Classic Auto Mall - #212 - Stewart Howden with Guests Kerry Hitt + Keith Martin

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.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Show number 212 in the book, 211 in the books, right?

212.

Something like that.

Yeah.

What was that song?

No idea.

How about that auction we did last week?

Yeah, it was pretty exciting.

Oh, we're going to get to that later on.

Yes, we are.

Let's talk about that a little bit.

That's great.

So, before we get to our guest who's joining us live in the studio, how many

cars are in inventory right now, Jarrah?

One of my favorite Chrysler engines.

Oh, there's a Porsche reference.

Oh, no.

All right.

You know it starts with a 9.

Yeah.

I was going to go, let's go with 9.11.

9.28.

9.04.

Oh.

Mr. Porsche.

Oh.

Yeah.

Well, we've sold a few cars lately.

Thank you very much.

Anyway, joining us in the studio today, race car driver, fabricator, company owner,

von Vivant.

Carry it.

How are you, carry?

I'm well.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks for coming up today.

Most of our guests are via Zoom because they're on the other coast or far away or whatever,

so we're glad to have you in the studio.

We've got to justify all these microphones.

Oh, it's great to be here.

It's fun to just come down and look at the place.

It's just amazing.

I tell you what, it's, oh, there you go, Randy.

We, you know, it's been a lot of fun.

We started January 1st of 2018 and not knowing really what was going to happen.

We knew that there was a lot of cars around this area.

We knew that the consignments would probably, we could make happen, but how many could we

get?

Could we fill the building?

And in our peak, we had over 1,200 cars in the building, which was too many.

It was kind of proven a point and we proved it and then we go, okay, well, that was good,

but, you know, not, not something that you need to, to do, it got to the point

where you literally couldn't even walk between the cars.

I was in here and I remember that.

Yeah.

It's kind of defeats the purpose of what we're doing here.

And it's not always about quantity, right?

And we learned that in business, you know, early on, I did, and I'm sure you did too, is that,

you know, the logical progression is a much better way than just to, you know, keep jamming,

jamming, jamming before you know it.

You've outgrown yourself.

True.

Too quickly.

Yeah.

Too quickly.

So, so you started racing kind of late in life, 21, right?

Yeah.

Well, back then, I mean, right now, kids are driving their 15, 16 years old.

That's crazy.

Back then you had to be 21.

Right.

Yeah.

Just to get a license, so.

Look at the kids informing the one.

They look like they're about nine.

Incredible.

I know.

I think some of them are.

Yeah.

Great reaction time, right?

Yeah.

Well, even a trans-am.

I mean, they're 15, 16-year-old, I think is leading the points leader of trans-am too.

Yeah.

Isn't that wild?

Yeah.

And I mean, I guess, I guess there's a lot of validity to it that if, if it's,

if the person is disciplined enough at an early age, their reflexes and reactions

have got to be so much greater than anybody, even in their 20s or 30s, right?

Sure.

So, I think that, I mean, if you were in your 20s today, would you feel like that you were

equal to what they were doing or is it a different world now?

I, I don't know.

That was so long ago.

Yeah.

I can't remember back that far, but I think that what we have today is there's a lot

of discipline.

There's, there's a lot of programs that we didn't have back in those days.

Right.

I mean, you know, go-carts were something that were just kind of coming on, you

know?

Right now, you've got organizations, you have the go-cart, the racing set up, you

know?

And it's a really good structure for somebody to start out and you're right.

Reaction times are great.

I mean, you, some of these kids, four or five years old, you know, are in

little carts and on, on motorcycles and stuff like that.

Just amazing what they do.

Right.

Well, the reflexes, like we said, and also the fact that, you know, when

you're younger, I mean, you don't have as necessarily as many preconceived

notions about things as you get older.

You know, sometimes we, we overthink things and think that that we know

better than, than whatever the statistics or computers are telling us.

But, but today is, you know, different too.

I mean, people will tell you it's safer, obviously.

It is.

Thank goodness.

Did you think about, you know, lifting weights and working out as a race

car driver back in the day?

No.

No, not at all.

Not even thought a process on that.

Now they have these huge, these regimens of what they eat and they're

like football players.

Oh yeah.

You've got to be an athlete to be a good driver.

Right.

And there's a lot of memories and let me tell you, the end of 100 miles,

especially 100 miles on a, on a 90 degree temperature day, you're rung out when you get

out there.

Oh, absolutely.

Do you have a cool suit that you have?

Oh, yeah.

But it doesn't completely cover it, right?

No, no, but I tell everybody that I'm 20 years younger when I put on the

fuel, the cool suit, it works out well.

Maybe you could take it and wear it in a bar and then you-

Yeah, that's true.

And as far as the safety of it, it's nice to see that it's, although

it's still dangerous.

I mean, let's face it, racing is always gonna be dangerous.

Right?

Being off the curves dangerous, you know?

Especially if you're on your phone.

Yeah, especially if you're on the other, yeah, true.

Even more dangerous, maybe.

Yeah, in that the truth.

But the safety has come a long way.

Probably, I mean, just everything.

When I started racing, we didn't have fuel cells.

Right.

And so I, you know, that was one of the first upgrades

that I had, and unfortunately it came at a cost.

Right.

But people saw it and they realized

we needed to do something about it.

Unfortunately, we've had the technology

to be able to do something about it.

And the safety today, some of the crashes you see

in Formula One today is just horrendous.

Even 10 years ago, they probably wouldn't have

walked away from her 20 years, certainly.

If you look at Ayrton Senna and, you know,

that crash that was preventable today.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

But the halo was a huge thing.

Which is interesting, because if you're an outsider

looking in, and to look at that halo,

you think, that's gotta be so distracting.

But they say the drivers say they don't even notice it.

Nope, don't see it.

Isn't that weird?

In our Trans Am cars, I've got a bar

that goes catty at an angle across the window.

You just don't see it.

That's so funny.

You think it's right there, but yeah,

your mind somehow...

So far ahead.

You're looking so far ahead.

Sure.

Well, and that's like, you know,

when we try to teach kids today in driving

is don't have tunnel vision.

Don't look right directly in front of you.

Look ahead.

Look at the guy in the driveway.

Just assume he's gonna pull out in front of you.

But to be a good race car driver,

do you have to have a sense

of what the guy ahead of you is gonna do,

whether he's gonna go left or go right?

I mean, I always have a feel driving down the highway

if a truck's gonna pull out in front of me.

I just know it.

I instinctive the way he's moving and things.

Do you get that in racing?

Oh yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

I went to an advanced driver's school,

Bertle Roos had it,

maybe with him up in Pocono at the time.

This was years and years ago.

And he called it ocular tactics.

And it fit really well because what it is

is you watch everything, you take everything in.

I mean, the data points that you get

and you're watching, you're going down the road.

For instance, you mentioned a truck.

You might not realize it,

but you see the front wheel as you're passing it.

And if it starts to move, that gives you an indication

probably before you even realize it.

It just kind of happens automatic.

And you take in a lot of things

that are on the track, on the race track.

I mean, we're running 180, 200 mile an hour at times.

And you're a part of the car.

You feel what's happening, what's going on.

And that's the way you do drive.

I don't know how to really put it into words

when you experience it.

You said it, you're driving down your road

and you kind of feel what it is.

Because you watch the Formula One drivers

and when they make a pass on a guy

and when they have the DRS open,

I mean, if they make the wrong decision

to go left rather than right,

it's going to be trouble.

Oh yeah, big trouble.

Big trouble.

And trans-am racing is what you race mostly, right?

Yeah, trans-am road racing.

Yeah, back in high school,

when everybody was drag racing,

and that was when Sterling Moss was, yeah.

Well, I sort of got a little bit teased

and my nickname was Sterling,

because I was always talking about road racing.

Right, and nobody else was really talking about it.

And nobody was talking about it.

Especially around here.

Right, exactly.

And I think what introduced me to that,

you may not, I'm from Redding.

Sure.

I'm from Redding area.

Right.

My aunt was married to a fellow

by the name of Irv Wolf,

and he was on Mount Laurel Road.

Right.

And he was one of the East Coast go-to sports car guys.

I mean, it's a one-car garage.

You've had one car in at a time.

Right.

They worked on these things.

And you would go by and you would see Jaguars

and Ferraris and...

Way before you would see these anywhere else.

Yeah, right, right.

And so my aunt drove an XK150,

kind of like the one you have.

I saw that, yeah.

Talk about memories coming in.

I walked in and I looked at that.

And I just got goosebumps

because I love that.

So she ran Durier Hill Climb.

Oh, right.

And she won the ladies class.

Wow.

And so I just,

that was just all part of the thing.

And I just thought it was so cool.

You know, anybody can go straight.

Sure.

But that's just how I looked at it.

And I got involved in Hill Climbing first

and then road racing

and then the rest is kind of history, you know.

Well, the SCCA still runs the Durier Hill Climb.

They did.

And I had thought that I wanted to get involved

and I went up to the top.

I would snuck my way up to the top up near the Pagoda

and I watched those cars coming through up there

and they were doing like 150.

And I'm like, what the heck?

This is not,

I thought this was a gentleman's thing, you know?

It's not, it's fast.

I think that we have the record.

We crossed the finish line at 161 mile an hour.

Wow, what kind of car were you in?

A Corvette.

Really?

Yeah, I actually have a video of it.

Inside in the car video.

Wow.

I'll show you after.

Yeah, I'd love to see that.

How cool is that?

It is, it is so cool.

Yeah, Hill Climb is a little more intense

than I think people realize.

I think literally I thought you just drive up the hill

and it's kind of, I mean,

if you're really being competitive,

it's a serious and dangerous.

Yeah, it's probably more dangerous.

It is more dangerous at a road course

because the trees and the guardrails,

I mean, they don't move.

Yeah, no runoff at all.

No runoff at all, yeah.

Well, it's like the family

that lived on the track side of Le Mans

used to eat on the second floor

because they were afraid the race cars would crash into them.

I believe that, yeah, yeah.

So, and you ran it,

the Hershey Hill Climb as well.

Ran Hershey, yeah.

And I never, so I, they had one,

when we moved here in 2017,

I think there was one or two more that they had done

and then they stopped doing it and then they haven't,

they said they were gonna revive it,

but they haven't, so unfortunately.

Yeah, Hershey Hill Climb,

it had a reputation, a great one, you know,

and people just loved it.

It's a short hill, I mean,

the road is really narrow, you know,

there's trees, Oscar Kowalski, did you know that name?

I know the name, yeah, absolutely.

Okay, well, Oscar unfortunately crashed,

broke his leg in a, some sort of Ferrari hybrid,

Chevy engine, something, you know.

But yeah, it is dangerous

because you have to drive,

the idea is to drive at 100% all the time.

All the time, right, right.

There's no room for error.

Yeah, and cold tires.

Cold tires and, you know,

maybe something wanders out on the track

that, you know, may not happen.

I have a video of deer running out in front of me,

just coming out of the Dakota,

starting going over the top

and I'm doing close to 100 mile an hour from that point

and there's three deer come across

and I was like, wow.

Yeah, because I gotta imagine when you're racing,

the last thing you're thinking about

is stuff that would normally, you know,

happen on a highway.

You're not thinking about, you know,

coming around the corner and the truck is jackknifed

or the deer or any kind of animals on the track, right?

Yeah, that's true, but here again,

what you were talking about kicks in

is just an awareness of everything

that's going on at the same time.

Sure, sure, yeah, because I mean, if a deer,

I mean, in a car, when a deer runs out in front of you,

you just gotta hit it.

I mean, that's just the best way to do it, unfortunately,

because otherwise you try to swerve,

you're gonna probably create more problem than you had.

So you gotta get those deer whistles,

you know, those things.

Yeah, yeah.

Like J.C. Whitney used to tell.

Yeah, exactly.

I think they worked.

Well, I have a, you know,

it's like having a scarecrow to keep away giraffes

and I've never seen a giraffe in my life.

It worked, right?

It absolutely did.

So you also, you're talking about driving schools.

You attended the RRDC, driving school,

and your instructor was somebody we might have heard of,

I think, was it, I thought Mark Donahue?

Well, okay.

Was a chief driving instructor?

Yeah, well, I had, yes, that was the advanced driver.

Right.

Up at Lime Rock, and it's so cool.

I mean, it was back in the time

when I didn't have two pennies to rub against each other.

So the car was,

whatever it took to make it run, you know.

And we started out in the course.

We, they had instructors,

and Mark was the chief instructor.

So they had the instructors at each particular corner

and then you would run so many laps

and then you stopped and they would critique you.

Wow.

And I thought, you know, it was really cool.

So the last corner was the downhill

and you go straight before the start finish line.

And Mark would, he went from corner to corner to corner.

So at one point in time, he would be.

At every corner.

And after we were all done,

parked the car and walked up and said,

who's driving a car 26?

And I thought, oh, what did I do?

You know.

That gummet.

And he's, yes, I kind of sheathed with me.

He said, you want to see how to get through this corner,

get behind this guy?

He said, perfect.

I couldn't have done better myself.

And it's like, you know,

I just couldn't believe this.

That's goosebumps.

I got goosebumps.

You're right, exactly.

And then he said, your car's really a s**t box.

You don't have to drive it, you know.

So I go from here to there.

All in a matter of moments, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't that funny how you can be brought up and brought down?

The RRDC is a great organization too.

Oh, fantastic.

And it's, it used to be,

it's kind of changed this mission.

It's now more, you know.

Safety.

And that's so great.

I mean, listen, we don't want to see.

It's going to happen.

We know it.

It's inevitable.

But the more we can mitigate it, the better.

Yeah, exactly.

And they've made leaps and bounds in safety.

Do you have a, are you talking about Lime Rock?

You see there, they had an airplane crash.

I saw that.

I just saw that again.

And it looks like he landed.

I think, well, maybe he didn't have a choice,

but I would think I would have tried to at least get around

to the straight.

Right.

Like he landed up next to the Elf,

right before he'd go under the bridge,

because the bridge is in the picture.

And they're having an event there.

So the safety crew was there.

And I thought he would have landed at the start, finish.

And maybe he could have come in second or third.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, how crazy was that?

But it was how, I mean, how fortuitous

that he crashes on a place where there's people

that handle this kind of thing.

Exactly.

That's what they're trained to do.

And here they are right there.

Exactly.

You know, there was a fuel leak.

And apparently they just, you know.

Just care of that.

Care of that.

And how perfect is that?

What they're trained to do.

Yeah, if you're going to crash,

I guess that's a good place to crash, right?

And I would probably much rather crash

in a race car than in an airplane.

Yeah, that's the truth.

Yeah.

Isn't it funny how being a planet, you know,

the more people die in car crashes than airplane crashes,

but more people are afraid of airplane crashes

than car crashes.

Yeah.

Because, you know, that lack of control

and not being grounded and all that,

it gives you that kind of uncomfortable feeling, you know?

Especially when you're, you know,

somebody else is in control of your destiny.

Exactly.

That's why I always drove when I was a kid.

Of course, my parents, the gas bill

when we get from LB Richardson's Exxon station every month,

my dad would just be like,

do you fill up every single day?

I don't know pretty much.

Did you have a favorite track, though?

Is there a favorite track that you enjoyed the most?

Probably Brechampton.

Oh, yeah.

And they don't run that anymore.

They don't run that anymore.

Is it still there?

I hear conflicting stories.

I hear that the track is there.

Parts of the track were there.

And I heard there was a golf course built around it.

And then I heard there's some residents.

I really don't know.

But that was so much fun.

I mean, you would go down the street

and drive off the end of the world

because you go under the bridge

and the road just dropped down

and it just kind of let a roller coaster.

Yeah, it was a fun track.

And did you have a favorite era of cars?

I mean, was there a favorite era

that you enjoyed the most?

Well, I mean, Corvettes have been sort of my middle name forever.

That's what that's what ended up getting me in business,

you know, the composite materials and that sort of thing.

And so I would say that being a race car driver

and being in the composite materials for race cars

is a distinct advantage that not everybody has.

It is.

Yeah, good, good knowledge base to be able to do that.

Because being able to communicate what a car can and can't do

is so crucial in racing.

I've been very fortunate to be around a lot of people,

way smarter than I am.

And I just kept my mouth shut, my ears open

and learned from them.

Bob Riley in aerodynamics, Jerry Stahl.

If you may with Stahl, OK.

I probably learned more about racing

and the mechanics of racing from Jerry Stahl

than I would say probably everybody else put together.

Brilliant guy.

We ended up, he closed the business down

and we ended up buying the manufacturing end of it.

And we are now building Stahl headers under the ACP.

Nice.

Label.

Nice.

And those are for race cars or street cars as well, too?

Pretty much race cars.

Yeah, they didn't get in and other people that buy them

and put them on streets or on track days or on streets

and sort of thing.

But yeah, we do everything exactly the way he did it.

Hired the fellow that ran his place for,

we worked for Jerry for 27 years at the time

and he's running it.

So that's a, it's a fun thing to do.

So between that and chassis dynamics

and learning how to build cars,

you know, we pretty much can do everything.

Right, you build a car from scratch basically, right?

Well, we do, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And you're talking about you had the mold for the 9.62s.

We do.

We have the molds for the 9.62.

We built molds for, we built parts for Al Holbert.

Right.

Back, we did them state side for a number of years

and before Jerry left us and a great guy there, too.

Oh, yeah.

Brilliant, brilliant, incredible driver.

Oh, yeah.

Fun to watch and you know, just smooth.

He just looks so smooth out there.

You could, it's like, that's what I always admired

by race car drivers.

They didn't look like they were accelerating

or decelerating, they were just there.

They're just going, you know.

That's what makes it, yeah, they say a lap

that is really smooth is a lot faster.

It doesn't look like it's as wild and crazy.

Well, it's like watching, you know,

you talk about forming the one on TV,

you look at it and it doesn't look as fast as it is.

When you go and stand at point, you know,

in between two corners and watch the acceleration

that those cars do between point A and point B,

it's staggering.

You can't believe they go that fast.

And same with the dragsters.

I mean, you know, we were just at Maple Grove

a couple of weeks ago.

Those things are just.

Amazing.

12,000 horsepower.

I know, I know.

Magnetos, two of them, actually.

They had two magnetos to start this thing.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, it's interesting that, you know,

in the road racing scheme of things

back in the early time, early days you're talking about,

you know, with Al Hubbard around here,

but Roger Pinsky also was right around

and we grew up in Redding as well, too, right?

I think Roger was from, his business is in Redding later.

He's from the Philadelphia area, I believe,

and start down there.

But there was Otto Linton.

I don't know if you know that name.

Yeah, I've heard that many times.

OK, his son Roger had worked for me as a crew chief

for about a year, year and a half.

The whole area has been racing-oriented, sports car-oriented,

automotive-oriented.

I think you picked a great place to be here, you know.

Yeah, and we didn't know it when we started it out.

That's the worst part about it.

I mean, we knew that this was car country around here.

We knew that people were into cars,

but the level of amount of cars,

and for us to consign, you know,

anywhere between 900 and 1100 cars every year,

and most of them come within 100 miles of here.

So, I mean, and you realize how many collections

are around here and estates that have cars

and it's staggering the amount of cars here.

Of course, your business is not relying

on local business, right?

You're all over the country,

maybe all over the world, right?

Actually, we are.

Actually, it goes beyond that.

Right.

Oh, really?

No, we do a lot of things.

I mean, the race car body is how we started out,

and then we did some government work.

We build the Asmuth and Elevation,

they're actually radar equipment housings,

they call them radomes,

that land aircraft on ship.

So, every ship in the Navy that lands aircraft

has our equipment on it.

That's a good thing.

And that's a cool thing.

I thought that was really, really neat.

Right.

We've done other things.

I did an all composite electric pickup truck 30 years ago.

I remember seeing pictures of that, yeah.

So, we did that, and I thought that was a cool thing.

But just recently, we've gotten involved in a project

which is the coolest that we'll ever do,

and that is we're building parts

that are gonna go on a drone

that's gonna fly on the Titan moon of Saturn.

Well, that just might drop.

That's it.

I can't top that in any way, shape or form.

We'll never do that, you know?

So, yeah.

Wow, have you gotten to go out

on some of the aircraft carriers and things?

I have not.

Oh, how cool would that be?

I came really close to it

one time I went down to Corpus Christi,

but they brought an aircraft in.

We were doing some development work on some composite stuff,

but I didn't get to go on the carrier.

Maybe someday.

You also built an iconic piece

in the Susquehanna River, didn't you?

We did.

A Statue of Liberty that you redid,

or what was the story behind that?

So that started out as a sort of a joke.

There was a group, a fellow named Gene Stilp,

who's from the Harrisburg area,

he's a journey up there,

and he and a bunch of guys got together

right about the time that they were dedicating

the statue in New York.

They decided, wow, we need a statue.

So they put this thing together

with Venetian blinds and plywood,

and from a distance, it really looked good.

And they go out there in the middle of the night,

and this is in the middle of the Susquehanna River.

It's shallow, but really rapid, fast rapids.

They go out there in the middle of the night,

and then they get up in this bridge pier

that is about 25, 30 feet in the air.

They got all this thing set up

and set this thing up at night,

and then the next day,

and I remember having the radio on in Harrisburg,

I remember that somebody's talking

about the statue in the river.

They thought it was a big prank.

It ended up, well, it was a prank,

but it was real, it was there.

So that stayed up for years,

and the flood finally washed it away.

And everybody, by that time, loved their statue.

So Gene contacted us and said,

what do you think?

They were looking to try to do one out of stone,

but that wouldn't work.

They couldn't get it out, none of that thing.

So came down, sat down, and took a look at it.

So what we did is we took one of the statues

that you buy from New York.

Right, one of the souvenir shops.

And scanned it with a fair alarm.

Back then, they still didn't have

the digital laser scanner to scan it with a fair alarm.

And we did every three inches,

we did a scan around this thing,

and I got a bunch of plywood,

and I cut out at three inches,

I cut out that profile,

and another three inches that profile,

and we built it up,

and then we used expanding urethane foam in it,

and that gave us a shape,

but then we whittled it all down

and carved it down, so it would...

How tall is it?

It's about 35 feet, I think, yeah.

In fact, we had to take it down in section,

we did it in sections.

We had to take it down to a place called Fork Hunter,

and we assembled it, rented a forklift,

and assembled everything after it was all done,

and we then had a helicopter come in,

and rigged the helicopter up, took it up,

and I've got pictures of this whole thing,

and then took it out and set it on the bridge pier,

in there, has been there ever since.

I'll be darned.

And what an icon, everybody that grew up in that area

knows that, they talk about it all the time.

It's interesting to see that river,

because they could make it so commercially great

if they got rid of all those big rocks out there.

I don't know how they would ever do it, but...

Well, those rocks made the wrappers, I can say that, yeah,

and it was interesting.

In fact, the helicopter pilot told me

that he really had a little bit of a problem

because the water was flowing,

and because the wrappers were there,

it kind of gave it texture,

and he was having a little bit of a problem

just not getting vertigo, you know?

And bringing it over and set it down,

he did a great job.

People don't realize how difficult it is

to fly a helicopter, you know?

And then if you're trying to set something somewhere,

it might be even a little bit more difficult, I think.

And he did.

Yeah, that's amazing.

So, you probably, I mean,

probably race just about every track, right?

You've raced, rode Atlanta, rode America.

Is there any track that you haven't raced

that you'd love to?

Probably a couple, but we've raced the,

well, I ran the Rolex series from Revears,

and that, of course, we've run Daytona.

The big track, we ran out California Speedway.

I run Laguna, Laguna Seca.

Which we were just there, it was a great track.

Yeah, that was just incredible.

I tried to go to Laguna probably 25, 35 years ago,

and on the way out,

we blew up the engine in the motor home,

and I never made it.

Oh no!

So, finally, when Trans Am went back there,

we were able to make it.

That corkscrew is intimidating, isn't it?

It's incredible.

There's nothing like it at any track in the world.

It's crazy that somebody hadn't duplicated

something similar to it, but they didn't.

I know.

And I liked that they didn't.

I liked the fact that it's unique.

And the other thing about it, you don't know,

is as you're driving up to the,

there's a hard left-hander when you start

into the corkscrew, but as you're driving up,

you look out over, it's on the top of a mountain.

And it's like you're gonna drive off

the edge of the world,

because you can see it's really far down there.

And we're doing like 165, 170 mile an hour

going into this corner,

and then just hard on the brakes,

and then turn it, just like you roll a fighter over

and you're going to a dive.

Yeah, sure.

They had the ragtime racers there,

which are all the 1910s and 1920s cars.

And it was funny to watch those guys,

because they'd come, they'd just start at it,

and the whole car would be almost four-wheel drifting

and going the wrong direction,

and they were literally fighting

to get the steering wheel back.

And it was not easy.

It looked like it was pretty tough,

and those cars don't even have seat belts.

And they'd sit like on top of a barrel.

Yeah, talk about lack of safety.

I've often watched those

and just sort of bite my finger

and I'd say, just get through this, you know?

It's fun.

And we wanted to stay fun.

Exactly.

And then of course, when we were out there too,

they brought back a lot of the iROC cars,

which was interesting.

A lot of the great drivers from that era,

Danny Sullivan, Scott Pruitt, and...

And Tommy Driessi, one of our Trans Am drivers won it.

Yeah, he won it, yeah.

And they got to arrive through the streets

to go to the quail.

And one of them said,

I don't remember who it was,

said the cool thing about it was is we really,

we couldn't obey the speed limit

because we have no speedometers in our cars.

Well.

Yeah, so I like that fact.

I wonder why wouldn't they have a speedometer in a car?

Is it a mental thing, do you think, or?

What we actually do now,

now we have the GPS, you know?

So our data has that.

And you can, I don't, I look back at it.

Sure.

I don't have time to look down

and see how fast I'm going.

The amount of things that they do

in racing today on some of these cars,

it's amazing the buttons that they're pushing and doing.

I'm on my simulator and I can't look down

without running off the track.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can drive a simulator.

I wish I could.

I get sick on a simulator.

Really?

I can't drive a simulator.

Isn't that fun?

I've tried that.

I'd love to.

Right.

But it's a great, it's a great tool

that you can keep your chops up.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, watch these kids today.

And it's funny that, you know,

arguably one of the greatest F1 drivers Max Verstappen

is not the number one SIM guy in the world.

You know, there's a guy,

there's some guys better than him

that are in mom's basement

or wherever they are.

Part of that is, is,

and I think the problem I have

is when I'm sitting in the simulator

and I'm watching the track,

I'm waiting for the input to the body

and I'm waiting for something

and it doesn't happen.

And I think that just sort of upsets equilibrium

or something I'm not sure.

I think that makes sense

because, you know, you don't feel the Gs.

You don't feel all of that.

The deceleration, acceleration,

all of that is not there.

I mean, you can't feel when the car's sliding

like you would feel in a real car.

I mean, it's a great tool,

but it's not the end all, right?

Correct.

You've got to be able to be out there

and you're not hot

and there's no fear of death.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, some...

You push a button and reset, you know?

Yeah, you can run off the road a little bit

and you say, oh, that's fine.

That's no big deal, but...

Try it again.

But it's probably the success

of a lot of these kids,

you know, younger drivers.

Yeah.

And, you know, earlier,

you were talking about go-karts

and the go-kart seen in Europe

was way better than it was here

and probably still is to some degree, right?

Yeah, it is, yeah.

But we're catching on.

And I think that's why there's not many

American Formula One drivers over there

because they didn't follow that,

the natural progression path through that.

And the other thing is,

is they are just now getting into road racing.

Right.

Racing was either go straight

or go in circles.

Right, right.

And now the...

And I believe...

I think it's a great format

that NASCAR has

because one of the issues with road racing

and spectators,

and obviously spectators help bring the purse,

you know, and all of that,

is that you would go

and you would probably camp out

and you'd set up a one or two corners

and you'd watch it

and then you wait for the lap to come around again.

Whereas in...

They're now having these stadium-type things.

They have the race tracks,

which has all the grandstand

and they have...

You can sit there

and you can literally watch the whole track.

Yeah.

I mean, somebody racing disciplines

have that problem,

offshore powerboat racing had the same problem

where you just couldn't see it.

And that was why Bristol was so ahead of its time

in having that track

that was so self-contained right there.

Like some of...

It was a big track

but designed more like one of the smaller tracks

and you could see everything.

And of course, how cool is that?

And then of course, they had the University of Tennessee football game there

with playing Virginia Tech

and that was even cooler.

And then they had a baseball game,

either have it or have...

Or gonna have it in there.

Yeah.

Because it just lends itself well

to that stadium environment

and same with the cars.

And you can, like you said,

watch the whole thing.

You're not missing any of it.

Yeah, exactly.

So...

And you still do some historic racing and...

Yeah.

I've taken a little bit of a break.

Just...

I've just gotten so busy with

this program we're doing.

It's called the Dragonfly

for the drone program.

And I've got that.

And then we're trying to finish the...

We've just actually finished the Toyota.

Right.

So I'm hoping to take that out,

maybe get it to the last race for the year.

Right.

Not sure if I'll drive it or not

because being out of the seat

for a little over a year

and getting a bit older.

And you know...

Yeah.

So the...

What's the power plant in the Toyota?

Is it Toyota power?

It is a Toyota.

Yeah.

It's a Toyota.

It...

I'm just going to say it's 875 plus horsepower.

Wow.

And it's 600 foot-pounds of torque.

And weighs...

2700 pounds.

All right.

Yeah, 27.

Right.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's a good power to weight.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's...

You know,

Trans-Am is...

They say it's kind of the best-kept secret in racing

because it is the...

The last...

No nannies, no traction control.

Right.

You know, none of the helper type things.

It's raw power.

It's carburation.

It's really...

No analog brakes.

Right.

You know, it really takes a skill to drive the car.

Sure.

And I have not heard of anybody

that has gotten into a Trans-Am, a TA car,

that had not come out and said,

wow, you know...

Different animal from what you used to nowadays.

Totally different animal.

And they love it.

Yeah.

But we're trying to build the class

and I realize it's expensive,

but we're trying to...

And the current Trans-Am people

are trying to build the TA class

and really make it what it was back in the heyday.

And I hope that it works out

because if that's gone,

you know, we were talking earlier about some of the skills

and things that people have and lost skills.

And when that's gone,

I think that's the last race.

It's not a spec race.

Right, exactly.

India is basically a spec race.

A spec race, yeah.

NASCAR is basically the same thing.

So this has been said,

happiness is a thin rulebook.

I like that.

Yeah.

People who enjoy building the cars and racing them.

So that's the last haven for it.

Well, it was amazing to watch the guys

in the old days build cars

when they didn't have all the technology

and how they figured things out

and figured out, you know,

Camber and Off Camber and Downforce and all that

when it wasn't even in their vocabulary, right?

Oscar Cavaleschi, if you talk about him,

told me that back in the day

when I think it was Millers, we're running Indy,

they, I mean, the early days of Indy,

they used to race horses.

And they knew that they could take

and they could weight the shoes of the horses differently

and get better performance out of them.

And they took that concept.

And they took that concept

and they put it in cars

and now the setup, you know, that is what it is.

So it brings a horsepower thing full circle.

It does, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

These are little tidbits.

Yeah, this is the kind of stuff I love though.

You know, it's the stuff that you don't get

on any other show or podcast.

There you go.

Anyway, it's so great to have you here.

And of course, my famous last question

I get to ask all my guests is,

what's your daily driver?

And the more mundane, the better.

Daily? Well, it's a Chevy Duramax pickup truck.

Right.

That is probably the most popular response

is a pickup truck.

Most guys are racers.

Their go-to is usually a pickup truck.

Isn't that funny?

Earnhardt, the same thing.

Yeah, I remember that too.

Absolutely.

So, carry here to everybody.

Thanks so much for being again on the show

and enjoy.

You can wander around

and if you brought your checkbook

or anything you see out there.

It's a great place to wander around.

I could get lost.

And I've come down here a couple of times

and it's fun to just come down

and just walk through.

Absolutely, thanks.

We appreciate that so much.

We'll be back with the Classic Automall Show

in just a couple of minutes.

We'll see you then.

Appreciate it.

You are invited in a safari at Classic Automall

on a search for animals.

Look closely and you might see a tiger, jaguar

and a cheetah or cougar

as they try to catch a herd of impalas.

And don't forget the wired Mustangs and Broncos

plus gazelle, rabbits and rams.

Ho, ho, ho.

Instead of the zoo,

you'll want to do your animal

watching at Classic Automall.

It smells better too.

This is the Classic Automall Show.

If you have questions or comments,

write podcasts at ClassicAutomall.com.

I like that.

That's pretty good.

I like the beat.

It's easy to dance to.

Yes, it's snappy.

Back you did, Clark.

Welcome back to the show.

As we said earlier, show number 212.

This is, wow, hard to believe, 212.

Listen to this.

So one year ago today,

we had 5,209 subscribers to our YouTube channel.

Today, we have 81,909.

In one year.

How about that?

We've gained 76,000.

Where's the applause?

76,000.

Woo!

That's pretty amazing.

You need the ooh.

Hey, yeah, or actually we need 2.5 million views.

Wow.

1,400, we'll be 1,500 videos by the end of next week.

Very good.

Pretty soon.

Here it is, a little late.

Yeah.

Kudos to the team.

Yeah, that's gosh.

10 times, no, that's 11 times, 12, 12 times.

I don't know how many times.

But it's appropriate where we sold cars last time

was Lumberton, North Carolina.

Ooh.

Driven through it.

Was Silla, Alaska.

Wow.

I bought a truck there.

From who was the governor, former governor of Alaska

that ran for president?

Oh, yeah.

Sarah, what about Sarah?

Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin, vice president.

Sorry, vice president.

Reading Pennsylvania, appropriate.

Tom's River, New Jersey.

Paulson, Montana.

Uless, Texas.

Greenville, North Carolina.

Middle Lake Harbor, New Jersey.

Jerseyville, Illinois.

Greenville, South Carolina.

Frederick, Maryland.

Princeton, New Jersey.

Canaan, Canaan, New Hampshire.

Maybe Canaan.

Canaan, maybe.

South Amboy, New Jersey.

Roselle Park, New Jersey.

Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

Gambrill's, Maryland.

And Cockiesville, Maryland.

Don't get cocky with me.

Don't get cocky with people.

So how cool is that?

That is cool.

Alaska.

Wasilla, wasilla is right outside of Anchorage.

It's just like a suburb of Anchorage.

A lot of cars up there.

Yeah, part is the drive.

No.

If you do nonstop, it's like 78 hours.

The suburb.

We literally did the Google map thing

to see how long it takes.

You just basically drive all the way through Canada.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, to get there from here?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, no.

And you could see Russia from your front yard.

Yes.

It's a big deal.

It gets 20 below as average on the wintertime.

Nice.

Oh, yeah.

But it's a dry cold.

So.

Right, right.

Not a damp cold.

Yeah, not damp, you know.

I think you need one of those block heaters up there.

I believe you might need a block heater.

I think that's probably where the block heater thing started.

Well, I told this story on there before,

but I bought a typhoon there in October,

but he couldn't ship it till February

because the plastic would have been so brittle

from 20 below zero that they had to wait for it.

They had to wait for it.

Ship to Seattle.

I knew somebody that worked in Minneapolis

and it was like a big deal to get a parking space

that had a block heater or a plug-in.

Oh, really?

A block heater.

Oh, that's interesting that they would have plug-ins

there on the street.

So new arrivals.

How about the 2004 Porsche Boxster S Convertible

Arctic Silver metallic over navy blue?

I guess the clock is going to start itself.

For 99,326 actual miles.

Tons of recent service.

So that's a good thing with when you get these German cars,

as we've said in the past, make sure that they got good service records.

You pay accordingly.

Yes, sir.

Because there's a lot of things that can go wrong

and you don't want to get a surprise, you know,

quickly if you haven't had it well sorted.

So other new arrival, the 1964 Chevrolet

and Pallet two-door hardtop, Tuxedo black over black,

rebuilt and worked 409 cubic inch V8,

Saginaw four speed manual, sinister good looks.

Well done SS tribute.

That's a good looking car.

That is a good looking car.

A good looking car.

336 rear.

Yes, sir.

How about the 1967 Dodge Dart GT Convertible

white over black, built 416 cubic inch stroker,

worked over a 999 three speed automatic, solid drop top show

and go baby.

Advertised as a compact car back in the day

with man size proportions.

That's what it said in the brochure.

Is it really?

Yeah.

But still remaining posh.

Ah, I know.

The 60s.

How about the 1972 Chevrolet C20 suburban

burnished gold over tan.

Wow.

5.3 liter LS V8, four speed automatic trans,

Dana 60 rear, California truck, vintage air,

Nehaly Terminator EFI fuel injection,

which is really cool.

I love that.

It's running through Flow FX Flowmaster mufflers.

When I saw this thing being tested out there,

I said, that is the truck for me.

Yeah, that's a cool truck.

It sounds great.

Sounds good.

And it's an unusual color in a good way.

I mean, it's a total sleeper.

Yeah, it really is.

You do not expect that thing to have a 5.3.

No, exactly.

How about the 1979 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe

silver metallic over medium red, 36,000 actual miles.

This is a AACA and NCRS winner,

which is kind of unusual for a late 70s.

You don't see many of the Corvettes

that have those badges of honor.

Yeah.

Numbers matching 350, L48, numbers matching T10 four speed.

This thing is really, it's as nice as 79 Corvette

I think as I've ever seen.

I agree.

We get a lot of C3s in this as a award winner.

And last but not least, the 1969 Chevrolet

Camaro Yanco tribute, Le Mans blue over black.

Well done.

Worked 427 cubic inch four barrel V8.

I'm seeing M20 four speed manual, affordable muscle.

You get the look of the Yanco without having, you know,

Yanco money, 150 grand or whatever.

So our auction was last Friday.

Yeah.

And we did really well.

I thought it was fun too.

It was fun.

And we did well.

I mean, the amount, we had 800, almost 900 online

registered bidders and a couple of hundred

in the audience registered bidders for 88 cars.

That's a good ratio.

It really is good.

It's really a good ratio.

What do you want, more bidders than cars?

Yeah.

Usually the ratio is if you have double the amount of bidders

of cars and you know, so if we'd have had 160 to 200 bidders,

then that would have been a very successful thing.

And we had almost 1,000.

That's great.

And sold cars from here as well too.

So people came and maybe they didn't

get what they wanted across the block

or it brought more than they wanted to pay.

And so they had an opportunity to buy stuff here.

And some of the stuff really did well.

Of course, we did the sleeper of the thing

was the Lincoln Mark II, which

wasn't getting a whole lot of bids online pre-auction.

And we were a little concerned and thought,

well, this thing might not break 20 grand.

It was at 15,000 for three, four days, maybe five days

before the auction.

We're thinking, well, this thing may not do what we thought.

Brought 50,000 on the block.

Amazing.

It was crazy.

And $250 increments.

This is exciting.

Yeah.

The bid stalled like six times.

And then somebody would jump in at the last minute.

And the first call, second call, and for the third

and final time, 55,000, 45,000.

It's one of those auctions that ended with applause.

It ended with applause.

You know it's good.

Yeah.

And it's just a really cool looking car.

Oh, my god.

I said, you'll probably see this at the Oscars next year

or something.

Funny you should say that, because the guy

bought it is from Los Angeles.

And he called me yesterday.

And he's visiting his daughter in Nashville.

And I can't wait to get the car

and drive it around LA.

What a great car for LA.

But that's the outlier of something.

And that's cool, because one of the things

that we did not know before we started

was whether we could sell the higher end cars at the No

Reserve format and do well enough

that people would want to bring them and trust us

to sell their cars.

And we proved that with that and some other cars

that we had, the BMW 6 Series and the Jag

both brought about what they should bring.

Sure.

They were about right on the money of where they should be.

And so we're going to do more of these

because we had fun doing it.

And look, it's good for business.

It allows us to thin out some of the cars that

need to go that have been here a long time.

And we get calls almost daily of a guy saying,

look, I just really need my car to go.

Right, sure.

I'm in a little bit financial straits,

and I really need this to go.

And we do our best to get them as much as possible,

because we don't want to take advantage of somebody,

because they're in hard times.

We want to get them to help them out of that hard time.

Sure.

Yeah.

But even some of the Army stuff,

I mean, one of the Army trucks brought 20 grand.

That was encouraging.

And a lot of them without titles certainly

makes it a little bit difficult.

Some people would sit on their hands

and not buy something without a title.

I don't blame them if you don't know the process

or haven't gotten one before.

Then to be expected to figure that out

is it can be a dawning task.

And sometimes it didn't matter,

like with the 59 El Camino.

Right.

It's like, bitters wanted that car.

They wanted the car.

I knew that car would do well.

It was doing well online.

And, of course, same with the Edsel station wagon,

which everybody loved.

Everybody wanted that car.

I thought I was going to stay in house, but OK.

Oh, well.

I don't even think I'd rate.

I was going to buy.

I thought, if I buy something, I'm going to put my badge on.

I'm going to get off the block.

I'm going to go stand out in the crowd

and just be like a regular person.

Not that I'm not anything but a regular person.

But I was going to buy a regular bidder

and never got a chance to do it,

because everything went higher than expected.

And I can't say enough good things

about Guy or Auction Company.

Those guys did a rock star job.

They really did.

And it's not something that they,

it's not their normal thing.

They do a lot of estates and stuff and things.

And yes, they've sold lots of cars.

Don't get me wrong.

It's not completely out of their wheelhouse.

But to have a collector car type auction

was probably a little different from them.

But you wouldn't have known it the way they handled

themselves.

They did it well.

And they had more register bidders

than the national proxy bid had,

which was really surprising.

I mean, because you don't always expect that.

You expect this national concern

would have way more bidders.

But they had almost double,

Guy or did register bidders what proxy bid had.

And proxy bid, don't get me wrong,

they did a great job as well too.

And we sold about a third through Guy

or a third through proxy bid and a third in person.

Interesting.

So it was kind of the perfect storm of the way it worked.

And it was exciting.

And I've gotten so many nice emails from people saying

how much they enjoyed it,

how much they hoped that we'd do it again,

that it was a lot of fun, that it was,

the results were very impressive.

The GTO did well.

Yeah.

You know, that's going to be one of those ones

that we'll see that one on the road.

I'll tell you what was hot, the classic trucks.

Yeah.

The classic trucks brought great money.

Yeah.

A lot of them are non-titled or didn't have a key.

Didn't have a key or a title or a fuel tank or no.

And we mentioned during our production meeting,

I think it needs to be said on the show,

of what a great job, and I'm not blowing smoke,

that you did bringing this together.

I think it's your background in auctions

and also with live shows in Branson, Missouri.

There's a lot of moving parts to this thing that you,

you know, we didn't, Steve and I didn't think about it.

We're like, wow, you know, we gotta do this, gotta do that.

The back end is the most interesting part of it

because in order to put all this together

and make it all happen, you really need a team

of about eight or 10 people, literally.

And we had me and Kathy, basically.

And Amy, our administrative assistant

who does an amazing job.

And I mean, basically the nuts and bolts of it

were two people that were doing it.

And that's a lot of work to do.

And our regular business didn't shut down.

It's not like we stopped doing it.

But it's funny how people get into the auction business

and they think, well, that looks like fun.

Well, it is fun if you've done your due diligence,

if you've done your homework,

if you know the right forms to have

and the right procedures to do and how to track it.

Because we're dealing with thousands,

hundreds of thousands of dollars

that are tracking in and out.

And you gotta make sure that you know

that everything's going to the right place

and to the right buyer.

And the wrong person didn't,

we didn't write down the wrong bidder number.

I mean, there's just so many things that can go wrong.

So I thank you for that.

I appreciate the.

Well, you know, you've got the stage set up

and the chairs and the video set up

and the audio set up and all that goes to the signage

and all of those things advertising

and not just mentioning it on the show,

but all of advertising that Classic Automall does

to promote the vehicles that we sell.

Well, and when we promote Classic Automall,

we're promoting the auction as well.

People go to our website,

they see that we have an auction

and they see the date and all that.

And even as many as we've done over the years

and I've done hundreds of auctions,

but there's still things you learn almost every auction.

There's something that you go,

we could tweak that and make that a little bit better

or make this a little bit different.

I think one of the things that we're going to do

is we're going to require people to pre-register

to bid much earlier than they did this time

because we ended up with a long line of people

and we had to delay the start of the auction

a few minutes, which is normal.

That happens at most auctions.

And most auctions have a line of people

that are waiting to get signed up

at the last possible minute and I get it.

Then things change or you change your mind

and decide you're going to come

and you hadn't really pre-planned anything.

But we're going to encourage people to sign up early

so we've got all that in place

so we don't have to last minute at them

and we don't want to make a mistake.

A and B, we don't want them to miss a car

that they came for.

It's easy to miss a car,

it's easy to go to the bathroom

and when I could go, oh man,

that Trans Am I was going to bid on.

But it was a great job by the whole team.

It put a lot of workload on all of our staff,

our administrative assistants, our car specialists,

our spec guys, our photographer, our rider.

It was a little extra on his plate too.

I was shocked that they were all clean.

They're sitting outside and they're cleaned.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, did you hear what he said

about the rider?

Don't get me, what's?

Don't step on that.

Oh yeah, man.

Yeah, it really took a lot to write.

Thank you.

No title, absolute.

Okay, no, that was a little more than that.

There was actually more than that.

He did a great job.

I'm really pleased with everybody's workload.

There you go, Steve.

They did it.

Thank you.

And it was also, because I think it was everybody,

it's fun to do an auction.

Yeah, I think it's exciting.

I think it is exciting.

You watch people that sat out there the whole time,

weren't buying cars, just here just watching it.

It's exciting.

Enjoying it and having a great time.

That was fun.

How cool is that?

And our video director, Randy.

Randy, yeah.

Plus for Randy too, there you go.

Everybody did a great job and thanks to my wife

who puts up with all this shenanigans

and she's wishing we were in purses, not class cars.

Wow, yeah, I'm sure.

So, and it's one of those things,

just because it's my passion doesn't mean

that that carries through to everybody.

I get it to, a lot of people, it's just a job

and it's a cool thing that we do classic cars,

but in the end of the day, it's still a job.

It's still a regular, normal job

that you have to come to work and be on time

and listen to the boss's crazy ideas

and all that good stuff.

Fortunately, most of us are passionate

about classic cars.

That's the good news.

That's what it takes to be successful

in this as a car specialist,

is to be passionate about cars,

not to be a good salesman.

If you're a good salesman at the Ford store,

you're probably not a good salesman.

I'm a horrible salesman.

Yeah, a lot of guys are like that

who know cars, know them intrinsically.

The problem is you don't have to know cars

to sell them, you have to know the process.

And that's the key, that's the difference

between selling a classic car and selling a late model,

a new car, Toyota or Ford or Chevy or Chrysler

or whatever it is, so.

When we return, we'll be joined by our guest,

the publisher of Sports Car Market Magazine,

Mr. Keith Martin.

We'll see you in a couple of minutes

on the Classic Auto Model Show.

Here's a special offer from Sports Car Market Magazine.

Get a six month subscription for just 1995

by going to sportscarmarket.com

slash test drive at the number six.

That's sportscarmarket.com slash test drive six.

If you're a buyer, a seller

or just general classic car enthusiast,

publisher Keith Martin says.

We've been around almost 40 years.

It's the Wall Street Journal of the collector car world.

Activate your six month trial

of Sports Car Market Magazine

by going to sportscarmarket.com slash test drive six.

That's sportscarmarket.com slash test drive

at the number six.

Offers for a limited time.

Be in the know with Sports Car Market.

Now, more of the Classic Auto Model Show

with your host, Stuart Howden,

from our showcase studio

just inside the Classic Auto Model,

Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

Just off Turnpike Exit 298.

Join via Zoom with our friend Keith Martin,

publisher of Sports Car Market Magazine.

How are you, sir?

I am doing great.

It's a glorious sunny day.

And at the end of today,

there's an all British field meet

that I'm gonna take the Jaguar out to.

Nice, good for you.

I was just perusing the new issue.

How about this F-50?

My goodness, $9.2 million.

What was this thing new?

Do you remember?

Was it $400,000 or $500,000?

I think it came right after the F-40.

Yeah, so it would have been, yeah.

Probably $500,000.

You know, I never, compared to the F-40,

I never liked the F-50, the looks of it.

Me neither.

I understand it's a better car.

Right, right.

But that doesn't,

it's like being a 360 Modena is a better car

than a 355.

I still like the 355 in the looks department better.

Yeah.

Notice we've got the car on the cover of the F-50.

We have been shifting the cars that we cover

to move them more and more modern

and to a newer demographic.

Because that's what's happening at these auction houses.

I mean, look what Bonham's did at the quail

a couple of weeks ago or a month ago in Monterey.

I mean, they had a super car collection

that was off the charts and all absolute no reserve

and it was some kind of police, federal,

whatever thing and they did huge money on those cars.

And that's the state of the market, right?

Yeah, no, the world is definitely changing.

The, you know, the MGBs and TR-3s and Ferrari 250 GT

and stuff, it's all, the young people today

are growing up with cars that have AC, power steering,

power brakes that will just fire up

with their fuel injection.

Yeah.

I mean, they don't want to be bothered

with the crap that we took as normal.

Right.

Well, then that's the success of Resto Mod.

You want to look cool in your 69 Camaro,

but you want to be comfortable

and you don't want a crappy ride

because you just got out of your Escalade

and it's got magnetic suspension.

I don't even know what the hell that means,

but it's something to do with something.

And yeah, I get it.

I understand that.

I understand being comfortable.

Listen, there's times that I look at the cars

in my collection, I go, yeah, that one I'm gonna take

because it's the path of least resistance.

It's comfortable.

It's got everything I need in it.

My sunglasses are in there.

My cup holders are, you know, the whole thing.

Yeah, I get it.

And if a car has too much work to drive,

you end up not driving it.

Exactly.

And then you look and then a year has gone by.

Yeah, exactly.

So as always, every week we bring your blog to life.

Thank you.

And this week's blog, is it Chip Time for Sluggo?

It sounds like is it Bedtime for Bonzo?

Exactly.

The Sluggos are affectionate name

for my 1991 series for a spider.

Right.

We actually got a 1960s suspension.

Right.

We've gotten 20 horse power, it weighs 2,500 pounds.

And I've got the snappy automatic transmission in it.

So it really goes.

Yeah, but you know what?

We just took it on a 600 mile trip with my family.

It's got power steering, power brakes, air conditioning.

The car will cruise at 75.

And what I've learned on all these back mountain roads,

you don't ever need to go faster than 75 miles an hour.

Right, right.

There's no reason to, yeah.

Well, a new Porsche, we could take a new Porsche

and go 140, but now that's stupid and it's dangerous.

It's dangerous.

And just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

We always say that.

That's right.

Well, the problem with the new car,

it gives you no warning before it goes berserk.

Exactly.

It'd be nice if they'd give you like a heads up

of a week or so, you know?

So you could plan accordingly.

You are in big screwed up trouble.

Exactly.

With the alpha, because it's so old fashioned.

I told my son, when the warning sign says 45,

in the Lotus Elise, you can do 70,

right, anything.

Right.

But it says 45, slow to 30 in the alpha.

Right.

Maybe shift down to second, probably would be.

No, no, it's an automatic,

so you don't have to do that, right?

The tires will start to squeal

and the car will bounce up and down

and it feels like a Gemini rocket

like coming back re-entry into earth.

What's the horsepower increase with the chip?

Well, it's about 10.

So, wow.

So, zero to 60 goes from 14 to 13 and a half, right?

Well, we'll use an egg timer for zero to 60.

The egg timer.

I didn't think of that.

I'll have to get one of those.

I am, the figure, it'd be a thousand bucks all in

because everything's always twice

what you think it'll be.

Yeah, that's asked me, every guy that asked me

on the floor, can you put air conditioning in this?

I go, yeah, yeah, vintage air.

It's like two grand.

And my guys are like, it's not two grand.

It's more than that just for the equipment.

Then you gotta install it.

So, quit telling people it's two grand.

We're in that old school.

And then when you're done, it's not even cold.

It's like, it's kind of tepid.

Well, I've got a 911, you know, 75

that was an air conditioned car.

And I took it to the shop and said,

well, for 10 grand, we can give you bad AC in this car.

Is there a tepid on the slot switch?

You know where it says that?

Yeah, it's tepid and cold are the same.

Gotcha.

And so it was one of the same.

I got it.

So, you know, there's nothing sexier

than those spiders.

I mean, they're just really, really good looking cars.

That's their saving grace.

And they actually look like something even today.

When you see one, it's striking.

Yeah, I always stop and look at one.

If I see one in an auction,

there's a lot of cars that I'll walk right past

and never give two thoughts to.

I always stop and look at the little spiders.

They're always good looking cars.

And especially if they're in the right color.

There was one we saw the other day it was black

and it was a great looking car.

It was just sexy, sexy, sexy and affordable still.

I mean, these things you can buy

well under 20, right?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I figure my car, I paid 15 or 16 for it.

It's worth, now, I'm told they only made 200 automatics

and they only brought 50 into this country.

Now, that means that they're rare and valuable, right?

Right, rare and desirable.

What is that?

Is that the two things we're looking for?

Yeah, I'm looking for affirmation from you saying,

oh my God, there are only 50 of them

and this is my chance to get one.

Yeah, I had a guy call me the other day.

He goes, I got a really rare car, man.

He goes, I got an 85 Mustang painted in chartreuse.

There was only five of them built.

I go, you know why they only built five of them?

He goes, no, I go, because nobody wanted them.

Oh, did it have a radio delete?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it had a little cardboard thing

over where the radio used to go.

So, you know, it's.

I was just looking at it.

There was a car for sale on Hemmings

and Alpha Spider automatic.

Right.

And the guy would have done all this stuff

to it, including a chip.

Now, the very last line of his auction says,

salvage title due to DOT error,

we can work it out after this thing.

Yeah, that is the.

Doesn't that give you confidence?

We'll work it out after you've paid.

You know, it's pretty funny how people can just downplay,

you know, minor little problems like that.

I mean, there's, you know, nothing that we can't fix,

you know, it's one of those things.

And you know.

And what's this salvage title crap anyway?

We all know.

I mean, just because the car was rolled into a ball

and then carried back out.

Well, as it means that it's not worth full value.

And some states will not even title a salvage title car.

They you got to really go to go through a process,

even though it was completely rebuilt,

completely redone.

There's not an original part on it.

Doesn't matter.

It's still it's got that that tag on it.

And that's the same problem with car facts.

You know, now collector cars are you can run a car

fax on because anything I say collector cars

twenty five years or older is what I meant.

Can now have a car flag fax run on.

And it's funny when we sell like an 80 or a 2000 Corvette

to the buyer and they don't think about this to the buyer.

It looks like a brand new car.

And then they realize, oh, it's 25 years old.

But in their mind, it's a new looking car.

It's not an antique.

It's it's a night.

It's a 2000.

Well, yeah, according to the definition of law, it is.

The whole car fax thing is interesting

because depending on which shop decides to file a car fax

report, right, how accurate the report is,

they get the VIN numbers mixed up sometimes.

Yeah, it's still important.

You know, we what I really like about auctions now

and listings is when you can Google the VIN number.

Yeah. And it will.

And everything on Google will come up about that.

And it's amazing what you find.

You'll find where it's sold in an auction,

where it had some problems, where it had this and car facts is great.

I mean, I get it. It's it helps a lot.

I would like to see car facts incorporate photos of the damage

if they could, you know, and this would be a consumer thing.

You'd have to do it on your own or the dealerships would have to do it.

Just submit a couple of photos of the damage

because it'll say minor damage, which could be like a scuff.

But you don't know because you can't you don't see a picture of it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the value

with the kind of auction you did with all the pictures.

Right, exactly. You can people meet again.

You've got to have that air of assurance

that and you want to know all the bad things.

Doesn't matter.

I don't care if it drives you away.

If it drives you away, then so be it.

I want you to know what's wrong with the car

because what I want you to tell me when you live in California,

when you receive the car or wherever you happen to live,

the car was a little bit nicer than you described.

That's music to my ears.

And I agree with that 100 percent.

So but anyway, so are you getting the chip or not?

No, I'm not going to.

You know, it's a thousand bucks for 10 horsepower.

It went fast enough on the end.

The question some of the comments I got from my blog was,

who knows what kinds of other problems you're inviting

when you change something?

The manufacturers are pretty smart

when they set these things up.

Exactly. Exactly.

But it said this will lead to might lead to excessive camshaft wear.

It just, you know, you I've got a car that runs.

It's it's a sluggo, but it's a good car

that they have a brand new AC in it.

It it cruises.

It's happy, Bluetooth, big speakers.

So and for for for what kind of majorable increase

and a thousand bucks would I run the risk

of having something bad happen?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Because if you put them side by side, one chip and one without the chip

and they both went zero to 60, I think they'd be pretty close.

I don't think it'd be

imperceptible amount of difference.

It wouldn't be much. What's the point?

Yeah, exactly.

100 percent.

But I'd never seen an alpha

of an automatic that had been chipped.

So I was intrigued by the ad

and I went and looked up the YouTube videos and stuff.

So I thought I'd throw out my readers,

but most of them said just buy a faster car.

Right, right, right.

And I like that. What's the point?

I think you need to your next blog

needs to be what's the point?

And then you can fill in whatever else

you want to say about what's the point.

Yeah, I agree.

No, so it was this ad in Hemmings is just fascinating

because again, it goes all the way down

with all these modifications

and then says salvage title. Don't worry.

Yeah, I mean, you're so excited.

You're so excited. You're so. Oh, man.

I know. Well, you know what you learn to do

with these online things?

You just cross things off just with a marker.

Yeah. Sharpie, I think, is what that would use.

Why would I with all the cars that are out there?

Yeah, why?

Well, let me bring up one more thing.

I think about weird ad displays.

It's weird when somebody will say a car

in beautiful condition, horn doesn't work,

right passenger window doesn't go up and down

and heater is broken. Right.

And you think why didn't the guy fix those things?

And you know what we found out?

We actually have some situations

that come up like that from time to time.

And usually what the case is is that either

the guy is inherited something outside

of his zip code of money and so now he's got

a car that's worth 30 or 40 gram

and he didn't have any money to fix it.

Or the estate won't allocate any money to fix it

and we get tempted to fix it.

But then we think, you know, then we're in it now.

Now we got skin in the game beyond what we want to have in it.

So, you know, that's the downside to it sometimes.

And, you know, sometimes that can be a gain to the buyer.

So, you know, if you're a buyer and you see that

and you can say, well, look, I'll pay I was going to pay you this,

but I'll pay you this, this or this based on, you know,

everything that doesn't work right now.

I get and sometimes guys will tell us on certain cars,

don't fix it.

I'd rather fix it myself because then I know

then I know the process.

I know it was done the way I want it done.

Once you start going down the road of fixing

and improving a car, it's endless help.

And you don't get your money back, generally speaking.

I tell people all the time, don't spend $1,000 to get 500 more

because that's, you know, that's bad math.

It doesn't work that way.

And it also, if you're making any cosmetic improvements,

you're guessing that the improvement you make

is the one that the buyer would want to have.

It's like over-customizing your home

to what exactly what you want to kiss a death.

You should never do it with that or a hot rod.

So, well, Keith, have a great week

and we will talk to you next Wednesday, man.

See you. Thank you.

And we'll be back with a Classic Automall next week.

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 Lambie,

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.

Classic Auto Mall - #212 - Stewart Howden with Guests Kerry Hitt + Keith Martin

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GMC Typhoon

Porsche Boxster

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Ferrari F40

Ferrari 250

MG MGB

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