Cobra Experience Museum, Countdown to The Amelia and the missing ring

Well, everybody, we're back.

I am Jay Ward.

And I'm Wayne Carini, and this is Talking Classic Cars.

Wayne, guess who I saw last weekend?

So, Jay, who just eat last weekend?

I just saw our friend Chris Jacobs.

All right.

Yeah, so I was at the Cobra Experience Museum in Martinez.

They asked me to do a talk there.

And Chris Jacobs sat down with Drew Serb, the owner

of the museum, and did a little Q&A session with him

about how that collection came together.

And if you haven't been there, you'd never know.

There was that many AC Cobras and Shelby's in one place.

So is this the place it's in wine country?

It's not quite in wine country.

Martinez is kind of East Bay.

It's really in a very nondescript area of the East Bay.

You would not expect this museum to be there.

And this is Drew's collection that he built up over time.

And it's.

Is this the same guy that's got a place up

in north of Pataluma?

And he's got Cobras on the wall in his garage or something.

Yeah, he has quite a bit of stuff in his house.

And he has English wheels and wood bucks.

And he's making bodies at his house as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, OK.

So that's the same guy.

So I was up in Pataluma visiting a friend.

And Bill Friedman, who owns a group of hardware stores

up there.

Yeah.

And we didn't have time.

But he said, next time you're over,

I want to take you over and see this guy's

Cobra collection.

It's crazy.

Yeah, he's actually closer to me.

He's in a little town called Breone's, which is close to me.

And that's where he's keeping all.

Got great stuff.

And then the museum is phenomenal.

And then he bought from one of.

So when Shelby, America shut down,

Carol wanted to get rid of all the stuff.

And he sold everything, lock, stock, and barrel

to one of the mechanic there for 10 grand.

And it had the dynamometer.

It had all the old tooling and dies and everything.

And this guy had it for years and years and years.

And Drew finally bought the whole thing for him.

So he has all the equipment that was used at Shelby, America,

all almost everything.

It's phenomenal what he's got.

I kicked myself.

There was a collector here in the Newport area,

Newport, Rhode Island.

And Paul Andrews was his name.

And I sold three of his cobers.

He had two 427s, one streetcar, an SC, and then a 289

Comcar.

And it was a US RRC car.

And so we sold those cars.

And he had a huge collection of everything co-op.

I mean, jackets, and pens, and signs.

Oh my god, it was unbelievable.

And as he was failing and healthy,

he wanted to sell it all to me.

And he threw out this crazy number, which now

I kick myself.

I mean, he had rings.

And he collected all this stuff all these years.

And then.

So the question is, what happened to all of it?

Yeah, well, I have no idea.

Paul sort of, as his health was declining,

his daughter and his son-in-law took over the stuff.

And I don't know.

Probably sold a lot of it off, yeah.

Yeah, sold probably.

I'm sure sold everything off.

I'll tell you this.

You never know when stuff will come back around.

This is not automotive related.

But yesterday, I just read that Paul McCartney's original

Hofner Beetle base was found after 52 years.

It was stolen in 1972.

Think about that.

The original Paul McCartney Hofner base, the base

from 1961, he played with the Beatles.

I mean, the iconic base.

Stolen in 72, just was found in this guy's attic in Sussex.

And they gave it back to him.

Wow, that's great.

There's some car, Wayne, that you sold a long time ago,

that got stolen and moved around.

And somehow the stuff will come back to you again.

You never know.

Yeah, you never know.

I mean, there's so many things out there.

And as we dig deeper and deeper into the automotive history,

we find all sorts of crazy stuff.

I'll be going tomorrow afternoon.

There's a local guy that's got a 50

Merck that I've been trying to buy for close to 35 years.

And unfortunately, he passed away.

But he left a note to police called Wayne Carina.

Nice.

And so his niece called me last week,

and she's coming up to Connecticut.

And I'm going to go look at the car

and hopefully be able to buy it.

It's just his mercury that he had it since brand new.

And sort of hot-rotted it up a little bit,

put some fender skirts on it, and did little things to it.

Nothing major.

Still flathead powered.

Well, flathead.

OK.

So I think it's important to save a car like that.

I'll tell you, something happening in the market,

as you know, there's been a bit of an adjustment

and a lot of stuff.

One of the things that have gotten the softest, which

will be, to your advantage is, a lot of the postwar

American stuff, 49 to 51 mercs that were kind of hot for a while

have really cooled down.

They're not big money.

Model A's, not big money.

The only things of those cars that

are kind of holding strong or 32 Ford's will always

hold strong.

But a lot of the other stuff is really

people are having a harder time moving it for the numbers

they want now.

So that, you know.

Yeah.

I think a Model A will always stay in that $25,000

to $30,000 category.

Yeah.

It's one of those cars that always seems to do OK.

I mean, you know, a car might be a strange sale

and sell for $45,000 to $50,000.

But a nice little Model A Roadster pickup truck.

They're great cars because it's easy to maintain.

You can get parts from anywhere.

Yeah.

And basically, you could go across the country.

And all you have to do is you

have to have an extra set of spark plugs, about five

condensers and five coils, because that's

the biggest problem as coils and the condensers go.

The minute you hear your car running very rough

and starts to backfire, just change the condenser.

And the world is all good again and maybe the coil.

But you have points and a cap and a rotor and that stuff.

You can drive across this country.

That's not a problem.

Jonathan Klinger approved it, worked for Hagerty.

And he drove a Model A for one solid year,

which is only means transportation.

That's right.

He would drive it in the snow.

He'd have to fly out and sometimes drive down to Detroit

to catch some flights in a snowstorm.

And here he is driving his Model A on the highway,

45, 50 miles an hour.

A guy.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, but he did it.

He plowed through.

I mean, no heat, very little heat coming off the engine.

So yeah, it's kind of a cool story.

But yeah, I know what you mean.

There's some cars that are really starting to falter.

Forties mid and, of course, because of the war,

I mean, they stopped production at 42

and didn't really start back up again.

The 47, 48 was really the true startup because of the war,

because all the manufacturers, the car manufacturers,

shut down to make tanks and jeeps

and every type of war effort type of materials.

And so when they came back, it's like a Cadillac.

Cadillac and 41, 42, they shut down.

And if you look at a 47 Cadillac, it looks exactly the same

except for they put the grille in upside down.

Made it look a little bit different.

Put a couple of pieces of chrome extra on the car.

48 was a new one, because 48 put the tail fins.

It was the last year of the Flathead Caddy,

but the first year of the kind of little kind of P38 inspired

tail fins.

Well, they had a little time to start ramping up

new designs and stuff and Harley Earl was part of that team.

And, you know, it was started some really great things,

of course, and of course with the war, everybody was planes.

Everything was an airplane because of the war effort.

You know, a lot of airplanes were made

and that's what really saved, you know, everything in the war.

So airplanes became very, very famous

and they put them on every car that there was.

I mean, you know.

So I'm writing a story right now for our friend,

David Lilly White over at Octane,

or sorry, over at Magneto.

He has Octane now,

but I'm writing a story for Magneto

about the American mascots of the 50s.

And you're absolutely right,

the aircraft influence on those mascots.

The Oldsmobile rocket, you know,

even the Pontiac chief's head

had these airplane wings going off of it.

The Lincoln Premier was a knight in shining armor,

but even he had little rocket wings on him.

Yeah, they were just great.

Even the Packard Swan, the classic Packard Swan

kind of slowly turned into an airplane.

They just couldn't help themselves.

Everything, everything was airplanes.

We just did a story.

I did a story and I'm looking at my desk here.

I don't have it,

but if you get the new Magneto magazine.

Oh yeah, you're in there.

Have you got your copy yet?

Yes, and you're in there.

Did you see that?

Yeah, it was great.

It was a nice little feature on you.

It's the Ayrton Center for the people who are looking.

Look for the one with the Ayrton Center cover

and you flip inside.

There's a great story about Wayne,

pictures at his shop, pictures at the house

and a little bit of the story of how it all came to be.

Yeah, well, it was funny.

David Lilly, why'd he stop by to just say hello?

And they were at the Australian event last year.

And he said, hey, let's just take some pictures

and maybe we can throw a story together.

So we sat down, had dinner and he took some notes

and bang, this is what happened.

He actually stopped in to get his car fixed.

Cheap repair.

He had gotten a crease in his rental car

and so one of my buddies is a Dent Wizard guy.

So we got the Dent fixed out and I was buffing the car

when he came to pick it up seven o'clock

the next morning in the shop by myself, buffing.

And that's how it all happened.

And then he says, well, while we're here,

let's take some pictures

and let's maybe make a story out of this.

So it was really nice of him to do that.

He and Jeff are just, they're salt of the earth guys.

They just, they love cars

and they have probably, it was funny,

my wife saw the magazine last night and she goes,

oh, what's this magazine?

I said, it's the best damn magazine in the world.

Yeah, Magneto is phenomenal.

I've got every issue, I'm looking at them here.

And now, you know, David started at Octane a long time ago

and Octane was a beautiful magazine.

It's a British magazine.

For some reason, the British really still love

their car magazines.

When you go to the UK and you go to a news stand,

there's a nice selection of Land Rover magazines

and Jag magazines and Porsche magazines.

And, you know, they just,

they really appreciate printed literature

whereas in the U.S. it's, you know,

it's faltered quite a bit.

And Octane was always one of the best.

That one car was a good magazine.

Evo, couple of those, so.

Right on.

Well, it's good, you know,

you could subscribe to magazines,

but I'm a bookstore junkie.

So when I want to get a new magazine,

I just go to Barnes and Noble local

and I spend a couple hours there sitting down.

The ones I don't necessarily want to buy

and take home, I thumb through them

to see if there's an interesting article.

And I will buy the magazine to read that article,

but yet it's an experience.

You know, you could subscribe to these magazines

and buy them for 125th of what you pay at the store.

But it's the cost of the experience, I think.

Yeah, that's cool.

Very cool.

And speaking of books, there are a lot of good books.

I did a book report last week.

I'll do one again in the future.

I've been picking up a series

about Italian car designers.

I'll talk about that next time.

But you know, right now I think the big news is

we're getting pretty close to Amelia Island.

And I'm looking at what Gooding's got offering

and what Broad Air has got offering

and you and I have a couple of things going on.

So let's wrap about that a little bit.

Yeah, so Amelia's right around the corner,

one of our favorite events of the year,

if not my favorite event.

This year I'm very fortunate

that my wife is traveling with me.

So she hasn't been in about 15, 16 years down there.

So we're gonna have a good time.

But Broad Arrow is just surprising me

with all the great, great cars they have.

Oh my gosh, their catalog is just beautiful.

They've got a lot of great automobiles.

Of course, Bonham's kicks it off on Thursday.

They've always got some interesting stuff

that most of the other auction houses don't have.

A lot of pre-war stuff, a lot of brass stuff normally.

And of course, the oldest auction house in the world.

So it's always interesting to go over to Bonham's.

I sometimes sell a car over there, but nothing this year.

And then you got Gooding's.

Our friend Ralph Morano's got a couple of cars in Gooding's.

So it's gonna be good to see.

He's got a Chrysler Airflow

and then a 16-cylinder Cadillac,

which are going off on Saturday.

So David always has a good catalog.

We've been preparing a few of the cars

that are gonna be over there.

So we'll go see what those cars,

we got a couple of Bugattis that are gonna be there

and a BMW 315.

So it's gonna be interesting.

And then of course, Broad Arrow are a new auction.

They have taken over the Ritz-Carlton ballroom

and they're gonna have their auction there

like a previous auction house had previously.

But their book is really solid.

I mean, I'm very impressed with the amount of cars

that they gathered together.

Yeah, they knew this was an important one for them,

so I'm glad they did.

It is, it is.

And then of course, unfortunately,

we have another event going on in Miami at the same time.

So it was a situation where we sort of had to change

or make sure that we went to the show

that we really liked the most, which was Amelia,

but it sort of messed up things

because a lot of people would like to go to both events.

Sure, sure, you don't wanna have to choose.

You don't wanna choose.

Maybe that'll get worked out in the future.

And then you and I are going to a new event together

that's going on on Friday.

Is that right?

Friday, yeah, yeah.

So Tim, it's a new event.

It's gonna sort of be the kickoff event.

It's gonna be sort of a cars and coffee event.

It's gonna be in Fernandina Beach

right in a parking lot right down on the ocean.

So Tim...

Suttered.

Suttered is going to be putting that on.

And so it's gonna be interesting.

Of course, Concordia of Lemons

is gonna be part of the event also.

Well, Alan Galbraith is gonna be there.

And I think that you and myself, Bill Warner,

who was the original founder of the Mealy Island Concord

and Alan Galbraith along with Tim

are gonna be on stage or somewhere in the parking lot,

maybe on a back of a flatbed truck.

Some luxurious location.

Yeah.

That's right.

And we're gonna have a little talk.

So it'll be a lot of fun.

Pass some trophies out, make some people happy.

I love it.

And just have a good time.

Tim usually puts on a really low-key relaxed event,

sort of like Lemons,

where we just have some fun,

where we enjoy each other's company.

We laugh and look at some cool cars.

So it's gonna be a lot of fun.

I can't wait.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you

at Mealy Island.

It should be good.

So what's new with the car?

So we're preparing the Griffith,

the 65 Griffith that was actually built in 64,

but the color is 65.

Griffiths were TBRs, of course, with 289 engines

that I'm putting in.

And Ford dealership along Island, Griffith Ford

and Jack Griffith did that project.

There was a little under 200 of these cars made.

I think 150 or 160 cars.

So very unusual cars.

So we're prepping that.

We're just actually,

just after this chat we're having here,

we're gonna put the nose on it

and sort of try to button it up

for the truck to come in.

Our city is gonna be here next Thursday for that.

And where's the Griffith getting sold again?

It's not getting sold.

So it's for a client of ours.

I bought it.

I was in the middle of the restoration

for myself to keep the car.

And I have a client that we restored,

his Edwards America,

which you never seen last year.

Yeah.

And this is his new project with us.

So we're gonna show it down there.

He doesn't know it yet,

but we're gonna surprise him.

Oh, that's great.

So he's gonna show up

and it's gonna be on the field.

Now, Wayne, I know we're almost out of time for today,

but if you remember,

I was vacillating about what to get next

for myself for cars.

And one of the cars I was talking about

was a 308 GT4,

the little wedge car,

the Baratoni wedge car.

The other one I like

is the Lamborghini Uraco,

the little baby Lamborghini called the Uraco.

They're around the same period.

They're around the same look.

I found a Uraco, a P250.

So that should be the 250 horsepower, right?

Cause they made a 200, a 250, and a 300 in the Uracos.

What do you think about the Uraco versus a 308 GT4?

Do you think it's as good of a car?

I like the Uraco because it's so unusual.

Now actually the one to really get is a silhouette.

That's a very rare course,

had a wing on the back and, you know,

sort of they were trying to make a mini Qantas shot.

But I restored two silhouettes actually.

I restored one and then somebody found out

I was the fool that restored the first one.

So I might as well do another one.

But the Uraco I think is a very, very cool car.

I seem to like it a little bit more

than a 308 GT4, although I think they're fantastic cars.

Yeah, there's a rarity like you said.

The one car that if you could move up the ladder

a little bit more would be a Bora.

I think the Bora is fabulous.

Now you talked about the Bora

and you think America is a six cylinder version,

but the Bora is a V8 car.

Yeah, so Bora's a V8, a Merak is the six cylinder.

So a little bit different look of the Merak.

It's sort of like a, you know,

the Dino competition that we're coming out with.

But a Bora is a fabulous, fabulous car.

What you got to get it dialed in.

If it's not dialed in, if the shocks are bad

or if the hydraulic system is bad or something else,

it's just a pain in the neck.

Believe it or not, the windows go up and down hydraulically.

Everything runs through hydraulics,

the seats move hydraulically.

That's how my 1949 Lincoln worked.

1949 Lincoln was doing that.

And you're saying they were doing that in the 70s.

A lot of Maserati, I love it.

Well, Citroën got involved with them.

I don't know if it was the financing or whatever.

But of course they were supplying a lot of products

for Maserati at that point in time.

Maserati did change hands quite a few times.

And I think Citroën really probably saved their bacon ones

as Chrysler did.

And I mean, Maserati has such a heritage

when you go back to the 3,500s

and even back to the racing days.

And then it just, in the 60s and 70s,

you know, after the Quattroporte,

it all just started getting torn up and moved around.

I love the Mexico from that time period

and the Sebring from that period.

Sebring is fabulous.

Sebring is a cool car.

There was a Series 1 Sebring,

which is an alloy body car on bring a trailer

that needed an engine rebuild.

And I thought, oh, it'd just be a money pit

to try to bring one of those back.

I mean, just from what you could see.

Matt had a conversation with me

about a Maserati yesterday.

He had a great opportunity to buy

a modern day Maserati and I cringed at it.

I said, you know, be careful.

Let me guess what it was.

Or it must have been the Chrysler TC look

and Maserati that has the Tridents on the quarter windows.

It's nothing more than a K car.

No?

Matt, you can buy a turbo.

What was it Matt?

It was a Quattroporte.

What I told Matt, Matt says it'd make a great coffee table.

I said, yes, except for the thing would blow up

in your living room and then oil would be all over

the floor, antifreeze.

It's not even good for a coffee table.

It's called a mercy killing.

Well, we're talking about here is a mercy killing.

Well, you know, it's not a thing,

they're Ferrari engines, I mean,

but yet they just couldn't get the transmissions were bad.

Everything was bad, the electronics.

The door panels on those things were known

to like droop and fall off.

I mean, they had so many problems.

They had so many problems

and the only way they could sell them

in the United States were leases.

And then of course, when the lease is over,

people beg to, they don't want to buy the car.

They're beg to get rid of it.

Please take it back.

They don't want to do a dealership

on the back of a flatbed and they drop it off,

you know.

Oh, it's sad.

Sorry, Maserati dealers, but it's true.

I know, it's a tough one.

You know, I think it's getting better now,

but it's so tough.

You know, I visited the Maserati factory in 2015.

Trish took, my wife took me on a tour of the motor valley.

So we visited Ferrari, right?

The 458 is kind of finishing up,

they're going into 488.

And the production line was so modern and so up to date.

I mean, hermetically lab where they made the engines

and you know, the bodies moved up and down

the assembly line and they had a robot

that put the windscreens in for Ferrari, right?

Then we go to Lamborghini and Sant'Agata.

Clean as a whistle.

This was right before they started making the Urus.

So it was still a Ventura or SV, the SV, yeah.

And one at a time they're making them.

You can tell Audi has put all the money into the,

keep it at hand built, but high quality, all right?

So we've done those two.

Now we're going to go visit Maserati.

So you go to the Maserati factory

and it was like taking a step back in time.

The assembly line was the old,

you know, chain hook bodies moving around.

The guys going out to a yard to go get their parts

and walk back, but I was like, oh my gosh.

They just, they hadn't updated at that point.

They hadn't quite moved up

and they were making the Alfa Romeo 4C,

the little alpha in a building next door.

So they were really at that last years

of kind of the holdover from the 70s and 80s.

Yeah, I visited all the factories too

on our honeymoon when we went over to Italy

and we went all over Europe.

We went to the Monaco Grand Prix on our honeymoon.

But it was very archaic back then of course.

Yeah.

Just actually when we went through Ferrari,

we went through a Pinoferrina's factory or Scallietti,

I would say.

Yeah.

I should say not Pinoferrino, but Scallietti.

They were just making the 288 GTOs.

Wow.

Did you take pictures on that trip?

That's something never to discuss.

Yes, we did, but we got robbed one night

and all the camera equipment

and all the stuff went away.

That is so sad.

They took my backpack with all the camera,

the film we took, all that stuff.

We got robbed in Nice in our hotel room.

We were sleeping and they broke in.

We were on the second floor.

They climbed up into the balcony and then it came in.

I woke up and I saw two guys in the room

and I thought I was dreaming,

but I slapped myself silly of,

okay, wake up pal.

And the last thing I could see was their fingers

letting go off the balcony and dropping down

to two tables that they propped up

to climb up into the room.

So yeah, I lost my wallet,

but my wife was very smart every night

and I traveled to Europe a lot

and always said, what are you so fearful of?

And she'd hide our passport

and our travel checks every night

and they grabbed my pants

and my wallet was in my pants

and that was it, bang.

Everything was gone.

My backpack with all my camera equipment in it

and my wallet were gone.

Imagine, okay,

we talked about the Paul McCartney base of the game.

I know we're almost out of time.

We talked about, imagine if all these years later

you get a knock on the door and this guy's like,

hey, I think this is your stuff

and you got the photos back and you're,

that would be, you could write,

you could make a book about all.

That blew my mind.

You know, I lost my class ring once.

I really don't like wearing rings.

So I lost my class ring

and I always wondered where it was.

Well, about 10 years ago,

I get an email from a guy and he says,

I have your class ring.

I want to come and see you.

I said, oh my God, where did you find email?

He found it at a bowling alley.

I had taken the ring off to go bowling

and it dropped down into the ball return machine

and he's revitalizing this bowling alley

and there's my ring.

And it was a Glastonbury high school

and he saw the initials in it.

My initials were in it.

And so, and so he shows up and I says,

oh, thanks so much.

He says, no, no, thanks so much.

He says, that'll be $500.

You can keep the ring.

I don't wear rings anyways for 500 bucks.

And finally I got him down to $25 on the 500 bucks.

I said, here's 25 bucks.

That's all you're gonna get out of me.

All right, it's better than nothing.

You imagine holding me hostage

for some class ring to probably cost $50

when I was a kid, you know?

I got it back and now I have no idea where it is.

It's lost again.

Well, I think we've covered everything today.

We've asked rings, glasses.

Glockos.

We've been all over the place.

This is what happens when Matt lets us off the leash.

We just kind of pontificate

but hopefully you guys had fun listening in.

It's always fun talking classic cars

and another great one.

Oh, really quick before we wrap up.

Wayne, what are you driving this week?

What do you got for a modern ride?

A new car!

So I've got a Subaru.

I just gave up a Mazda though, the new Q or CX-90.

Oh, yeah, the big SUV.

The new SUV? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Super nice. They're very nice.

Mazda's got some good stuff.

Good looking car and it's a little noisy the engine

but once you're going down the highway,

I drove it from Boston last week at the Press Association.

We had our winter driving experience

so we were up for that and I got that to drive home.

Great little car this week.

I've got a Crosstrak Subaru.

So it's a little strange with the cladding

on the side and stuff but still, no.

All cars are really great.

Just some are better than others.

That's right. I've got the new Mustang GT

and it's got now it has two digital dashes

so it has a digital binnacle

and then a digital infotainment screen

and I'm still getting used to it.

I really miss analog gauges.

There's something about looking at a flat screen

in a muscle car that takes a little bit of the flavor away.

I'll say that the motor is great.

It's 480 horsepower from the factory now for a GT.

They pushed it way back.

So I mean, the back two cylinders are underneath your dash

so the motor sits nice and back.

It doesn't feel front and heavy at all.

They did a good job of really belying

that big V8 in the front.

They're independent suspension in the rear now

so they behave well around corners

and it's the six speed manual

which is a great transmission.

Nothing to complain about.

It's a pretty great car.

It's got tons of bite, tons of bark.

I'm not sure about the looks.

I think they put a little too much Camaro going on

in the rear hips for my liking.

A little too much but otherwise

the front looks really mean and the back looks good

and yeah, I love the fact that we're still making V8

naturally aspirated muscle cars in the year 2024.

It's not gonna last forever.

According to Jim Farley, it's gonna continue.

Good.

Yeah, it's not going away this year

at least we'll see what happens.

I just bought my RS6 Avant station wagon

and it said this is the last one.

Well, of course the factory comes out.

It says, well, not quite yet.

They're gonna make 600 versions of the rally.

I saw that, that white one is cool looking.

The white one with all the graphics on it and stuff.

It's gonna be $250,000

and there's not gonna be any more improvements

on performance, on power, on anything.

You're basically gonna get a white one with graphics on it

and you're gonna have to pay a hundred grand more.

And it's raised up a little bit, right?

It's like rally height.

They did a lift kit for a hundred grand.

Come on, I don't know what you're complaining about.

Jay, we'll see you down in Florida.

We really look forward to seeing you and Matt

down in Florida and we're gonna have a great time at Amelia.

Absolutely, I'll see you guys down the road.

Cobra Experience Museum, Countdown to The Amelia and the missing ring

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