Classic Auto Mall - #207 - Stewart Howden welcomes FOX TV Broadcaster Mike Joy

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 Houdin.

And here we are.

Welcome to show number 207, we're really rockin' now.

Yep.

We're gonna, you know, on our subscriber list, over 62,000 subscribers.

We've jumped up 40,000 subscribers in the last 90 days.

We're cookin' with fire, as they say.

Cook with fire.

Okay, real quickly, how many cars in inventory, JR?

Uh, 998.

Uh-huh.

They're in and out.

I'm gonna say 9, and even 950.

945.

Oh, no, not really.

You went over.

So, let's get to our guest today.

We're inviting patiently.

Joining us via Zoom, Mr. Mike Joy, good morning, Mike.

Morning, Stuart.

How are you?

We're fantastic.

Mike Joy, broadcaster, play-by-play commentator, Barrett Jackson, analyst, actor, a little

acting then there from a couple of things you've done over the years.

Anyway, 50 years of motorsports, wow.

That's pretty crazy.

Well, and that just, you know, and that doesn't count my misspent youth.

I grew up in the pages of road and track car and driver and sports car graphic,

and would sneak those magazines into study hall and high school, and just devoured all

of that.

Yeah.

And, you know, dreams of Formula One and Indy, and I got there, but with a microphone instead

of a helmet and a steering wheel.

Sure, sure.

And you're doing a little of that as a hobby now, so that kind of makes up for the

years of, you know, wanting to do it, but not really figuring out a way to do

it.

Well, you know, I raced for a while.

In fact, we formed an IMSA team three years out of college.

We didn't know how broke we were, and we didn't know how short-lived that would be, but I raced

an IMSA just out of college, and then put it all away for about 15 years.

Went back, raced SCCA, raced IMSA, raced in the 24 hours of Daytona, but, you know, always

as a hobby, never with the idea that it was ever going to produce any cash flow.

And now with vintage racing, it's a great place for those of us who think we used

to be fast, can go out there and be half-assed and have a good time.

What surprised me is how competitive vintage racing is, even with the high-dollar cars.

I mean, even more so with those Formula One cars at Monterey last weekend, or it was at

Laguna Seca, was unbelievable how they were, I mean, they weren't 10-tents, but they

were certainly 7-tents.

Sure.

I mean, there's two things that happen when you hop in one of those cars and

pull the belts down tight.

One is, I can go faster than the guy starting in front of me.

And the other is, with these older race cars, the years melt away.

You know, I climbed in an Iraq Firebird at Laguna Seca, and suddenly I was 25 again.

Exactly.

And then trying to climb out of it, I realized, oh, my God, no, I'm not.

Trying to climb out through that narrow window, all in good fun.

Absolutely.

Iraq display and also races seem to be as popular as anything out there.

I mean, obviously, the given was that Jeff Gordon was there and Danny Sullivan was there.

And, you know, just keep naming off names, Scott Pruitt, our buddy, and was all there.

But it seemed to be a very popular aspect of that event.

Well, you know, vintage racing runs the gamut from about, I think the oldest car

there was 1911, a car that participated in the first Indy 500.

And the newest cars there were in the 25 to 2010 range.

Right.

So, Iraq, which began in 1973 with Porsches, two of which were there, and continued all

the way through 2006, Camaros, then Dodge Avengers, and Dodge Daytonas, then Firebirds.

Right.

So everybody who came to Monterey remembered Iraq.

Oh, that makes sense.

And the big attraction was not only that and not only that it was the first time

that all seven generations of Iraq cars had been on track together at one time,

thanks to Ray Ebernhem and Rob Kaufman, who were resurrecting the Iraq brand and

trademarks and maybe even the events.

Sure.

But the original drivers were there to drive them.

Yeah.

That was so cool.

That was really the coolest part.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the fact that they drove to the quail on city streets with a police

escort, I wish I could have seen that.

That would have been fun in its own right to experience.

Well, we did see it.

My son and I were driving back from the quail.

We kind of timed that so that we would cross the cars going.

And as Bobby Levante told me, we didn't have spinometers in those race cars.

He says, we were going at a pretty good click thanks to the California

Highway Patrol, leading them over and back.

That's an annual feature of Laguna Seca car week.

Right.

Is that Friday at noon, one select group of race cars gets

invited to go up and over the Laurelis grade, which is five and a half

miles with 30 turns.

Wow.

And then come down Carmel Valley and into the quail, the $1,500

ticket display of everything that is new at automobiles and a lot that's

old.

Gordon McCall puts on a wonderful event.

The quail is a don't miss.

If you can get a ticket, you got to go.

Absolutely.

The Iraq cars are displayed there for an hour or so.

The drivers get to wander around and mingle with everybody and everybody has

a fabulous time.

Right.

We did it one year with the historic Trans Am cars.

And now that feature is also a part of Watkins Glen vintage car week.

Right.

They recreate an event where the race cars come down from the track down

to the town park for an hour or two.

Everybody talks with the fans there and then recreate a three laps

of the original Watkins Glen road course.

Wow.

In two weeks Labor Day weekend, there is a Thursday afternoon tour of

Lime Rock, Salisbury Falls Village with race cars and significant

vintage road cars.

That's so awesome.

Be a part of that.

It's really cool.

All part of, you know, take these race cars out of the track and get them

on the road.

Yeah, that's fun.

Well, Watkins Glen started on the streets of Watkins Glen.

So that's a given.

And I think that, you know, it's interesting to see we worry about

the death of the hobby, whether it be the racing side or the show

side or all that.

I'd say BS.

It's we're stronger than ever.

And people are saying that at Laguna Sega, they go, oh, the

crowds were lying.

There wasn't.

There's 400 race cars there.

I mean, yeah, vintage racing is not an Indy car or NASCAR event,

but it's certainly, I thought, was pretty well attended.

Yes.

I think the crowd was off from last year, but I think part of

that is there are so many car events in greater Monterey and

Carmel during that week.

Right.

You know, there's, you know, Pebble Beach, the racing at Laguna

Sega.

There's the Festorix for BMW.

There's an event for Porsche only.

Right.

There's an event or there's a Wednesday night

concourse for cars under 1500 cc's only.

Right.

There's Grassroots Motorsports Welcome Party on

Tuesday.

Scott, my son and I judged that concourse dilemma in

Goose Proof Park in Seaside on Saturday morning trying to find the

best of the worst cars.

Right.

I mean, there's something for everybody and a lot of the events

are free to attend.

Absolutely.

Sure.

Yeah.

We didn't do the lemons and we're going to.

We went by Dodie's Lot, though, the guy who supplies a lot

of the lemons cars.

It's got the car lot down in Monterey and that was the

craziest, freakiest thing you've ever seen in your life.

And then, but like you said, there's always events going

on.

There's a few that will take off our list that we went to

this year that we're going to add the quail because everybody

says you got to do that.

But just sitting on any street in Carmel by the sea and

watching these Porsches and BMWs and Lamborghinis and

Ferraris and I just want the spent fuel that was burning

up.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

We heard all night at 618 a gallon when we filled up at

San Francisco Airport.

We take all the fuel we can get.

Yeah.

There was one exception.

Now Highway 68 is the highway that runs from Salinas down

to Seaside, and that's where the track's located.

Some idiot got clocked at 144 miles an hour in the BMW on

Highway 68 one morning.

And that's the kind of guy that could ruin an end car

week.

Well, fortunately, he's I'm sure they have a nice place

for him there in the Monterey, Monterey County,

you know, Rollbar Motel, you know, that's, that's not

good.

Nobody's pretty well behaved.

They are.

Nice to light it up and, and, and, you know, burn some of

that high octane, but, you know, it's such a, it's such a

great week.

Everybody needs to go to car week once.

Yeah.

And this was our first time.

So that was even more spectacular.

And my wife and I just had an amazing time.

And she said, you know, she said, I never thought a

whole full event of car events would be fun.

She said, but she had a great time too.

And we met so many great people and, but, you

know, you're right.

It's there.

It's always the bad seeds.

We had these at cars and coffees all the time

where the one guy wants to do a burnout, then

all of a sudden the cars and coffee has to move from

that location because they've, you know, it's just

a shame that people are like that.

That's why I love the advent of country club race tracks

because now you can take your car out and do what

it's supposed to do.

True.

Yeah.

True.

And they're popping up everywhere.

We'll open go this April in Charlotte.

Yeah.

Ford club there.

Yeah.

Rick Hendrick and Marcus Smith created just outside

Charlotte Motor Speedway.

And we've been fortunate my son won the first

race there.

That's pretty cool.

That's really cool.

That's it.

Yeah.

These things are really neat.

Yeah.

And Flat Rock in between Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee

on I-40 is a 6.2 mile for the whole track built by

the guy who builds the form of the one track.

So I mean, yeah, there wasn't any lack of funds for

that of that venture.

Yeah.

I've got to get up there.

They keep calling and gosh, the schedule's tight.

Yeah.

It's a there's a lot to do.

Like you said on the schedule, it's pretty

amazing.

And like the concourse to lemons, the lawn at

Pebble on Sunday was amazing.

I mean, to to watch all those cars of different

eras being appreciated by all ages.

That's what is heartwarming to me that, hey, this

thing ain't going anywhere for a while.

Well, that's great.

And I like something that they did several years

ago at Pebble to enhance the presentation because

I spend most of my week at the track at Laguna

Seca because I want to see these old cars out

there racing in anger as as they once did.

I don't want to see them being polished in a

museum all the time.

Right.

I want to get on track.

So something they did at Pebble is they created

the tour on Tuesday where car all the cars that

are entered at Pebble Beach have a chance to run

this tour around 17 mile drive and and and

environments.

And the reason they do it is so that Pebble

Beach is not just a display of what we call

trailer queen and cars that never go anywhere.

And the reason you want to do the tour

is because if there is a tie in the judging at

Pebble running in the tour and completing the

tour is the tiebreaker.

Yeah, how cool.

And the tour is free to spectate.

You can set up anywhere along the tour route

and see all those fabulous, wonderful cars go

by without having to buy a ticket to the jet

center or to the quail or the pebble.

So great.

Yeah, I like that perspective of it.

You know, we took the shuttle up to the corkscrew

and watched the cars coming around at the corkscrew.

And what was really fun was the ragtime racers.

When they were coming around that corner,

they were completely drift in the wrong way,

trying to fight it to turn to the right.

And I don't know how they did it.

I don't know.

And it was sitting on buckets practically.

And that ragtime racer group of cars

from the 1920s and earlier, they've always

come to Monterey, Laguna Seca.

They're taking their act on the road.

And Labor Day weekend this year,

they're going to be at Lime Rock.

That's awesome.

A part of Vintage Festival 43.

Brian Blaine and his whole group is coming east

to be part of Lime Rock.

So anybody who is watching this and is in the area Labor Day

weekend, come on to Lime Rock.

See another great vintage sports car racing event

and see these ragtime racers.

They're so cool.

Yeah, it is certainly universally loved by everyone

it seems to watch them.

And I love you talk about your vintage racing

and you all do, I guess you and your son

do a bunch of different variations.

But also you're part of the Trans Am series as well, too.

And I loved there was a quote from you somewhere that said,

how cool is it that I get to race

against Mark Donahue, Sam Posey, Parnelli Jones?

All these guys, even though it's not them,

but it feels like it's them.

And it feels like you're racing against them in that period.

That's got to be such a gratifying experience.

Well, it is.

And let me see how this works.

Yeah. Oh, cool.

That was crossing the finish line at Laguna Seca last year.

The number four car, the red and white one is mine.

Right.

And the number 17 is my son, Scott's.

And we came across two abreast.

Usually he's half a lap in front of me

and I can't even find him.

But he drifted back to play and we just

have a great time.

But the great thing about historic Trans Am

and I can't tip the announcement,

but there is a good chance historic Trans Am

is coming back to Lime Rock next Labor Day

and Watkins Glen the week after.

A rare East Coast trip for those cars that

are all based on the West Coast.

And the great thing about those cars

is they are all restored to the way they

raced back in the day.

They're all actual original race cars, no tributes,

no clones, no rebuilds from Dustin Rust.

They're the real car.

You know, when that school bus yellow Mustang comes

alongside me, that was Parnelli Jones car.

So that blue number six Camaro was driven by Mark Donahue

back in the day.

So for me, I mean, I sat up on the hillside

and watched those races at Lime Rock in the late 60s

and then covered them for radio in the 70s.

So like I said, the years melt away and you're 21 again.

Yeah, exactly.

So and you've not only done, I mean, you're, you know,

obviously very well known doing NASCAR stuff,

but you've also done Formula One races back a few years

back and other some college football play by play

or sideline stuff.

And you know, but is NASCAR your passion

when it comes to broadcasting?

Is it a different kind of broadcasting

than any other venue or series that you would cover?

It is very different, especially with the changes

that have been made with stage racing

and the win and your in playoff format.

The sport has really evolved in a direction

that not every longtime fan really appreciates,

but hoping to, hoping to build an audience of younger fans

who let's say just don't want to watch cars

going around in circles for four hours

and trying to, trying to figure that out.

Though the races are, are most all of them

are a good bit shorter now.

But NASCAR is the most popular series

in the United States in terms of viewership.

The Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 annually vie

for the top rating.

And now that Fox has Indy car,

that's kind of changed the whole dynamic at our network

where we have the first 12 NASCAR races each year,

including the Daytona 500 and all of the Indy car series.

It's a, I mean, it's big business, but it's also,

you know, it's also still great racing

just as it's always been.

So, you know, yeah, that's my day job.

And I love it, or I'd be long since retired.

Sure.

But it's a, it's a labor of love.

I've got people that I work with

that are fantastic.

Kevin Harvick is developing into the best analyst

in the sport.

I think, I think after two seasons, he's there.

Clint Boyer adds just a whole different point of view

from somebody who has been there and won that and done that.

Larry McReynolds, our crew chief, you know,

just great pit reporters.

So it's a great team.

And, you know, I'm just,

I'm very fortunate to be a part of it.

Well, we're all fortunate to be able to listen to you.

And I'm not blowing smoke up your skirt

because you and Bob Varsha and Dave Despain to me

are the three broadcasters of our, of my era

that are the trifecta of broadcasting.

I mean, you guys just, it's amazing to listen to you guys.

Of course, you had good teachers.

Ken Squire comes to mind who just was,

oh man, he gets chills when I talk about that.

It's, his voice was so distinct and so,

I don't know, you just felt comfortable

when you were listening to him.

Yeah, there are a few broadcasters.

And then I learned a lot from Ken Squire,

Barney Hall, Ned Jarrett,

all of whom I worked with for many, many years

and all of whom were good friends.

We spent a lot of time together.

And yeah, it's really special.

Ken was a great wordsmith.

Had a degree from Boston University

and put it to good use.

And he was one of those fellows that like Jim McKay at ABC,

when you heard that voice,

you knew you were watching a big event.

And Ken had a way of elevating the drivers

into Knights of the Road

and almost mythical creatures

that were just way above us mere mortals.

Right.

And he was the best.

Well, because Hall of Fame of NASCAR for that reason.

And because most of the time,

race car drivers, you don't see their faces.

You can't see their emotions.

You can't see what they're feeling

if they're crying, if they're laughing,

smiling, whatever.

You don't know any of that.

So they become just,

you gotta have somebody explain to you

who they are and what they are.

Yep.

And yeah, it's a labor of love.

Yeah, absolutely.

And of course, Barrett Jackson,

we've enjoyed watching you for,

how many years have you done Barrett Jackson?

Is that, is that 20 plus?

Is that?

It is 20 plus.

I was at Phoenix Raceway

for Fox and Speed Channel,

which was owned by Fox.

And the exec producer, Rick Miner,

this is I think 2002 or 2003.

They had Barrett Jackson on speed

and they're on the block commentator.

Another good friend, Allen DeKadneke.

Right.

But Allen did not have the depth of knowledge

for the American muscle cars

that were beginning to be a huge part of the auction scene.

So they wanted somebody to balance Allen on the stage.

They had Bob Barsha in the booth with Brock Yates,

one of my heroes from Car Driver,

and Keith Martin from Sports Car Market.

But on the block, they had Allen.

And Allen, you know,

a big block Corvette would come up

and Allen would talk about the lump under the hood, you know?

And Craig Jackson wanted more.

Sure.

Rick Miner says, you know,

what do you know about old cars besides race cars?

And as I said, I grew up in those magazines.

I said, so, well, try them.

Well, let's go talk to Craig Jackson.

So we go over to the Barrett Jackson booth

and Craig has in his booth,

a Gullwing Merced 300 SL Gullwing Mercedes coupe.

So we talked to him and I mean,

you know, here's what I do and here's so forth.

And he says, well,

what can you tell me about this car?

And so I gave him chapter and verse on the history

of the Gullwing, you know,

right down to what many people don't know

are the Rudge knockoff alloy wheels.

He looks at Rick Miner and he goes, he'll do.

And so then I go, okay, I guess I got a job.

And yeah, that was over 20 years ago.

And I went on the block at Barrett first

with Allen Decadene for several years.

And then with Steve Mignante,

who's a great friend.

And we call him Dr. Date Code

because it was the date code and casting number

of just about every part I ever called.

That's amazing, absolutely amazing.

Steve, we nearly lost Steve a couple of years ago

to illness.

He spent five months in the hospital,

but he is now 97% recovered

and he's gonna be back with us in Scottsdale in January.

That's fantastic.

And I understand.

Really thrilled about that.

And now, Tyler Hoover.

Right.

Your voice from the YouTube generation,

Hovey's Garage.

He and I do most of the block work now

with April Rose.

And yeah, again, we have a blast.

If it's not fun, we're not doing it.

Sure.

Victor Broul now anchors those telecasts.

Bob Varsha comes by to help occasionally.

And yeah, we may have some additional ads going forward.

But that's the key group for that.

And we're all there to share.

Right.

And share what we know and to learn.

Sure.

So much more we don't know than we do know.

And the great thing about doing Barrett

is everybody knows their car.

Right.

You can tell me about every, you know,

not in bulk on your car.

Sure.

But you don't find many people

that have the kind of knowledge base

that's a mile wide and two inches deep.

Right.

And a little bit about every car

that comes up on the block.

And boy, they just keep coming.

Sure.

And you can't stand there and go,

oh, 57 Chevy.

Yeah, here's the red one.

You can't do that.

Yeah, it's got a four speed.

Woo-hoo.

Yeah.

But it seems physically demanding that job.

You got to be worn out at the end of a day.

Oh, it's yes.

And some of those days are long.

You know, we start out doing six hour days.

When we're back on speed,

we were doing for Friday and Saturday,

10 hours a day.

And then the thing you dreaded most

was in the last half hour,

you know, again, Rick Miner would come in

on the IFB over your headset and he'd go,

all right, we're going to do another 45 minutes

of bonus coverage

because they still have some good cars to run.

That's when you have to take the headset

and just throw it.

I love Rick, but we don't do that anymore.

Right.

And, you know, guides that ship now,

he and Sully and, yeah, no more bonus coverage.

Yeah.

Well, because to do it properly,

you've got to have a definitive knowledge

of how much longer you have going forward.

And you can't, you know, kind of use all your energy

and then run out at gas at, you know,

10 minutes left, right?

So there's a great line about that

from Mark Gellman, long time auction.

Yeah, no, Mark.

At Barrett Jackson, he's kind of from the area there.

And Mark says, yeah, he said the new auctioneers,

the new bidder assistants, they come in and all of the,

and everybody grabs the auction catalog.

And the new guys,

they're looking for the list of everybody

and their picture.

They want to see if their picture's in the camera.

He said, the veterans want to know

the number of the last car.

All right, when are we done?

We're focusing on 212.

That's it, that's it.

Where's the end of the runway?

That reminded me for just for whatever reason

that you go into the nap apart store

and the young kids work in the computer

and you say, I need a distributor for XYZ

and oh, we don't have that.

And the old guy says, hold on a second.

We got that.

It's in the back.

We're gonna go, we'll show you where it is.

So, or you go, yeah, I need two feet

of a half inch fuel line.

Right.

If the guy at the counter goes,

what's the make and model?

Then I start looking for one of the older fellas.

So they know, no, no.

You know, you gotta have that guy.

And, you know, of course,

there's so many different variables

in selling and buying cars anymore.

You know, it used to be auctions in retail

and now you've got bring a trailer

and all these other venues to sell cars.

Yet the live auctions continue to grow

and get better and better, it seems.

Like Barrett Jackson seems to just

every year eclipse the year before.

Well, every morning I'm on,

bring a trailer, cars and bids,

Doug DeMiro's site in Pete's Bar Market.

Those are the three auction sites

that I'm going down and, you know,

looking at everything to see what's being sold.

What are the trends?

What are what are people interested in?

And the comments feature.

Yeah, bring a trailer.

Randy Nahnberg site.

That's what made it, obviously.

That's and that's really cool.

Yesterday, I saw not yesterday this week,

I saw a car and bring a trailer.

And I go, hey, that was my car.

I have a list of, you know,

I have a database of serial numbers

of cars and, you know, commented about it.

What I knew what the mileage was

when I bought it, what it was

when I sold it and, you know,

that that kind of helped help add to it.

I bought and sold online

and it's a it's a very seamless process.

Usually. Right.

You do deal with some amateur sellers

that, you know, sometimes they need to be guided about,

you know, anyway.

But in person, you get to see the car.

You get to talk to the consigner.

Right. You get to look at it

for witness marks of squeaks

and look for leaks

and really get a good sense of what you're buying.

Right.

You know, when you go to one of these

name brand auctions like Barrett Jackson,

they're good at two things.

They're good at bringing good quality cars

and consignors.

And because of that,

they're good at bringing lots of bidders.

Right.

And the auction experience is very, very important.

And yes, there's a commission to be paid

on both sides of the sale.

But for a lot of people

and a lot of special cars,

you know, you want to sell that car in person

and you want to put it in front

of the biggest audience possible.

Right.

A newer car like 9-11 Porsche STs right now.

Sure.

Which we're made in 2023

and they're now going for double sticker price

in the online market and the online auctions.

There's one that closes to bring a trailer today.

The sticker price was 350.

It's at 605 right now.

It's probably going to close in the 700s.

Wow.

Well, everybody knows what that car is.

And with 1500 miles on it,

everybody knows what it ought to be.

Right.

You probably don't need to see that car

in person.

Exactly.

You can put the confidence online.

Right.

But Jeff Hayes Corvette

that has been rebuilt and rebuilt

and rest all modded to where it's now

a $900,000 car at Barrett Jackson in January.

Right.

When you see that car in person,

you see the quality of the work.

You talk to Jeff about how it went together,

about the choices he made about what he put into that car

and absolutely there's value to being there to bid and buy

and there's value there to being there as a seller

and educating the people about your car

and the special things about it.

Sure.

Well, it's being a successful concor participant

is a good story behind the car

and standing with your car and saying,

hey, this was owned by so-and-so and this was this.

And to your point about bring a trailer for you

to be able to go on there and comment about the ownership

of that car just adds to the legitimacy of that car

and the provenance of that car, which creates value.

Yes, absolutely.

And sometimes it'll hurt an unknowing seller.

Right.

I love MGs.

I have MG midgets.

You know, they're like potato chips.

You can't have one.

They just keep coming in over there.

Yeah.

They had a bunch of them.

Right.

Well, it went on there and it was advertised as a 1964

and it was or 63 or four.

And it was very clear that to me

that it had a 76 to 80 tub chassis

and other changes and so forth.

And so the VIN really wasn't anywhere close to what

was in it.

Right.

And enough commenters kind of educated everybody

to that point where they took the auction down

and then rewrote the whole description,

got with a consigner, explained to him what he had,

what he didn't have.

And the auction then it came back

and it was a successful sale.

But that's all because of the commenters

and the knowledge base of all those people

that know their car and can't wait

to share that information that most of it's correct.

Right.

Well, these regional sales a lot of times

a guy will buy a car

and there's not the due diligence by the auction house.

They're just putting them out there.

You know, here's 250 cars we're going to run today.

And sometimes the guys don't even know what size engine

they have in their car.

They don't know if it's a 327 or it's a 350

or a three, whatever.

And this is the owner.

And then it's so it goes to the new guy

and he doesn't know.

And when they can sign them with us, they'll say,

you'll ask him, well, tell me about your car.

Well, it's red and it's got a four speed.

OK.

Well, OK.

And in a lot of those cases, those are cars

that people have inherited.

It was their dad's car, maybe, or it was something

that was bought on a whim without doing the due diligence.

And I get a lot of calls.

And I'm sure you do, too, from the kids and grandkids

of people who have passed.

And what do we do with this car?

You know, usually the sons and daughters

want to keep it because they rode in that car with their dad.

And it's part of their link to their family heritage.

And they'll keep it a while.

And then it's like, we don't really have room for this.

So we don't drive it off in enough or whatever.

Well, good, let's find out all we can about it

and give it a new life.

But I find the grandkids, they don't know anything about it.

They don't want to know anything about it.

They want it to find a new home.

And that's OK, too, because there

are fires for all those cars.

Well, and it's funny because the emotion level is,

if it's the wife of a gentleman,

then the emotion level of the cars

is it was part of the family.

If it's the children, it's part of the family,

but it's not quite as emotional.

And then the grandkids, as you said,

they're no interested whatsoever.

But it's interesting to see, because I

think what propels this hobby and the sales process of it

is that an auction is great for so many things.

A Jeff Hayes Corvette auction is the absolute best place for that.

I mean, those cars, I don't know, they're off the charts crazy.

But a lady to take her husband's collection

of 10 mid 50s Chevy Bel Airs to an auction

one after another can be gut wrenching for a lady like that.

And that's certainly an interesting aspect

of the hobby and the sales process.

And therefore feeds dealers like us

to be able to have inventory to sell as well, too.

Yes. And I think the more unique the car,

the more important the dealer experience is.

I have a friend in Massachusetts built a beautiful

Plymouth Coupe with a small block Chevy

and he and his race team put all kinds of work

and special touches into this, like the back window

rolled straight down.

Nobody does that, you know?

And Bob was, you know, should we take a talk?

And I told Bob, I said, no, because in the 90 seconds,

it's on the block.

There's no way to educate the bidders

about how special this car is in the field.

So he consigned it to a dealership like yours,

who was able to talk to potential buyers

and show them everything about the car,

everything that made it special.

And he was rewarded with a sale.

So yeah, I mean, it's a great hobby.

There are all kinds of facets.

And, you know, to have a bricks and mortar dealership

where people can go and get a sense of what they might

be interested in, what they want to buy

and why they might prefer something over the other.

There's great value in that.

Maybe even more so than going through the auction process.

Sure. Sure.

And, you know, when I see a description

and it says too much to list, I think that's just

what do you mean too much to list?

It's paper. It's free. It's words.

It's, you know, with us, we can put a thousand words

or 5,000 words if we want about a car.

And the one thing that we do that auction houses don't do

and I'm not knocking them for doing it is we talk

about the imperfections.

We bring up the fact that it's got a hole in the fender.

It's got some rust here.

If it's got a, you know, a little bit of a knock in the rear end

because a lot of times these people don't want to fix them

or don't have the wherewithal or the access to the money to fix them.

And so they want to sell them as is, as they are.

But you got to describe them accurately.

Well, you do. Yes. And again, that's that's that's part of the process.

Sure. Every MG I've ever owned has a leaking rear main seal

because the design was just such that when that car sits for a year

or more, that the main seal just kind of attaches itself to the crank.

So the first time you fire it, you're going to tear it. Right.

And then it's going to leak forever. Right.

So do you fix it? No.

If that's the only problem, no, you don't.

You just, you know, you wipe up the garage floor once a month.

Right. You know, from the little drips and that, you know,

we say it marks its spot.

It's kind of like your cat, but you don't fix it unless you're taking

that engine out to do a clutch job or something else.

There's there's no reason just to pull that just because the main,

you know, just because the rear main seal is big deal.

That's part of its charm. I don't know.

A lot of these cars leak and that's can be such a turn off to newbies

in the hobby that say, oh, that car's got, you know, if it's a corvair

and it doesn't leak, that's the problem.

You know, it's it's way way worse because now you got it.

You know, it's got no fluid in it. Right.

It's so true about that.

So, Bear Jackson is coming this year to Columbus, Ohio.

That's our next year, I guess, to Columbus.

That's amazing. I talked to Mike McCullough, VP of consignment

in Monterey, and they're really excited to be coming to the kind of

Midwest area because, you know, not everybody can afford to ship

their car all the way to Scottsdale.

Nobody can afford to maybe go to Scottsdale.

It's expensive, just like Monterey is expensive.

So I like the fact that they're trying to figure out

somewhere more in the middle.

Yeah. And they've they have done this before.

Sure.

Had auctions in different cities.

Let's see, southern Connecticut, they've been to New Orleans.

They've been to Las Vegas.

And yeah, apparently they have done their research and decided

that the number of car enthusiasts within driving distance

or an easy flight to Columbus is going to work.

So, yeah, I'm excited about going there

and seeing how that works out for the first time.

Absolutely. I think it's mid to late June.

Yeah, I think so.

And, you know, it's amazing, you know, we watch these the contest

on picking the winning bid on a car that these guys do.

And in a Barrett Jackson auction is such a it's a volatile

environment, you know, a car that might be worth 50,000 might

get two guys against it and go to 70,000 or one of these

customs like Jeff Hayes Corvettes, you know, everybody

thinks it's going to go for 400 and it goes for 700 or more.

These guys that do the fantasy bid thing, how do they even

get close? It's amazing to me how good some of these guys

are at predicting value of these things.

There's one fellow who nailed it.

And what do you want to dodge Charger? Yeah, yeah.

And first off, he attended all the auctions, right.

So he looked at the cars very closely

and tried to get a sense of what similar cars were going

for in the room, because, as you know, now as a classic car

dealer, you only need one person to make a sale.

That's right. When you come to an auction, you need to

committed bidders to really ring the bell.

That's every consigner's dream.

If you get yours, who refused to lose, we used to see

Rick Hendrick and John Stiloupe fight and both of them with

pretty much unlimited budgets for classic cars.

Eventually they got together and became very good friends.

And, you know, so so they don't they don't collide

the auction block anymore.

But yeah, so we had people who would attend every

Verichaxon auction, really go through every one of those

cars and make informed bids.

Sure.

One fellow was so good at it that he's now been

excluded from playing the fantasy bid game.

You know, congratulations on your prize.

Yeah, thank you.

But yeah, thanks, but bye-bye.

Yeah, the best of two bidders going at it.

And everybody knows, you know what I'm going to say

was Alan Jones and the guy in the Ferrari hat for

the Hendrick collection when they were going there

with that F-85 Oldsmobile.

That was that was maybe the most exciting auction

sequence we've ever seen on television.

Yes, it was.

And gosh, Alan, I can't think of his last name.

Ferrari hat guy. Yeah, yeah.

We called him on speed.

And it turned out he was a representative for

the actual bidder. Right.

And that's what he did.

And there's Jim Wicks.

There's other who does that for Mustangs and

Shelby's and there's fellows that come to the

auction and they're representative of bidders.

Tony Stewart came and bid on some cars, won some cars.

But the second time he came from Verichaxon,

he when he was on the stage bidding that people

were running him up, you know, hey, Tony Stewart,

he can pay whatever he wants for this car.

Well, you know, let's make it big.

Right. And so then when Tony wanted to buy

at the next Verichaxon, he used someone

nobody would recognize.

At least the Bidsforum. I get that.

I mean, absolutely understand this.

But yeah, Ferrari hat guy, he was

he climbed in the car and said, I'm not leaving.

I'm not leaving without this bar,

which was really, really cool.

And he got it for for his person.

But he eventually he suddenly disappeared

right from Verichaxon after it was found at one

auction that he was working both sides of a sale

and was representing both the seller

and one of the bidders. Oh, nice.

And that, you know, that didn't work.

That didn't work out well.

Yeah, that's that never saw him again.

That cool. Yeah. He's disappeared

into the witness protection program or something.

But there were some great personalities.

Dave Restler was a Corvette dealer in Montana

and Dave would bring all kinds of great GM cars.

And he would always wear a sport coat

the color of the car.

And as the bidding got up, he'd twirl that

sport coat up in the air and then he'd toss it

in the car, would go with the car.

And that was just that was his signature move.

So yeah, you got great cars.

You got great characters.

Yeah, Ron Pratt.

Yeah, Ron Pratt was the same way.

You know, what a great steel face guy, you know, just in there.

New what he wanted.

And, you know, when he wanted it, he wanted Stalupi's the same way.

And I love that he buys all these cars.

And then a couple of years later, he sells all of them.

And he buys them all again, you know, buys a whole another set.

And that's his hobby.

Yeah, how great is that?

You know, just not even if you want it, you buy it.

You don't have to think, oh, let's see.

OK, I got I got 300,000 in this can.

No, he doesn't have to do any of that.

So it's it's it's so fun to watch the characters in it.

And you know, a lot of people have grown up

in the collector car hobby because of Barrett Jackson

and watching you guys on TV doing this.

It became it became, you know, something that was entertaining

to people, even if you weren't into cars.

Oh, sure. And it enabled Barrett Jackson,

especially of all the auction houses to build a big lifestyle event

right around the classic car auction.

You come to Scottsdale in January.

It takes longer to go through the areas of display

of everything from jet planes to velvet paintings,

model cars and everything in between.

Velvet paint, you name it.

One year, somebody came in and displayed a mausoleum.

Because because that week in Scottsdale,

Barrett Jackson is the epicenter of disposable income.

Right. People come there.

They're going to leave with something.

Yeah, might as well make it a mausoleum.

So he didn't they didn't come back.

But yeah, it's OK. Absolutely.

You know, it's nice to see a rotation of people that are,

you know, the characters in the hobby anyway.

So it's always fun to see and great to watch.

So thank you.

I really appreciate you being on today.

I know we could do this all day and I know you got a lot to do.

My last question, my always last question is,

what's your daily driver? Oh, that's easy.

I mean, we, you know, obviously there are several cars

sitting here with lights and keys and keys at the ready.

Depending on the weather, right?

It's top down weather, Porsche, Boxster, GTS.

I think the best driving car Porsche makes, right?

Plenty of power, wonderful, amazing handling.

Yeah, great, great car with four point six.

If it's not top down weather and I'm looking outside and it's not today.

I have an Audi RS6 Avant.

Oh, how cool.

Because everybody needs a 500 plus horse power station wagon.

Of course, I grew up.

My brother and I grew up in the back of a station wagon on long trips

with my folks. It's and it's so cool.

People look and oh, yeah, there's a wagon.

And then they go, well, those wheels are awful big.

Those brakes are huge.

Those tires are how much power does this thing have?

And they're all blown away. Absolutely.

Audi, that to me, that is, you know, the ultimate car.

If I had to downsize to a car, right, there are six.

Did you happen to see the Vista Cruiser 442

clone station wagon at Laguna Seca this past weekend?

They had a ice blue Vista Cruiser station wagon

with the 442 badges and stripes on it.

It belongs to Joe Golden, California.

It was parked right there at the Edelbrock Big Red Trail, which also owns.

He also owns he and his son, Connor, race historic

Transam cars with us. Right.

And that car, the hood, the Ramier hood

could be optioned on that station wagon, it was.

Now, you couldn't get the whole 442 W 30 package in suspension.

Sure. But you get the big engine and the hood,

and it is a Vista Cruiser in that light metallic blue.

And of all of our Transam cars in Transam Alley,

that wagon, it's a seventy one or two. Right.

Three seat wagon, nine passenger wagon.

That was the most photographed car in the whole aisle all week.

That is all I told Joe before the event opened to the public.

If you ever decide to park, please call me first.

Absolutely, I do too.

I was one of my favorite cars out there for a lot of weird reasons.

But anyway, Mike, Joey, thank you so much for being on the show.

We'll hope to see one of the events coming up soon and take care

and we'll enjoy watching you on the television over the next few years.

We hope. Yeah, thanks, Stuart.

We'll be at this weekend.

We're at Sonoma with the Shelby Convention and Labor Day weekend.

We're at Lime Rock for a vintage festival, 43, which is an annual for us.

Then in October, we'll be at Bere Jackson,

Scottsdale and then in January in Scottsdale and then early February.

It's NASCAR season. Absolutely.

Plenty to do. Thanks.

Thanks a lot. Mike, Joey, everybody.

Thanks for being on the show, Mike. Thank you.

This is the Classic Automall Show.

If you have questions or comments, write podcast at classicautomall.com.

The Classic Automall is located not far from Audubon, Pennsylvania,

named after James Audubon, the famous ornthologist.

And there's probably no better place for birdwatching.

Look there, a flock of thunderbirds.

Of course, who doesn't love the power for firebirds?

Studebaker Lark and Hawks, Buick Skylark's place AMC Eagle

and the difficult to catch Roadrunner.

Oh, there's no better place for birdwatching than Classic Automall.

And we're back with the Classic Automall Show from the Classic Automall

Studio, Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

My boy. How about that?

He's a knowledge base. Awesome.

Like that. That's, you know, you got to take a guy like that

and sit him down for about a week straight and just get all the knowledge

you can get out of his brain until you see that it's gone to empty.

Yeah, because I don't know if it ever will.

I don't think it ever will.

I mean, just the knowledge that he has about everything that he talks

about, no matter what you ask him about, and you got to understand people.

We don't send notes ahead of time to people to say, this is what we're going

to talk about. We're winging it up here.

And he's not showing off.

He just knows it. He just knows it.

He's not like, hey, look at me.

I know that this is that's a three-quarter inch blah, blah, blah.

No, it's just factual knowledge.

And when you ask him a question, he goes, oh, yeah, like the Vista Cruiser.

You know, well, I got something cool that you don't know about.

He knew ever the paint code for it.

I'm like, hey, so fantastic.

Thank you, Judy Stropis for getting us all these wonderful guests.

She's amazing and could do it without her.

So new arrivals this week.

Oh, no, no, no.

You know what I didn't print out?

What? Where we sold cars this two weeks.

Oh, all right.

So next one will be three weeks.

So that'll be our whole show pretty much.

At least segment two categorize it in in states by state.

Yeah, as I flubbed the state emo, Pennsylvania or EOS or whatever it is.

So you may as yeah, there you go.

That's two for two.

Thanks a lot. Appreciate that.

New arrivals. How about that?

1966 Ford Mustang hardtop raven black over black and white.

A little Shelby influence.

Rebuilt to 89 cubic inch for barrel V8 C4 automatic.

Ninety eight thousand actual miles.

Willwood disc brakes.

Those will with disc brakes.

Man, they must be selling a ton of those.

Right. They are everything.

It's crazy.

Another new arrival.

Another station wagon as we were just talking about station wagons.

1989 Ford LT LTD Crown Victoria station wagon.

Twilight blue metallic over shadow blue.

Fifty nine thousand actual miles.

Long term ownership.

Deluxe Marty report.

I didn't know you could get that for 89 wagons.

There's Ford on it.

Five liter V8.

Yeah, sure. Towing package.

Four speed automatic.

Another new arrival.

The 1965 Plymouth Belvedere two door hardtop.

Ebony over black.

Oh, this has got a rebuilt 440 cubic inch VA baby.

That thing will go because it's lightweight relative for the time.

Yeah, it was.

Small car.

Yeah, three speed automatic, sinister good looks and Mopar police wheels.

So it gives it that authoritarian look to it.

That's right.

How about the 1994 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 25th anniversary coupé?

Beautiful.

White over white and black.

One of 2000 built.

All stock and original in this car is 5.7 liter LTD one V8.

Man, I love that.

That's just a great engine.

Yeah, yeah.

And the anniversary TAs don't last long.

They do not last long.

Four speed automatic T tops.

This is a rare bird.

Another Ford Crown Victoria.

The 1956 Ford Crown Victoria Skyliner.

Fiesta red and colonial wide over red and white.

312 cubic inch four barrel V8.

Ford Omatic.

I'd like to be mistaken for the Vegomatic.

It's got an AC.

It's got AC power steering and brakes.

Very well restored.

Remember when classic cars?

The number one question for a while was,

does it have power steering and power brakes?

And we don't quite get that as much.

Either people are able to ascertain that

by seeing it in the photographs

and maybe they didn't know what to look for in the past

or it doesn't matter as much.

I don't know, but it's funny.

It's not as, it doesn't come up as often

as you used to come up.

So, and last but not least,

the 1972 Dodge Challenger hard top.

Panther pink.

It is.

Over black.

One of none.

Yeah.

So it has no comparables in life.

That's right.

360 cubic inch Magnum V8.

Torque flight automatic.

Timeless design.

It really is.

It's very, very, very, very cool car.

So that's some of our new arrivals this week.

Go on our website, classicautomall.com.

Don't forget we've got an auction coming up,

coming up September the 19th.

Do we?

We do.

Pray tell.

I think you're about done with the descriptions,

aren't you?

Pretty close.

Pretty darn close.

Yeah, that was, it's a little easier

to write a description when you don't have keys,

a dead start, you don't have a battery.

Engine.

No engine.

Yeah.

Some of them are real good though.

Some of them are actually some good stuff.

Real variety.

And if you're driving by in the turnpike,

just look at them because we've got them right outside.

Honk, if you see it.

When I first told my wife, Kathy,

that we were going to line up all these cars

along the turnpike, she said, you lost your mind.

What are you thinking?

That is, and we looked at it and it looks great.

It's got a good feel to it.

The army trucks are out there,

some brightly colored stuff interspersed.

We've got a GTO that's going to probably

get stupid money.

Now, this auction, September the 19th,

will be here at Classic Automall.

You can bid in person.

You can bid by telephone or you can bid online.

It's an 8% buyer's premium if you bid in person.

It's 10% if you bid online or by telephone.

You have to pre-register.

So go on our website.

You can do a preliminary registration

to get us the information and get the ball rolling.

And then we'll reach out to you

and let you know what we need from you

in order to bid and deposits and this and that

and all that kind of cool stuff.

We'll be on our website.

You can see the inventory, classicautomall.com.

Go to the auction tab.

You can go on proxy bid and see our inventory.

And you can also go on bid wrangler under guy or auctions

and see there as well too.

So there's a lot of places to see.

Plus the ads were running.

Plus we've got flyers out and all this.

And social media.

And it's going to be quite,

I think it's going to knock on wood.

It's going to be quite the barn burner for what it is.

They'll bring what they're worth without question.

And a lot of them, like I said,

a lot of them do not have titles.

And I know the first question is,

well, how do I get a title?

I don't know.

And I don't mean that I don't know.

I mean that if you,

a lot of people buy these for parts cars

or they buy it for a parade use.

And they never, you know,

for whatever reason they don't get a title.

But if you want to get a title,

there are ways to do it.

There's nothing we can provide you

other than a bill of sale period.

We know we provide you a bill of sale,

notarized bill of sale,

whatever you can do with that going forward,

whether you're local DMV,

whether it's in Pennsylvania

or some other state or some other country,

that's entirely up to you.

We don't make any warranties or representations

that you'll ever be able to get a title for it.

And do I sound like I'm being discouraging?

Yes, I do in some respects

because I want you to know what you're getting.

And I want you to don't want you

to have false expectations

of what you can and can't get.

Don't call me three weeks later

and say, well, I can't get a title.

I know that.

I'm aware of that.

So be aware of that.

Do your due diligence ahead of time.

Find out what it takes.

I think you can petition courts

and get a bond and things like that.

But again, that's all based on your state

and where you live and what you can do.

So go there, talk to them,

find out what the requirements are.

Maybe there's a path.

Maybe there isn't.

Maybe you know somebody at a DMV

and you can help.

Maybe you can do something.

I don't know.

There's maybe ways to do it.

We just don't do it or don't know how to do it.

So with that said, we'll have,

I think about 80-something cars or vehicles,

all no reserve.

We've got some killer army stuff,

some troop carriers.

We've got a tow truck.

We've got just some really neat stuff

that you don't see very often.

Hetzels, Rolls Royce.

Yeah.

We're near Valley Forge

where they had the American Revolution reenacting.

You could reenact a war

or if you have a movie prop house,

you got enough army vehicles out there to do a movie.

You could do a movie.

So if you're looking for do a movie

and if you come down the Turnpike,

especially if you're heading east

on the Pennsylvania Turnpike,

right at Exit 298,

which is where we're located.

Look to your right.

Because you're going to see a row of cars

and a sign out there that we're going to put up today.

We've got to drive some stakes in the ground.

I thought I'd get out there and do that.

Show the boys how it's done, but yep, yep.

Okay, Barney.

I'll wire that 220, 220, whatever it takes.

But you'll be able to see them all.

You can get off at the Exit 298

and just loop around and come and see all of them.

If you're going westbound and you see it,

you've got to go to somewhere.

Kingdom coming back.

Next, Redding Exit.

To JR's point, I wrote a record the other day

and in the write-up I wrote,

Holly would pay attention to this.

If you're doing a Mad Max movie,

this truck is perfect.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it looks great.

It's a Mac, isn't it a Mac?

Yeah, I think so.

I think that one's a Mac.

So yeah, I mean, how perfect is that?

And do you have other favorites?

Now, if you were going to buy,

not to own or to drive or just whatever,

just to have it.

Do you have a couple of favorites?

I do.

I like the one-troop carrier Dodge.

I really, really like that.

And then there's another one that I'm not going to mention it.

Right, of course.

Because we're hoping this one falls into the right now.

Exactly.

Steve and I both have our eyes on a couple of them.

I can tell you the Edsel Wagon

is probably the hands-down favorite of every.

That is my number one.

Yeah.

Second would be that 59 El Camino.

That's pretty rare.

Well, that's the first year for the El Camino

and it was an interesting body style.

It was that same body style that the 59 Impala had.

It basically looked like Impala.

Even the fins in the back kind of.

Exactly the same.

Yeah.

They're the same in a pickup truck environment.

And it's like a mullet, a business up front party

in the rear.

Do you know if that's no title?

I don't think it has a title.

Yeah, now I actually did a mock drawing

and said if money was no object,

I would take another El Camino 59

and make it a crew cab, four-door.

Well, there you go.

So there you chopped that baby up and there you are.

So we were talking earlier about Monterey

and it was, we got in Sunday and.

I missed my flight.

Yeah.

By the way, the ticket you sent me, I couldn't make.

I didn't get mine either.

The funniest thing is when we got to the hotel

and Kathy said, what do you mean

they don't have air conditioning?

And not that she's a prima donna.

Don't get me wrong, folks.

But people are used to air, people,

when was the last time you went to a hotel

that didn't have air conditioning?

You know, I don't remember.

Maybe in a kid in a camp in the Smoky Mountains.

You know, it was on a lumpy mattress.

But no air conditioning because in California,

especially in Monterey and Carmel area,

it was 65 degrees was the high, maybe 68.

And at night it was in the 50s.

And so you open the windows and get a breeze coming through.

And even in Southern California, in Los Angeles,

lots of nice, nice homes back in the day,

back in the 80s and even 90s didn't have air conditioning.

The Santa Ana winds would come in

and you'd open your windows

and you'd get a nice breezer

and you really didn't need it.

My friend in Seattle was in the car business

that a lot of cars didn't have air conditioning.

Right, exactly.

You see so many cars without air conditioning.

But it's certainly unusual to see that.

And a lot of people were kind of surprised at that.

But anyway, it was so funny in Carmel,

you know, the cars running around town,

the BMWs and the Porsches and all that.

And there, when every time they let off the gas,

there's too much fuel goes into the exhaust

and it's pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa.

And this went on, it was like a jake break

on a semi truck.

It was all night long.

But it didn't really, after a while,

it kind of just blended in with everything.

I'm surprised California doesn't have a sound ordinance.

They probably do, but they probably looked the other way

during Monterey Week.

They seemed to be a little less strict

than you would normally see under in that time.

And everybody talked about how bad the traffic is

at Monterey and it really wasn't that bad.

We had, we timed it well.

We had lots of plans.

We planned out dinners.

We planned out lunches.

We planned out everything that we were going to do.

So it wasn't that, you know, we caught it just right.

I think there was a couple of times we got caught,

even Sunday morning at Pebble Beach,

we got up at 7, we left at 7.30,

didn't start till nine.

We got there, we waited about 10 minutes to get in.

Thursday, as Mike Joy was referring to,

the tour to elegance was unbelievable.

And I got some great video of that.

But all the cars lined up at like 7 a.m.

and then at 9 a.m. they all took off.

And it was so cool.

And even the best in show,

the Tulipwood, Hispanic Swayza was in the drive.

Yeah. I mean, so, you know,

that's a multi-multi-million dollar car.

Of course, it wasn't like we didn't see lots of cars.

We saw Singer Porsches by the handful.

It's unbelievable.

I bet you we saw 20 or 30 of them.

I think I've seen one in my entire life, you know.

Wow.

And except for, you know, in pictures.

Right, right.

And lots of Lamborghinis.

Lamborghini, Lamborghini, Lamborghini, Lamborghini.

And of course, me as the car guy points out every car

that goes past, it's even remotely cool.

It's like I'm back and my dad finally told me when I was 16,

he said, if you'll just stop talking about transams,

I'll buy you one.

He said, but shut up.

I don't want to hear about, look, there's a transam.

Dad, look, there, you know, it's got, uh, it's enough.

Finally bought one.

Finally bought one and said, never speak of these again.

And I said, OK, that's a fair deal.

Good deal, good deal.

I'm like an excellent deal, so.

But we went to the motorlux party

that Hagerty puts on on Wednesday night.

Tuesday night, let me back up, I was invited to a dinner

that Hagerty puts on at the Hagerty house.

And this thing looked like a movie set.

Really?

It was like decorated and had the Hagerty blocked letter,

lit up letters on the front.

And it was amazing.

It was so cool and a cool round table

and lots of dealers from all kinds of eras.

And it was a lot of fun.

And it was one of those things that, you know,

you don't get to do very often,

get together with like-minded people

and talk about what's going on in the hobby.

Issues that you're having, things that are working,

things that aren't, or you don't have to give away trade secrets.

You just got to talk in general terms about stuff.

So it was a lot of fun to do that.

And got to see our buddy, Scott Pruitt,

who was running the IROC series and is,

I think it was a Dodge Daytona.

He was running, I don't even remember now.

I heard half the people at Monterey

were former guests of the classic on-the-mode show.

It seemed to be.

We ran into lots of people that had been on the show.

Yeah.

And Pebble Beach Sunday was packed.

I mean, I don't think it,

I've seen it in pictures before

and it never looked like there was that many people there.

The line to buy merchandise was over 45 minutes

just to buy a t-shirt.

Amazing. Yeah.

I saw some videos already up on YouTube

and you can see the crowds of people.

It looked like, you know, a big show.

Well, and you think about that the cheapest ticket

was $500.

So you start doing the math and parking and, you know,

the whatever other things that you can do

while you're there.

But it was overloaded in a good way.

It wasn't overwhelming overload

because we knew what we were doing.

And we know next time there's some things that we won't do

and we'll add some things that we did do and seasoned.

Yeah, you learn a little bit about it,

about how to make it work best for you.

And what events are,

I mean, the car shows themselves are great,

but you could sit on any city street on a folding chair.

Right.

And see, you know, every kind of car

you can ever imagine.

That's amazing.

Veyrons and Sheeran's at the gas station

at 11 o'clock at night getting gas.

And a lot of people do that.

They just go out there, go up there and hang out.

And I think people actually ship their cars

from other parts of the world just to drive around there,

which makes sense.

Absolutely.

And next time I will certainly buy a ship stuff home.

Yeah.

Oh.

Because you get so many books and magazines and swag

and all, yeah, that's the one I wanted to ask my joys.

How many, how much Fox swag does he have?

Oh, yeah.

And speed vision.

And CVS and speed vision and all the others.

So, but we had a great time out there.

We met a lot of wonderful people.

It was funny looking at all the transporters lined up.

They were hauling the cars out there,

whether it's auction cars or concours cars or whatever.

There was rows and rows and rows of car haulers.

And they had all kinds of things in the,

you know, you just wander around the corner

and there would be parked on the street,

Mercedes Benz going.

Just parked on the side of the road.

Like, you know, it's a million five minimum car.

Yeah, exactly.

It's the ultimate car event I think in the country.

It really is.

And you're seeing a little bit of a younger skew

towards people running around and you're seeing

some of the tuner cars there, which is great.

I mean, listen, it's, it is what it is.

Laguna Seca, as I said, was amazing.

The corkscrew, we went all the way up there.

It was 10 degrees cooler up there watching the race

and watching those cars come off that corkscrew.

If you've never seen it, Google it.

Excuse me.

I'm so, I know I'm supposed to use my cough button.

We were up there and it was nice and cool

and breezy and the temperature was perfect.

I mean, it just, it really turned out

to be a really a fun trip.

And every day that we were there,

my wife and I said at the end of the day,

if we went home today, we would consider it a success.

That was from day one.

That's awesome.

So we hope to do it again next year.

And if you haven't done it, do it.

It's expensive.

It's stupid.

I know it, but.

Stupid expensive.

Stupid expensive, but it's a lot of fun.

So next week on the show, we'll should have a,

I don't, we do have a list of guests for next week.

We do.

I don't remember.

I wrote it down on the other three

by five part from last week.

It's a secret.

It's a big old secret.

So catch us on YouTube,

catch us on Spotify and Buzzsprout and.

All of them.

Apple, whatever, all the different things.

All the major podcasts.

Well, we now have a new app.

And you're going to be announcing that.

You can, we'll have a link on our website

and our YouTube channel and all that.

You can just have it right on your phone

and watch our show or listen to it.

Absolutely.

And link back right to the classic

bottom off a car comes up that you're,

hey, I want to take a closer look at that.

You can, all of that.

I'd die and gone to heaven with two things

that have happened this week.

We've got our own app and AI quoted us as about a car.

They do.

According to classic order.

They do, they absolutely do.

1967 Mustang was blah, blah, blah.

I'm running into that more and more.

Wow.

And anytime you put in a make and model of a car,

especially older car,

inevitably our pictures come up.

Yeah.

It's usually in the front.

It's amazing.

We have saturated the internet.

Here we are.

If you're interested in the auction again,

go to classicautomall.com.

Click on the auction tab.

It'll tell you how to get through it.

Give us a call directly here.

888-227-0914, classicautomall.com.

Any way you want to reach us,

reach out to us.

We'll get back to you and figure it out.

And if we don't get back to you,

call up and ask for me

and I'll chew out whoever was supposed to call you

back today.

We'll catch you next time

on the Classic Automall Show.

We'll see you then.

The Classic Automall Show.

With their host, Stuart Howden,

executive producer, Steve Sefair,

produced and engineered by yours truly, J.R. Russ,

video editor, Randy Lamby.

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 Car Smarts Media,

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