convince your wife
you just spent $18 million.
Yeah, exactly.
So this thing was a Zero Metallizato,
which is like this icy, bluish, not turquoise,
a prettier version of a turquoise.
I'm not a big turquoise fan of the 50s turquoise
type stuff.
This is a prettier version of that.
Just a gorgeous car, about $16 million.
$18 million.
I mean, $18 million, excuse me.
Plus fees.
Plus fees.
No, it was $18 with the fees.
With the fees.
Yeah, let's-
Yeah, if it was plus the fees,
it'd be close to $20 million.
And this is getting more and more commonplace
of seeing $15 million plus cars.
And I mean, to see that kind of money
being spent in this hobby gives you a pause
to think that really wealthy guys
think that the hobby's still in good shape
and gonna continue to be in good shape.
And when guys are spending $18 million
or $10 million, or even $1 million on a car.
I mean, $1 million cars are so commonplace
it doesn't even get a round of applause
anymore at the auction house.
What's the insurance on an $18 million?
I'm serious.
What?
How do you even insure something like that?
I would imagine that there,
you've gotta go somewhere special
for something like Lloyds of London.
Lloyds of London.
Yeah, which is one thing that, you know,
you always like musicians insured there.
Eddie Van Halen insured his hands for-
Carrie Underwood's legs, for example.
You knew that, just right off the top of your head.
Yes, I did.
But, you know, yeah, an $18 million.
I mean, I don't know.
Let's see if you got a $60,000 car
and you go and insure it, and it's $1,000 a month.
No, no, a year.
Yeah, $1,000 or $1,200 a year, let's say.
So that's, what is that?
So 1% is 6,000, 1 tenth of 1%.
So 1 tenth of 1% of $18 million.
That's $20,000 a year?
Yeah, something like that.
Maybe $25,000 a year.
Yeah, on insurance.
On insurance, just alone.
Well, and then you gotta upkeep and maintenance
and all that, and you gotta store it
and you got all that good stuff.
That's what people don't understand about these old cars
is that the ability to hold on to a car for,
no, $18 million car is a little different animal,
but to say back when we were growing up
and oh, why don't you buy a 69 Z28 Camaro
and hold on to it, it's just too much.
There's too much time and things and life changes
and money and just things that go on
that you can't just,
it's just not as easy as it sounds.
I mean, how many people live in the same house
that they lived in 40 years ago?
Or even 10 years ago, for that matter.
I mean, people were a more fluid society.
Transient. Transient.
You know, used to be back in the 40s and 50s,
people would get married and live in the same house
until they died.
And if you had a three car garage,
you had room for one extra car,
you had one extra car in it and that was that.
You always had it and you always had space for it.
Now, and then people didn't get divorced back then.
You talk about sucking the life out of a car collection.
Throw a divorce in there.
I don't know.
Yeah, well, good.
Well, yeah, it could be.
Well, yes, it is.
Damn it.
It's very true.
You're back on your feet.
Yeah, we're back on our feet again, so.
The collection is renewed.
It's renewed.
Of course, now all of my collection
is later model stuff because I don't know why.
Because I guess there's so many to choose from
that are here that I could go out and drive
and kind of get my fix going and test driving
around the parking lot or whatever
that I don't get as many of the later model stuff
in here that are for sale and therefore
I don't get to scratch that itch.
Right.
So with the later model stuff,
that's stuff that's fun that I can go out drive
and enjoy and not break down in downtown
or have something, you know, an issue going on
and be out on a day when I'm just trying to enjoy myself.
Exactly.
So it's like anything.
We think that it sounds easy until you have to do
all the math of what it takes to do it.
So RM's auction is just starting in about 17 minutes
from where we are right now.
And they have a Duesenberg expecting them
to garner 3.8 to 4.5 million dollars,
which there are some special specialty, you know,
Duesenberg model J's are special in of their own self,
but there are special versions of those that are,
you know, some will go for a million
and some will go for four or five million.
What's the difference?
Well, it's, you know, different rarity
and body style and styling cues
and how well it was restored or if it's been restored.
You know, a lot of factors play into these things.
And that's in that rarefied air that you gotta be really
careful and know what you're doing
because the difference between a million dollar Duesenberg
and a five million dollar Duesenberg
may look the same to me and you.
It may look the same to somebody
who doesn't study Duesenbergs,
who doesn't know these things.
And of course, listen, if you're spending
that kind of money, you've obviously done your homework
or you've paid somebody to do your homework for you.
So it's not as if you can,
you're just gonna go in there blindly
and start raising your hand.
You've probably had an expert in the mark,
look it over, tell you what's good, what is bad,
what would need to be fixed.
And what your goal is for the car.
Are you planning to take it to Pebble Beach
or are you planning to take it to Amelia Island
or Radner or Greenwich or any of these concours
or are you just planning to drive it and use it?
You know, changes the equation
on what you wanna do and how you wanna do it.
I mean, we talk about detailing on these high-end
cars and our buddy Tim McNair with Grand Prix Concours
who does amazing detailing with dry ice
and magic wands and steam and dried walnuts and whatever.
Yeah, yeah, so they do all this stuff.
And he'll tell you that you can sprint a pretty penny
if that's your goal is to win one of the top awards.
And so it's funny that guys like him can look at a car
and they can tell you what it needs, what it doesn't need,
what you should do and what you shouldn't do.
A lot of times you can do more harm than good.
It's like taking it to the wrong person
and then putting the wrong kind of buffing wheel on it
or the paint may be lacquer or it may be something
that you have to be very, very careful with.
And I don't know when they started doing like chalk marks
on cars in the factory as they're building it
but some of that stuff can, if you accidentally wash it
off and you have a concours level car
then you lose points.
Especially for muscle cars.
I mean you see if you look in the engine compartment
there are so many chalk marks that we wouldn't have,
we probably wouldn't have even thought of back in the day.
Like when you bought a car back in the day you didn't,
you didn't look under the hood unless you just had to.
You know I can, you know, my mom's Buick, Lesaber,
she never looked under the hood, of course she did.
Now I looked under the hood only because we flipped
the air cleaner over to make it sound really cool
when you got on it.
But I mean people didn't necessarily pay much attention
to the engine compartment.
You know they were paying more attention
to the exterior look and the comfort and all the stuff
that went inside of it, not the outside part of it.
So it was one of those things that you didn't look at
but if you had of you would have realized
that there's all kinds of chalk marks
and there's little colors of different colors of tape
that wrap around a wire or a cord or a hose
or something on the clamp and a tag and...
Believe it or not, zip ties didn't exist
to fairly recently so if you see one it's not factory correct.
How'd you like to have been the guy in Venice?
I'll say, you know what, I was thinking that the other day
when somebody was, I saw some tip on TikTok or something
and it was about zip ties and I'm like,
man, they are so, yeah, it's...
Pretty amazing.
Whoever has the patent on zip ties, good for you.
Yeah, or...
He probably owns a $18 million
for our T-50 T-T tailhorn.
Yeah, short rail base.
RM's got another 59 California long wheel base,
California Spider, its estimate is nine to 11 million.
It sells today and then they've got a Bugatti Chiron
or Chiron, I don't know how that pronounced.
I know, I saw a whole video on that too the other day.
What did they say, Chiron or Chiron?
I didn't watch it till the end so I don't know.
I think it's Chiron.
Yeah, 2.7 to $3 million.
Sure.
And they've got a Pagani.
Wyra?
The other one.
No, I think it's the other one
and it's like five or six million dollars.
Yeah.
You know, it's just crazy.
I mean, some of the pricing on some of this stuff
has just gotten to be out of hand.
Then they take it to the other extreme.
I was just, I was on, what was on?
Not bring a trailer, but something I was looking at
and maybe barn finds.
A 1974 Pontiac Ventura GTO.
Okay.
Those were kind of cool looking.
Remember they had the head scoop
like a Trans Am?
Yeah, they only made 7,000.
I think we had one here at some point.
We had something that was like that
but I don't think we had one of those.
Very cool.
Last year for the GTO.
Now listen to this, a quarter mile and 17 seconds.
Blistering.
Blistering.
You wouldn't even wear out the tires at all.
That's not that bad for 1974.
Yeah, the Malaise era.
Yeah, for a regular car.
Yeah, but it was cool looking.
I mean, it had the Pontiac hood scoop
and that was pretty cool.
And so it was one of those cars that, no.
No 30 seconds, sorry.
I was pretty mature.
I was going into my last 30 second mode
and then you just said no to me.
So I can talk more about the Ventura GTO
which was, it looked like a Nova from back then.
It actually was, it was based on the Nova.
It was a Ventura, it was a rebadged Nova basically
back in the day.
I think it had 350 in it.
Yeah.
And they were cool looking cars though.
I think a neighbor kid had one that was like chocolate brown
and it was pretty good looking car.
We do have one in the Philadelphia area
that shows up at car shows frequently.
I love that car.
The Peterson Automotive Museum has a basement tour
and a lot of museums now have a basement tour.
It was cars that were not out on display
and they were, you know, you were only
to see the cars that they picked to curate on display
but there was thousand or not, let me rephrase that.
There was lots more in the basement
that we would love to see even sitting in a parking garage.
Sometimes they rotate them up to the, for display
but a lot of them are stored in the basement.
They're just there.
In Los Angeles, which is weird.
Yeah, so.
You know, I applied for Peterson
before it was even built.
Really?
As they were developing it, there was announcements
and everything in LA and I was living out there.
What were you thinking your job would be?
I didn't care.
I just wanted to be part of it.
I still have the original brochure
from before it was built,
the announcement of it coming out
and they did a whole little color brochure.
I could have gotten you that job.
Because Ken Gross was the first executive director
of it and he was a buddy of mine,
or was, is a buddy of mine.
He's gonna be on our show.
How about that?
So I could have gotten you the job.
Well, I didn't know you back then.
He did not, shame on you.
So yeah, Ken's a great guy, we'll have him on the show.
He's a automotive historian and loves hot rides
and loves all cars and we run into him
at all the events that we do
and he's just so knowledgeable and fun to know
and like I said, we'll have him on the show
in the next couple of weeks
because I need to get my butt out of lazy gear
and start calling some of these people
that wanna be on our show
but I get busy and don't get a chance to call them
for whatever reason.
So drive to survive is back on.
It dropped last Friday,
which was probably the 20th, no.
Let's see, what is today?
Today's the fourth.
Did it didn't drop yesterday?
No, it dropped a week ago.
Last week, right?
Yeah, last Friday.
Somebody in our car club mentioned that.
I haven't seen it yet.
Is it an old series or it's new?
No, it's new.
It's based on last year's F1 season.
Got it.
And it's the fifth iteration of it,
five seasons they've done.
And it's interesting.
It's behind the scenes of Formula One
and the circus that it is and was and will always be.
And of course, it's one of those shows
that it's reality to what level,
okay, it's mostly reality but there's scripted parts
and there's parts that they probably use
that weren't actually related
to that particular conversation that they're with
but it looks good and it sounds good and all that.
But it's pretty fascinating.
You learn quite a bit about the drivers
and their personalities and things like that
and it's well done.
And they did one for golf as well too recently
which was pretty interesting.
Because you see athletes and race car drivers
and tennis players and golfers
in this particular instances,
just kind of talking normal.
Not doing the camera 30 second sound bite
of this is why I didn't make the cut
or this is why I did this
or this is why I didn't qualify like that.
And you hear them talking just about normal stuff
and cutting up and cussing and all that.
It's like when you were on the boy cutting things.
Exactly.
And you were in the side room talking to somebody.
Yeah, and they snuck that camera through the blinds.
I forgot that I had a microphone on.
You always had the microphone.
And you think when the camera's in front of you,
okay, now I know I'm on the air
but you're always on the air
because there may be 1,000 yards behind you
with some zoom.
You have a lavalier so you're walking around with it.
You go to the bathroom.
Anything you say.
If you say weird things in the bathroom,
you probably shouldn't do that.
If you're on the lavalier,
Mike Boyd Cottington American Hot Rod Show.
It's on it all.
Yeah, so it was interesting.
I was on for all of 10 seconds on one episode
and they filmed me for a whole entire weekend
which is really interesting the way that that works.
And we've discussed that in the past ad nauseam.
So we won't continue that.
But it is pretty interesting.
And Boyd was an interesting guy.
He had the reputation as being kind of gruff
and rough around the edges.
But he had a good hearted guy.
I saw him do some pretty amazing things.
A buddy of mine's son had some medical issues
and wrecked his car.
And we were out in California
and this friend of mine lived in Indiana.
And the son called our friend.
We were all sitting there with Boyd at a restaurant
and called him and said,
hey dad, I just wrecked my car.
And we could tell what he was talking about.
We couldn't hear the other part of the conversation.
And Boyd says, give me that phone.
And he says, hey, he goes, this is Boyd Cottington.
He said, what'd you do to your car?
And he told him.
And he said, all right, I'll have a truck there tomorrow
and I have it ready to go.
We'll see you later.
And put the phone, gave the phone back to the father
and the next day a truck picked the car up,
took it all the way from Indiana to California.
Not only fixed the damage on them,
it was a mustang, fixed the damage on it,
added a kick ass stereo,
added some cool wheels, some Boyd wheels,
send it back to him, no charts.
Nice.
And it wasn't an asked for thing.
It wasn't a thought out,
it wasn't a PR thing that he did.
It was just something he did
because he felt like he could do it
and it was the right thing to do.
So.
Sometimes those reality shows create this persona.
Right.
Just to create drama or whatever.
Sure.
Just gruff and he's on his employees and stuff.
In reality, that's not always the way it is.
It was designed for that.
But I tell you that,
what a visionary when it came to Hot Rods
and some of the stuff that he built,
especially some of the later stuff,
what the Hay, the Della Hay-based black car
that sold it at Barrett for 500,000 that one year,
which was a rocket ship compared to what anything else.
I mean, price wise, what anything it ever sold for.
And then the French Connection,
which was a beautiful French styled swooping fender car
that Rocky Walker, one of his good clients, bought.
And he also had the ghetto princess,
which was the lime green impala
with the lime green motorcycle that went with it.
Odd car, not for everybody.
Right.
His innovation lives on.
I mean, his legacy lives on.
Absolutely.
And some of the Hot Rods today.
And as of late, watching some of his work sell at auction,
they're starting to bring really good money.
But of course, that seems to be the case
in a lot of instances.
Television has done a lot
for the classic car auction business.
But I'll caution you, it's like anything.
And I say this time and time again,
and I'll say it till I'm blue in the face.
And I'm not putting down the competition.
Auctions aren't for everybody.
And they aren't for every car.
And just because you see one
that looks pretty close to what you have
and is selling for pretty good money,
doesn't mean that yours is gonna sell for that much.
And it's not cheap to go to these auctions
and load it up and head them on out
and stayin' at a hotel.
Go price a hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona in January.
Yeah, or Amelia this weekend.
Right.
I think the Ritz-Carlton's 1500 a night.
And that doesn't include food.
That's not all you can add.
That is, it is what it is.
And listen, I'm not sayin' anything against auctions
because sometimes auctions hit home runs.
I mean, a Ferrari for $18 million,
that pretty much tells you anything you need to know.
But they're not for everybody
and they're not for everything.
And it's not for the faint of heart.
That's a lot of pressure
standing up there on the block
and you got a car for sale.
And some auctions are absolute,
meaning no reserve.
You can't put a reserve on them.
They sell for whatever they bring.
And again, there is no rhyme or reason
to what things Willer won't bring.
So you just gotta be really, really careful
and know what you're doing.
No different than anything else in this world.
Don't jump into something half-cocked.
Don't jump into the deep end of the pool
if you don't know how to swim.
Find out, do your homework,
figure out what the best alternative is.
And I'll tell you, if you call me
and tell me what car you have
and tell me what you're thinking about doing with it.
And if I think sending it to an auction
is a better option, I will recommend that.
And we can also help you with that too.
We can help make the arrangements for auctions.
We do that for clients and represent the car for you
so you don't have to do that,
so you don't have to feel that pressure.
So we certainly do that for clients.
But for the most part, the nice thing about our process
is you have no upfront fees to consign your car with us.
And if you bring it to us and after three months
it hasn't sold, then you might look at other options.
Then you could say, well, okay,
what it didn't do well there,
wonder what another venue might be.
Or vice versa, you take it to an auction,
put a reserve on it, it doesn't meet it.
You're adamant that you want that much money,
bring it to our place, let us try it at that price point.
Maybe we'll, a lot of times we get a different buyer.
Not everybody's comfortable with the auction format
buying and selling.
Some people love it, some people will swear by it.
I love it, it's fun.
I enjoy the auctions and the thrill of the chase
and all that, but it ain't for everybody.
This place caters, I think, more to people
who are not in a rush to sell a car.
Because it could take three weeks or it could take three months.
Yeah, and if you take your car to an auction,
the problem is, is the better you do it in auction,
the more lead time you gotta give them to promote it.
So if you wanna take it to an auction,
you can't take it to an, I mean, you can.
You can't take it to an auction that's running next week.
You need to take it to an auction
that's three or four months from now
so they can promote it on their marketing
and social sites and everything that they do.
So you run right back into a timeframe-wise,
same thing you got here,
because if you consigned a car last minute to an auction,
you get none of that marketing advantage
that cost you no more money,
whether you consigned it today or three months ago,
but you get all that extra value in marketing
and the opportunity to sell the car.
And if you don't do that and consigned it a week out,
then you're just really shooting from the hip
and you don't know what you'll get.
Plus there's the expense of taking,
if you have a reserve car,
the expense of taking it back.
Yeah, you gotta take it home.
Yeah, you took it out to Scottsdale
and it was $2,500 a ship at there
and now it's $2,500 to get it back.
And it was $1,500 to put it in the auction
and it was 10 on both sides, commission is 10% and 10%.
And then you had to eat
and then party a little or whatever you do
and buy some swag and some die-cast cars
and you spend a little bit of money.
And again, sometimes that is the right answer
for the car, but not always.
And give us a shot at it.
Let us look at your collection
and if you've got more than one car,
let us give you advice of where we think
what car will do well here
and what car maybe will do better at another venue.
Because we're happy to tell people that.
We're happy to tell people that that just doesn't fit
or that doesn't make sense.
What we wanna do is be your first thought
when it comes to classic cars
and whether we sell it
or whether we do anything with you for it,
it's just a matter of us giving you the kind of advice
that all these years we've been doing this stuff.
We've done it a couple of times, once or twice.
We've been around the block a few times.
We have, so.
I love the idea of a high-end boutique.
Yeah.
A more different vibe to the classic automobile.
Yeah, I mean, listen,
we try to be all things to everybody
and you can't be all things to everybody.
I get that, but we try to be
as many different segments of the hobby
to people as we possibly can.
Whether that's old barn funds that need everything
to the Cobra that we have here
or the Batmobile that we have here,
some of the hemi stuff we have here,
some of the numbers matching big block Corvettes
that we have here that break the bank
and continue to break the bank.
I mean, 63 split window.
My goodness gracious.
So we're, like I said,
we're a little bit of everything to everybody.
We're getting more and more of the later model cars in,
like the Toyota Supers, which we were talking about.
And I was wondering, the new Supers kind of odd.
It's an odd duck.
It's an odd looking car.
Doesn't really remind me of the old Super,
like the new Challenger reminds me of the old Challenger.
But I was wondering, are they selling many of them?
In 19, they only sold 2,800 of them.
So hard to believe that.
You just don't see them on the road.
I don't think people are using them
as daily drivers very much.
And apparently they're very well balanced,
great car to drive.
I wouldn't doubt that they were a blast to drive,
but they're like the 370 Zs
or whatever, Dotsons or Nissan's.
I didn't really enjoy the look of those as much.
Anyway, when we return next week,
we might have a guest on.
Okay.
So we can talk to and spend a little time with us.
All right.
Or we'll just talk cars.
We'll just keep talking cars.
Plenty to talk about.
There's 950 cars here.
And I have plenty of notes here.
So anyway, thanks for joining us today on the podcast
and hope you tune in again.
And tell all your friends and come see us
at Classic Automall in Morgantown PA.
Talk to you soon.
See ya.
You've been listening to the Classic Automall show
with your host, Stuart Houdin,
executive producer, Steve Saffair,
produced and engineered by yours truly, JR Russ.
Available on ClassicAutomall.com, YouTube
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Music, courtesy of the Pat Travers Band
for tour dates, contact and stuff, visit pattravers.com
Produced by CarSmart's media copyright all rights reserved.
About this episode
Stuart Howden and Steve Saffier discuss the latest happenings at Classic Auto Mall, including the sale of cars across 13 states and the influx of new inventory. They delve into the challenges of managing a growing collection, the importance of understanding car values, and the intricacies of the auction process. The duo shares anecdotes about classic cars, including a 2002 Camaro SS and a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale, while also touching on the excitement of high-end auctions at Amelia Island. The episode blends humor with insightful commentary on the classic car market.
4.3-liter V6
5.7 liter LS1
727 automatic transmission
boutique area
Classic Automall
crate motor
entry level car
horsepower
In Violet Metallic
low mileage
Buick LeSabre
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet El Camino
Chevrolet Impala
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
Chevrolet SS
Dodge Challenger
Ferrari 250 GTO
Ferrari Dino 206 GT
Ferrari Dino 208 GT4
Ford Bronco
Ford Mustang
GMC Typhoon
Lancia Delta
Lucid Air
Oldsmobile Delta 88
Plymouth Barracuda
Plymouth Cuda
Pontiac Bonneville
Pontiac Catalina
Pontiac Grand Am
Pontiac Grand Prix
Porsche 935
Renault Wind
Tesla Model S
Toyota Supra
Original notes
Archive Show #078 airdate 03-04-23 Stewart and Steve discussing why low, low miles isn't always best, which cars are often the "best buys" at auctions and the @PrimeVideo show "Formula 1: Drive to Survive". https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8289930
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CONTENT NOTE: Contests, Prizes, Offers, Vehicles & other items may no longer be available or offered after each show's original broadcast or posting date.
Recorded in our Showcase Studio just inside the entrance of the Classic Auto Mall in Morgantown, PA, Host Stewart Howden, Classic Auto Mall President and Classic Car Specialist Steve Saffier talk about this unique and amazing place often with amazing guests.
YES...Classic Auto Mall is a REAL former shopping mall that covers almost EIGHT football fields with an average of nearly ONE THOUSAND classic vehicles under one, climate controlled roof and they're all FOR SALE!
Be sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to be informed of new episodes and SEE them on the Classic Auto Mall YouTube Channel. We also invite you to VISIT US IN PERSON at Classic Auto Mall, one hour west of Philadelphia at PA Turnpike Exit #298, VISIT us online at ClassicAutoMall.com or talk to real, live people about visiting, buying or selling your classic on consignment at 888-227-0914.
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Classic Auto Mall SHOW
Stewart Howden
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55:31