Driven Radio Show #349: Andy Reid and John Saccameno
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Term
headlights
They’re talking about the car’s headlights. If the headlights shut off completely when you use the switch, it usually means there’s an electrical problem somewhere in the switch or wiring.
Term
lights will go out just completely
“Lights go out completely” indicates a hard electrical interruption rather than dimming or flickering. That pattern often points to a failed switch, loose connector, blown fuse, or a relay issue in the headlight circuit.
Term
high beams
High beams are the really bright headlights you use on dark roads. If they don’t work, it’s often something like a switch or wiring problem, not just the headlight itself.
Term
wiper motor
The wiper motor is what powers the windshield wipers. If it’s vacuum-powered, switching to an electric motor can fix reliability issues, but it needs the right parts to fit and work.
Company
classiccars.com
ClassicCars.com is a website for collector cars. It’s where people shop for classic vehicles and where car news and listings are published.
Company
Hagerty online
Hagerty is a company that focuses on classic and collector cars. Their site covers news and information that helps owners and buyers understand what these cars are worth and how to care for them.
Concept
Amelia Island
Amelia Island is a famous car event in Florida. Lots of classic-car fans and sellers go there to see cars and often to buy or auction them.
Term
backfire
A “backfire” is when a car makes a loud popping sound, usually because fuel ignites in the wrong place (like the exhaust). It can sound similar to other bangs, so it can be easy to misidentify.
Concept
Villadeste, Concorso de Villadeste
This is a very prestigious classic-car event in Italy. It’s the kind of show where only certain people can get in, and it’s more “special event” than a typical public car show.
Brand
BMW
BMW is the automaker they’re crediting for helping them get to the event. Big brands like BMW often sponsor these high-end car shows and help certain guests attend.
Concept
Pebble
“Pebble” refers to Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, one of the most famous concours events in the world (held at Pebble Beach, California). The speaker compares it to Villa d’Este, highlighting how different concours experiences can feel.
Car
Chrysler Superdart 400
Chrysler built a very special, rare car called the Superdart 400. Andy is saying they brought a 1957 version of that car to Pebble Beach, which is a big, prestigious car show.
Car
Chrysler 300C
The Chrysler 300 is a large sedan made by Chrysler. The podcast compares how it drives to a 1957 Chrysler 300C, meaning they’re talking about the driving feel. It comes up because it’s a classic, recognizable model line.
Term
disc brakes
Disc brakes are the kind of brakes where pads squeeze a spinning metal disc to slow the car down. They usually work more consistently, especially when you brake more than once.
Term
power steering
Power steering makes the steering wheel easier to turn. Instead of you doing all the work with your arms, the car helps you, especially when you’re moving slowly.
Car
Studebaker Avanti
The Studebaker Avanti is a classic car made by Studebaker in the early 1960s. The podcast mentions it as part of a setting or lineup of cars. It’s notable because it’s a distinctive, older classic that many people don’t see every day.
Car
Porsche 9144
The Porsche 914 is a sports car made by Porsche. The podcast mentions one that’s very original and has very low mileage. That matters because collectors usually prefer cars that haven’t been changed much.
Concept
brake problems
“Brake problems” means the car didn’t stop as well as it should, or there was an issue with the braking system. With older cars, it’s often something that needs inspection and replacement before you drive hard.
Concept
100% original paint
That means the car still has its original factory paint. Collectors like it because it usually means the car hasn’t been repaired or repainted, which can affect value.
Term
6C1750, TT, Tepo 33, TZ2, SZ1, SC2
Those look like shorthand names for specific classic cars, but the way they were transcribed is unclear. With a cleaner list, you could identify exactly which models were in the collection.
Concept
leasing high-end cars
Leasing is like renting a car for a fixed time. You drive it for a while and then give it back and usually get a different one.
Car
Ford Thunderbird
The Ford Thunderbird is a classic Ford model. They bring it up because it has an older, simpler wiring setup for things like the headlights.
Concept
collector cars
Collector cars are cars people keep mainly because they love them, not because they need them every day. Even when you’re not driving them much, they still need care, insurance, and a place to store them.
Concept
upkeep on a big collection
Keeping lots of cars isn’t just about buying them. Each one needs regular care, and if something breaks, you have to fix it—plus you still pay for insurance and storage.
Term
DMV
DMV is where you do vehicle paperwork like registration. If you have many cars, you end up dealing with that process a lot.
Term
storage
Storage is where you keep the cars when you’re not driving them. Good storage helps protect them from damage, but it costs money and takes planning.
Concept
move towards younger buyers
They’re saying younger people are getting into expensive car ownership and auctions. That can change what cars sell and how people choose to pay for them.
Brand
Lamborghini
Lamborghini makes very expensive supercars. When they say younger people are showing up with new Lamborghinis, it means the expensive-car scene is getting younger.
Concept
depreciate
Depreciation means the car will be worth less later than it is today. People worry about this because they might have to sell it and not get back what they paid.
Concept
financed it
Financing means you didn’t pay cash—you took out a loan for the car. You make payments over time, and you can still owe money even if the car isn’t worth as much.
Concept
correct
In pricing discussions, “correct” means a market pullback—prices stop rising and may drop as buyers cool off. It’s a common way to describe a potential correction after speculative or overheated pricing.
Concept
speculation
They’re talking about people buying cars hoping to make money later. If too many people do that, prices can get weird and then slow down.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a famous long-distance race where cars run for about a full day. It’s known for endurance racing and big, high-profile teams.
LIVE
Quiet, mem skulls. I'm broadcasting. Hey, all you gearheads and car fiends, welcome
to Driven Radio Show, your weekly automotive happy hour. I am Brett Hatfield here with
my co-host and engineer extraordinaire, Mr. Mark Groves.
That's me.
We are coming to you from Driven Radio Studios. We're here in the lovely Midwest.
You know, whether here's just proof that Mother Nature's a schizoid.
Yep. She's lost her marbles, but gained my respect.
There you go. What is new in Thunderbird World?
Not really much. The Thunderbird, it is...
It runs.
It runs nice.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Nicely.
It starts right up. It runs smoothly.
Have you driven it around enough and are you confident about it?
Let me finish my question.
I already got an answer.
No.
Okay. Well, get your crap together, because in a month we're going to go to McPherson.
It would be kind of cool if you could throw your stuff in there and drive down.
Yeah. I haven't dug into the headlights yet.
I think it's the switch on the floor. I think I need to replace it.
Okay.
Because, you know, you click that and the lights will go out just completely.
It has no high beams.
And I don't know what the hell the guy that owned it before me put in there and the headlights,
they're LEDs and they're stupid.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So I'll get that sorted out. That shouldn't be too hard unless you screwed up what they
plug into.
And I don't know yet.
Well, it could be that there's got to be more to it than just plug in headlights into
it and hoping it works.
Yeah, the floor switch, I think that's one of the culprits.
And there are plenty of them around, so it's not hard to find.
Okay.
And then I also dug into a couple of videos and did some research.
And it looks like changing the, and I don't think, I don't know if I mentioned this in
the last show, the wiper motor.
Yeah.
No, it's because you and I talked about it and you were sending me examples of them.
I think I can get a put in an electric wiper motor to replace the vacuum driven one.
And it should work.
The place I even sent back some emails back and forth with this place that sells them and
was like, one, do you have instructions?
And two, this definitely fits in a, in a 58 thunder.
He's like, yeah, it's been pre-drilled and set to be able to just, you know, you take
out the old, you drill this one in, you attach your little things.
And that'll be a nice upgrade.
Yeah, it would.
And it even has what's kind of cool in my opinion.
It has this other little thing that you buy along with it because it comes with a little
knob that you can put in when you put it.
The, not re-estab the switch, it has a knob for it, but it's just a generic plastic knob.
And it has an attachment that you can buy and put onto that spindle and then put your
original knob on it so it doesn't change how your dash looks.
We'll do that.
Yeah.
That's the plan.
So I'll be buying that, getting that, and then still waiting.
It was so weird that I finally pulled the trigger on it on just a simple, easy replacement
throttle connector.
Linkage.
Yeah.
Throttle linkage.
And it, it's taken forever for Amazon to send it.
It's a week and a half late.
That means Amazon didn't have it on hand and they got it from China.
Yeah, probably.
Just like the road Clyde saddle bag liners that I ordered from a company whose name rhymes
with Ed Van Black and they took stinking forever.
They didn't even send me a return email on it.
Oh, wow, for a couple of weeks.
It's just like, yeah, it'll come to you when it's ready to come to you.
Yeah.
Well, give me my damn money back then.
I'll go find somebody who's got it in stock.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I, I, you know, it's moving along and that's the important thing.
So.
Okay.
Two, did you buy that super cheap chopper you sent me?
No.
That thing, that thing sold within hours.
No crap.
Yeah.
That was because it was under half price.
You should have snag that three.
I'm thrilled you're coming to McPherson for car show this year.
Yeah.
Finally got, I got my room and it lined up and way, way, way overdue.
Rhonda's probably thrilled to come down early on Friday.
You can help us do the ribs and pull the membranes off.
Awesome.
That's why we go early is because we always have to go do the rub on the ribs.
Yep.
Okay.
Number one, road king is home.
There wasn't anything wrong with it.
It's just been down at the warehouse.
So writing that around, remembering how much I like it.
Number two, road glide is home.
It had plenty wrong with it.
Thanks to guys out at Turkey Creek.
We really, Turkey Creek cycles really appreciate them going through.
Yeah.
Got a new set of bars on it that doesn't make me feel like I'm doing a pushup
when I'm riding it.
That one probably won't stay here very long.
Yeah.
As soon as I get the little odds and ends done on that and Rick gets the bags back to me.
Rick Hunter out of Hot Rod Express put that together and that thing will be going out
the door.
I may have the heritage sold already and I haven't even finished doing all the crap
to it.
That's fantastic.
I'm glad that that thing is going to be finding a new home and then I'll have to
wait until fall again to start buying needy Harleys up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Writing letters.
You're funny.
You know you're going to find one.
You know you're good, but I love that you said that.
I love that you're like, no, I'm just going to wait until fall.
After the absolute brutalizing I got from the IRS this year, it'll probably be fall.
You've been road hard and put up late.
Oh, God, I just, I have lots to say about it.
Nothing nice.
Nothing nice.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
We'll just quit there.
Hey, Andy Reed and John Sacramento are back with us.
Oh my God, that's trouble.
After an extraordinarily long absence, Andy Reed, editor of classiccars.com and John
Sacramento, a sport and specialty are returning to us.
And the reason I always like having these guys on together is cause they'll just punch
the crap out of one another.
And that's just my favorite thing.
Andy is written for grassroots motor sports, vintage motorsport magazine, Jaguar World,
Hagerty online and classic motorsports magazine.
He's currently the East Coast editor for classiccars.com, writes from Magneto and Tazio
magazines and is a licensed independent collector car insurance specialist.
Man, is that a mouthful.
Wow.
John is the owner of award winning full service restoration and maintenance shop sport and
specialty in Northern Illinois.
Sport and specialty characters to European sports car community with a focus on cars
from the 50s through the 70s.
Andy and John, great to have you back gentlemen.
Welcome back to Driven Radio.
Hey guys.
Thanks for having us.
I looked it up today.
I thought it had been like a year or two.
It's been three and a half years since we had you on together.
Wow.
We're the fun team too.
Yeah, I know.
So we have to vow not to make it so long next time.
That's ridiculous.
We've had a lot of adventures since then.
Wow.
You know, jetting around the way we do.
It's hard to find us.
Bill Estee, you know, Amelia Island.
It's hard to get us both pinned down in one spot.
Pebble Beach.
Yeah.
Caracas.
We've got a lot of mentoring.
Raytown.
Boca Raton.
Yeah, Raytona Beach.
That's right.
We put the con in concourse.
That's right.
Oh yeah.
See, Mark bought a new house or new to him that has this tremendous deck that overlooks
a beautiful little lake and he's just got the best view off the back of his house.
And then you get outside of his neighborhood and whole shit.
Bless their hearts.
It kind of goes to pot, but you did save a lot of money.
Yeah, we saved some money and occasionally it's kind of interesting to, you know, have
the windows open and go, okay, was that a nine millimeter or a 38 popping off?
Or was it just a backfire?
Yeah, I know.
No backfires that rhythmic and consistent, but I'm like, man, that's some good trigger
action there.
Whoever's doing that.
Well, didn't you say you pulled a nine mil slug out of one of your gutters or something?
Yeah.
And the funny end note to that story, yeah, I was cleaning the gutters when we first moved
in and it's like, oh, here's a nine millimeter bullet sweet and it's in really great condition.
And I happened to, the previous owner was visiting somebody else and happened to just
stop by.
I was in the driveway and met them for the first time and was chatting about it.
I'm like, and you know, there's a kind of funny story about what I found in the gutter.
And she's like, oh, I bet I know, but go on.
Oh, no.
I found one of four.
Oh my.
Yeah.
There were four others that had been out there and I'm like, wow, bring them over.
I'll put them in the collection.
So are the primers dimpled or are they good?
Would these clean up and go again?
Yeah.
Actually, the bullet is just, it just looks like it was pulled right out of the, it was,
obviously, well, I kind of obviously was shot in the air for some celebration or another.
Yeah, I don't think I'm starving for nine mil ammo that.
Because I wasn't finding it, you know, in the attic in the insulation.
It had some time to calm down before it came down.
I'm not kidding about it being a long time.
I looked it up today.
It was October of 22 when we had you both on together.
So how's life been treating you?
Where have you been?
What have you been doing?
It's a lot of ground to cover.
Can you condense it into a single serving package?
And you want to start with Andy?
Yes, absolutely.
Andy hit us.
So since 22, we showed, John and I both showed cars at Amelia in 23, 24, 25 and 26 of this year.
We also showed a car at Apple Beach this year for our first time.
Oh, really?
Which was extraordinary.
For me, I'm just doing the same thing.
Lots of events, lots of insurance.
I got to go to Villadeste, Concorso de Villadeste last year for the first time.
Thanks to BMW.
And again, thanks to BMW.
I'm going back to Concorso de Villadeste this year.
It probably will be my last year because the thing about that concourse,
you really can't buy tickets.
You get to go or you don't get to go and there's no public thing on the Saturday.
Cool.
Thanks, guys.
I look forward to this year, but that's it.
It's an extraordinary event.
I thought Pebble was great till I went to that.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
So now I have to try and bribe you to convince BMW to let another middle-aged semi-handicap
autojournalist go with you.
Yeah, I'll see what I can do.
I'll do my best on that one.
Also, our insurance brokerage, Haydenwood Insurance merged with Marsh McClellan
Agency this year.
So that's a lot of things going on in November.
So that's changed.
We've kind of grown, but kept our, we still do business the way they bought us
because they wanted us to do business the way we did.
We do it.
And so that's a big deal.
And we're still transitioning.
We're still figuring that out.
And my wife, who's famous in the car hobby for her baked goods, is opening a bakery.
No kidding.
Oh, that's cool.
Cool.
What does she bake?
What's she known for?
Cupcakes and cookies.
Hell yeah.
And she's opening the Frosted Sheet Bake Shop in Canton, Connecticut in the 28th.
That's fantastic.
Are you excited as this added to your workload?
Is she showing you cookies and saying, what do you think?
It's great.
All of the above.
All of the above.
And so, and my friends here and people in the car hobby have been eating her cookies forever.
John's eating thousands, probably.
And he probably has.
It's been years she's been making us cookies and we bring them to events.
Oh Lord, the dirty jokes are just writing themselves.
That's why Marcus pushed away from the mic.
Yeah.
He just, he just, he brings this entire suitcase full of cookies.
That's awesome.
It's a roller bag full of cookies and then redistributes all his crap at the end.
So he can, you know,
What's the name of the bakery is cupcakes and cookies?
Frosted Sheet Bake Shop.
Frosted Sheet Bake Shop.
Okay.
Well, that's better than eat my cookies.
Yes.
Like I said, the dirty jokes just write themselves.
So John, when, well, let's back up.
Which car did you take to Pebble Beach this year, Andy?
And were the, I assume the two of you were there together.
And how did it go?
We took the Chrysler Superdart 400, 1957 Chrysler Superdart 400 by Gia from the main classic car museum.
I love the Gia cars.
It's a preservation car, one preservation.
It's one preservation twice at Pebble in the 90s and in the, in 2000 and 22, I think,
or 21.
And then Ken Gross sent me an email and said, Hey, I don't know if you're interested,
but would you mind, would you like to show the Superdart 400 at Pebble Beach?
And I brought him back four words.
Is that a rhetorical question?
Bam.
And he called me up cracking up and goes, No, no, no, I thought that might be your answer.
And he goes, What if the owner doesn't want to do it?
I said, I'll do it myself.
I will send the thing out there myself and bring it out there myself if he doesn't want to do it.
And it committed immediately.
And it went really well.
We'd won preservation the year before at Greenwich.
It's, it's a hundred percent.
It's kind of the measuring stick for what a preservation car is in a lot of ways, I think.
It's a one of body.
It's crazy.
It's Jetsons nuts.
It was for the Exeter class, the Exeter Gia class they were doing out there.
And it just, we, it was extraordinary.
We went on the tour.
We had to get a battery the day before the tour because the battery was dead and we found out because the driver calls me on Wednesday
at 4 30 after my auction tour and said, Your battery is dead.
And I'm getting off an auction tour in downtown Monterey.
I'm like, Oh, OK, this is awesome.
So I go, so I'm getting a battery.
He's aware.
I go, I don't know.
So I call my buddy Joe Beale, who's got a sports car shop there.
And I said, Joe, what are the chances you've got a vintage, bad style battery for a Chrysler, for a Chrysler?
He goes, right poster, right side ground or left side ground.
You're kidding.
And I said, I told him I can't remember where it was now.
I think it was a right side ground.
He goes, and I was like two blocks.
It just happened to be two blocks from the shop.
And I said, I'll be over five minutes and pick it up, drag it up.
And the truck driver's like, Audrey, get that so fast.
I go, well, I know this guy and he had a battery.
And you could have told me two days ago.
And well, I forgot.
And so so we went on the tour.
Two was great.
Typical mayhem.
There's a sticker for the tour that you have to put in the car to go on the tour.
And I brought everything with me to the car on Thursday morning at four.
Yeah.
Except the sticker.
And I'm like, oh, crap.
And he left and no one was in our room.
Peter Singoff was rooming with us on the floor because we made him do that.
That's a whole other story.
And so I can't call Peter because he's there taking pictures of the tour.
And I finally ran into somebody at Pebble.
And I said, so here's the thing.
And they said, oh, you're not the first person that has done that.
Stressing up for two hours, by the way.
So trying to do we go back?
If we go back, we'll never get back in because traffic's crazy at that point.
Yeah.
And they said, we'll have a minute.
And we put the sticker on there and ran the tour with the owner in the car
and his son in the car to drove the tour with no problems whatsoever.
And it was awesome.
How does that drive?
Like a 1957 Chrysler 300C.
OK.
All right.
That's what's underneath of it.
Sure.
It's a 392 with 400 horsepower and dual quads and a 727 torque flight
and disc brakes in 57.
Not bad.
Not bad.
Yeah.
So it's power steering disc brakes.
And it was fine.
It was just it was faultless all weekend.
It's just that kind of a good car.
It's got 767,000 miles.
Original miles, I think.
And it's somewhere around there.
So if you're presenting the car and you got John with you,
what do you have in him do?
Help clean, help set it up, deal with whatever happens.
My basic job is to make sure we get onto the grass and off the grass.
Yeah.
All right.
And typically that's really easy.
A few times we've had an issue, but a little bit of moral support
and some mechanical know-how really.
And I've been very fortunate to join Andy on this.
His association with the main classic car museum
has really been a lot of fun.
It's very fruitful.
The owner is a tremendous guy, just a real nice gentleman.
And he treats us well and he has a lot of fun.
And I just really like hanging out.
It's between Amelia and then Pebble, which as Andy said,
I'd never been there before.
So to go there the first time, go on the tour,
go out on the grass on Sunday morning at ODARC 30.
It was pretty special.
No reason to ever go back now.
It will never be as good as that.
It was really terrific.
And that's a funny statement John says too.
I've been going to Pebble since 2001.
And this year I drove up and I pre-promoted that we were bringing
the car there, it was on Facebook.
And so we're driving on the field.
We get out there parking and we're in the pre-launch thing,
the pre-drive-in thing.
And I'm hanging out with McKeel and we're talking about stuff
and he's got a car out there and we're chatting in this.
He's got his Duesenberg there and I think it was the Duesenberg.
And we're chatting with a bunch of guys and I'm like,
wow, how the hell did this happen?
That I'm in this driveway to go do this.
And we pull on the grass.
We got Fugazi going on the Bluetooth stereo.
Sounder button gives me my stuff and gives me a funny look
about the music basically.
And said, so happy you got to do this.
And I'm like, it's been a long time.
I said, yes, it has.
And drove on there and all the people,
I know a lot of these people.
There's journalists and friends and stuff.
And they're all screaming our names as we drive up there.
Oh, that's cool.
They know who's in the car.
And I think that's unusual because I've been to Don Patrol 15 times.
I've never seen that before.
And I was talking to Alan Galbraith with this.
And he's like, dude, they know you're in the car.
I said, yeah, I guess people don't know the owner.
It's like, oh, I know.
And so we just rocked out to Fugazi and parked and showed the car.
Well, have an Alan.
We didn't win anything, but we got on the field at Pebble Beach.
So that is the win.
Yeah, having Alan with you doesn't hurt anything either.
Yeah, we made him clean a lot.
I made him clean the back window.
He knows how to swing it.
He knows how to swing a microfiber.
I got to tell you, you know, he can sport those things.
He's good at it.
Yeah, because that back window in that car is so raked.
And I wasn't going to do it.
I'm in a suit.
And so Alan did it.
Well, he's got long arms.
He's a tall guy.
Yeah, he is.
So that works out.
All righty.
So you just got back from Amelia Island Concours.
What were you showing?
Was this the same car you had at Pebble?
What's the easiest car to take to Amelia Island?
The one that's already there.
Pebble.
Right.
So Tim McNair hit it for a day.
And that's it.
And we were ready to go.
We pulled it off the trailer, put it in the garage Sunday morning,
started it up, started right up, drove it on the field,
and won preservation at Amelia Island.
Wow.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, it is.
That's really good.
You didn't even have to go buy a battery or nothing.
Nothing.
Yeah, I was.
The thing is, when that thing left, the battery was charged.
I think someone left a light on or a door open or something
because that's the only reason that thing would discharge
because there's, there's no draw check.
There's no draw.
So the driver or something left the door open overnight
or something because that's the only way that thing was dead.
Left the interior light on.
Yep.
And it shows well.
I mean, it's really attractive.
I don't know.
I want to use the term attractive.
It's a really dynamic looking car.
If you've seen any photos of it.
No, I'm looking at photos of it right now.
The thing looks sensational.
It's a mid-modern period piece.
It's totally a mid-modern period piece.
It belongs in front of a house in Palms, you know, a mid-modern ranch.
Oh, yeah.
Palm Springs.
Definitely would look fitting in front of the mid-century modern,
single level, kick ass.
Yeah, in Palm Springs.
With an Avanti next to it, right?
I mean, it's kind of perfect.
We know somebody who's got a really rare Avanti.
Not only that, it's headed for Pebble right now or will be.
Really?
Well, Dave Kenny.
He's bringing his Avanti to Pebble.
Yeah, his R3.
Oh, R3.
That's why.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One of nine and apparently his is pretty damn good.
His is one all over the place.
Doesn't he have like five or six of them or something?
More than that.
Boy, he's been through a bunch of them.
He's had a mess of those Avantis.
He's had as many as like 28 at one time.
You're kidding me.
I didn't know that.
He's at the ASA thing in Long Beach this week.
I couldn't get a break free to go.
So you said you won preservation class at Amelia.
Yeah.
Dude, that's got to be cool.
Did you get to go up and accept the trophy and everything?
We drove up, got the trophy, gave us the trophy.
Owner was in the passenger seat.
John was in the back seat.
People were thrilled.
That's fantastic.
Very, very cool.
Simione preservation.
Yep.
So, John, other than making sure the car runs and getting it
on and off the grass, do you have any other responsibilities
except have a good time?
Well, since he doesn't drink, I don't have to keep him sober
and he just keeps an eye on me half the time.
And, you know, I mean, generally speaking, you know, we just,
it's easy to do it, but it's a lot of fun.
Plus, the two of us are kind of knuckleheads.
We have a pretty good time.
We have a great time.
And we pull other people into our orbit and we make them
the greatest stuff too.
Yeah.
And as I said, you know, this Miles Prentice is the owner.
He's just a terrific guy.
It's really, it's kind of, it's fun to watch him enjoy it.
I mean, he's not really even a car guy.
He's like, he's got a thing for Woody's, okay?
He's, you know, how many Woody's does he have?
Did he have it at the museum when you just before?
He served on like 13.
I mean, yeah.
That's, that's, that's, that's, you know, it's like, hey,
there you go. Got any more Woody's?
How does he make the move from Woody's to this?
Thank you.
Well, you're welcome.
Yeah.
I told them he needed the diverse.
I got made collection manager in 2020.
And I had already, I already insured the place.
I already insured the collection.
So they made me do that.
They had me ask me to do that.
And I said, sure.
And they insured the museum and the cars museum and the
dealership around it and everything else because there's a
dealership associated with it as well called motor land.
So they sell classic cars, service, classic cars and have a
museum of classic cars.
It's an interesting one stop shop for lots of stuff.
Some really skilled mechanics are there too.
So he said, I kind of want to do, you make my collection,
you make it nicer.
And he had a couple of nice cars.
And I said, well, what do you want to do?
He's like, well, I want what I would do is what sell a lot of
this stuff and make improve it, sell 10 cars and buy one and do
sell 30 cars and buy four.
And so what we literally did is what four years ago,
John, we brought all those cars to Bonham's.
Yeah.
It was like four years ago now, 28 cars we brought to
Bonham's and museum cars, museum cars always have issues.
And so we ran around with our friend, Mark, when John's and my
friend, Mark and the great staff at Bonham's and the
mechanics department, they're two really great Ian and the
woman there are terrific.
And made these cars go and we sold them all.
And then we went back to Bonham's.
I bought a couple of things here and there.
And then the next year at Bonham's, I bought the Chrysler
GS1, 54 GS1 and the 57 Superdark.
And then we bought the Ferrari show car then at that point.
And then we bought an ESO Grifo.
And then we bought the world sounds crazy.
The world's nicest Porsche 9144.
That's 100% original with 14,000 original miles.
That was last, what?
Last August.
Last year that's bought Arrow had it.
And we bought a BMW 327 and we bought a BMW 503.
We bought a 1949 Ferrari 166.
We bought a lot of stuff.
And so I bought cars that were much more special than what
we had.
We bought Wayne Carini's Hudson Italia.
That's 100% original.
Oh, cool.
And it's, we're showing that at Greenwich in, in the May.
Just entered it a couple of days ago.
And we showed that at Emilia last year.
And that's, we had brake problems there where the brakes
were locked up.
We had, that's where we had to do some dealing with some
stuff with that one.
And we won, we won Chairman's award with it there.
So we've had really good luck.
We've showed at Emilia with the collection in 2020, 2021,
2022, 23, 24, 25, 26.
So seven years.
And we've only not won something once.
Wow.
That's impressive.
Which is pretty amazing.
And it's interesting.
Miles doesn't get that.
And the owner doesn't.
He thinks that everybody just wins.
And it's like, oh, no, no, no.
No, that's not how this works.
So this year I had him walk around and look at the cars
because he usually sits by his car the whole time.
And he actually did it.
Pat, we got a golf cart and he got to go through the
concourse.
And I say, look at the cars without ribbons.
And he came back and went, wow.
And I went, yeah.
Now you get it.
So he kind of ingrained it.
And it's in the way they're prepped.
It's the kind of cars we bring.
You bring the right car to the right show.
And it's also the way you present them as well.
Sure.
I think I'm pretty good at that.
The judging thing of judging everywhere teaches you how
to present if you do it right.
Well, they're very, they're very different activities.
So aside from the concourse, how was the rest of your
Amelia Island car week?
Did you get to hit some other events?
We kind of went to almost everything.
Yeah.
I didn't, we didn't, we didn't get to park.
I don't think in any, I didn't park, at least I didn't
park in any auctions.
Usually try to spend some time, but we were, we were
kind of hustling around doing other stuff.
We had a birthday party.
We had dinners.
We had a lot of stuff going on.
And then the usual hanging out around the fire pit
at Amelia.
And so it's interesting.
I was talking about this.
There was a different feel this year in a really good way.
My favorite all time year at Amelia Island was 2016 for
just a number of a myriad of reasons.
It was a hundred years of BMW.
It was my Z three was down there on a display stand.
I got to drive the bond Z three.
It was just a really kind of an extraordinary year of a
bunch of different things all coming together.
And as a spectator and a journalist, it was really neat.
And that was like, I think that was the, and all
Amelia's I've gone through, that was the high point
of Amelia.
And it all was a little less from then in different
ways, just not as, not as cool and got dumbed down.
And in the last couple of years at bills, it was okay,
but it wasn't still, it still wasn't what I felt like
it was that year.
And this year.
And Haggerty has struggled with the cut with the event
and tried to really keep up what it was, but elevated
a little bit as well.
And if they've had, they've tried things and they've
worked and some haven't, they nailed it this year.
The energy back, the feeling was back, the fun was back.
We had so much fun this year, dude.
A lot of people.
Yeah, it was, you know, and, you know, I think they,
they thinned out some of the, some of the excess, but what
was, you know, what was there, you know, was really,
really high quality cars.
A lot of cars, the people were there, you know, people
are, people are coming back out.
Yeah, it was, it was pretty exciting.
It was pretty exciting.
Does it feel like it's been a multi-year return to form?
You know, I'm, I'm sure that immediately following
COVID, everything had to be built back up.
Does it feel like it's taken years to get there?
Yeah, they've also tried things.
They've, they've, they've tried this and tried that and
tried this and tried that.
And some of the things they tried were, were not as
successful as others.
Um, you know, it's funny.
They had this reverie party that they started last year and
it's kind of an expensive party.
It's like 395 corner bucks.
So it's the same price as the jet party at the, the, the
motorlux party at, at Monterey.
But at this party this year, they, you could, you could
have your own driving gloves handmade to you by the person
making driving.
Oh, curious.
You could own Sunday straw hats done for you while you waited
and a couple other things like this was inclusive in the,
all you could eat and drink food that was spectacular food.
And they really may, I peaked in there for just a second and
was blown away.
And, and the first year I was like, Oh, you don't need to go.
And the second year it was like people were coming out of
there going, I'm so happy.
I went to that.
So they've really improved things a lot.
I think the Saturday concourse format, people said that
wasn't going to work and no one would come on Sunday to
cars and coffee.
Well, there had to be close to 20,000 people on Saturday
and there were, I know that the tickets on the gate on Sunday
was somewhere north of 5,500 people for cars and coffee
spectators, not participants.
That's, that's the biggest cars and coffee anybody's ever seen.
Yeah.
And they have room to grow that.
And there were two sides of it.
I didn't even get to, did you ever get to the Radwood side?
I didn't even get there.
Snow.
Yeah.
I never got there.
We were, you know, I was on the lawn.
I actually got to see some car when you biggest downside to
showing a car at a concourse, you don't get to see stuff usually.
Yeah.
We got our board early enough that I got to leave and go
actually walk and see some cars.
Did you get to see any of the auctions?
Now, how many auctions are running down there now?
It's Gooding and.
Brought era.
Just two.
Just the two.
Yeah.
We went extensively, we both did to both.
We've spent lots of time at the previews of both.
Do they seem to be thriving?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
There were some, there were some stupid, crazy prices.
And like, like, but again, following the trend of the modern
cars that John and I have been watching since January at Mika
and which started it all off with 360 Scuderia is over
$700,000.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I did that.
The whole second Saturday at Cosimi was just out of control.
Yep.
And second of all, Carrera GTs at six million bucks.
But it's a one of color.
Lamborghini Mira at almost $6 million.
But then there were some really good bargains.
1974 Alfa Romeo, Spider Veloce Silver with black vinyl,
11,000 original miles completely mechanically gone through
new brakes, new master, new, new brake, new caliper seals,
new head gasket, carbs done, everything done, brake lines,
all of it, 13,000 bucks.
Wow.
And that car will probably run just beautifully for at least
a month.
And it's 100% original paint and like in a really good way.
It was a 100% Cosmetically original car.
Never mucked with.
Wow.
And then there was a GT, there was a Julia GT 65.
Yeah.
That was 30.
Yeah.
That was you could drive home running on GTA style wheels,
weathers, all of it.
Again, totally done.
Not as Cosmetically beautiful as the other one, but just a good
driver that I think should have a couple of years ago would have
been an easy 50.
So people asleep in the room or was it early in the day?
Early lots.
I think a lot of arrows, early lots, there were some bargains.
Wow.
Yeah.
I think good thing, you know, we saw, I went through most of the
cars at Gooding, which, you know, they had a lot of, they had a
fair amount of, you know, let's let's say, you know, my style,
50, 60, 70 sports cars, high end, low end, but they, they were
moving the cars.
People were shopping, people were buying.
I was very, I was very surprised at how much activity was going
on.
I did see, there was a, there was a few collections.
And I think that's one of the things we're starting to see a
lot of now.
And as, and we saw a lot of that at broad air also, you know, as
people are, you know, kind of aging out and aging in, there's a
lot of collections going up.
There was a fair, there was a lot of American muscle cars at
broad air, which you wouldn't normally see.
Nice ones, the GTO.
Those two GTOs, yeah.
I mean, some really nice stuff that I was surprised to see, but
they had the back lawn at the Ritz full of cars, full of cars.
And they had, you know, I was like a Ben's, it was like a
Ben's reunion back there.
I think a lot of those came out of a collection too, if I'm not
mistaken.
Yes, it is.
So that's, that's kind of a new dynamic.
It used to be, you see, once in a while, somebody would have a
collection of 30 cars, there would be one of them.
I would say there was four or five different collections that
were being represented, you know, by the auction companies out
there.
Well, that Porsche collection and gooding, there had to be 60
cars.
Yeah.
Porsche dealership.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there was a guy, I guess it was, you know, he was a racer.
I looked at every car, every car he had, I would, I fell in love
with and come to find out, he, you know, he had some accident.
I don't, I don't think it was racing, but I think he had some
accident and it passed away.
And they were, you know, his family was selling his collection
and it was, it was spectacular.
Was it the alpha stuff?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, in the second room, he had two race cars in
there and I just kept seeing the name and I went, wow, this guy
had, this guy had great taste, you know, it, it was, it was, it
was, it added a lot to see those cars come out.
6C1750, TT, Tepo 33, TZ2, SZ1, SC2.
I mean, Julie had a lightweight coupe.
I mean, it was like 100, yeah, 100 s, 100 s-healy, 100 m-healy,
you know, original cars, you know, really, really, really, really
good collector, collector style.
Lots of cool stuff.
Yeah.
They didn't go, they didn't go, they didn't bring a lot of dough.
I think that was, you know, I think that was one of those things.
I think there's a kind of a lull in the middle of the value chain
right now in some of those cars, like it or not.
My, my own, my own opinion is, I think a lot of people after
COVID went out and bought the cars of their dreams.
And, you know, Rising Tide raises all, all raises all boats.
And I think a lot of the cars out there that were probably,
let's, let's call it like marginal cars became middle, middle, middle weight,
you know, little, little higher weight cars, and they sold for some good money.
And now those cars are back out on the market and people are very disappointed
at the values they're bringing.
Well, they weren't good cars to begin with.
And or, you know, a lot of people had cars restored that, you know,
probably shouldn't have been restored, but they, you know,
I could get COVID and died tomorrow.
And I think there was a real fatalistic mentality out there, you know,
in the marketplace for buying these cars and it's rolling values.
And I think it's, it's a little tough because I believe,
I believe a lot of people got home after owning those cars for,
you know, 12 to 18 months and they said, I don't drive this car.
I don't drive this car.
Andy and I sat there with a gentleman.
He said, you know, all these old cars, he goes,
I'm getting tired of going out there, you know,
I got with this cigar.
I think you knew him.
And he said, you know, he goes, I don't, I'm not buying these old ones anymore.
I'm buying new stuff.
You get in them, you turn the key, it starts,
should you go for a drive?
That's that Thursday guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're not stuck with, you're not stuck on the side of the road
with your wife getting pissed off at you.
You go, oh, there you go.
And this is the guy who had like Lusso's and two fifties.
This is a guy with heavy duty stuff who's moved,
who is probably 68 years old,
who's moved out of heavy duty stuff into modern stuff.
So what's he collecting now?
What's he looking at?
He's got a Carrera GT.
He's got, he's got, he's got, he's got rare Ferraris.
He's got a GT3 RS Touring.
He's got a GT2.
He's got a 996 GT3.
He was, he was, and he was shopping.
He was shopping.
That was his deal.
He goes, I'm just, I'm shopping.
I'm trying to get out of some of these cars that just require all this.
I don't think it was the cost of maintenance or anything.
He just, it's just thinking, you know, I'm tired of messing with it.
There's always something wrong.
And I said, you know, I'm not saying anything, but indeed,
I think that's, there's a lot to that, you know, there's a lot to that.
I think there's a certain amount of charm that's going out of the,
you know, some of the 50, 60, 70 stuff for four people that probably
shouldn't have been in them in the first place.
That's very true.
Right.
Yeah.
There's a real distinct difference between that mid 60s Corvette and owning
an older Mercedes with air that works and power steering and power brakes
on his comforter drive.
Well, hell, you know, getting into a 65, 65 C2 Roadster and getting into a
71, 72 C3 Coupe, it's like you went 20,000 years into the future the way
they damn drive.
I'm sorry.
And I know, and people tell me it's the same chassis and I can't believe
it because it is, but it just feels like a much better bolted together car.
And these are, I drove, they did this last year, just kind of on a friend
who goes, you want to drive these?
I said, sure, I drove these two nice cars back to back, nicely done cars
and was stunned at how much more modern six years was.
Well, yeah, yeah, but I got a 60 and a 65 in my garage, drive the 60,
then drive the 65 and it feels like a light years difference.
Same thing, right?
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
And the 60 is stunning.
It's fantastic looking, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it
rides like a lumber wagon.
And if you drive it more than 100 miles, you can put a chiropractors
kid through an Ivy League school.
And that is the Porsche.
That is the secret sauce of what's going on.
And that's the explanation of why Porsche 911s from all years are as hot
as they are, because from 1963, from the universal joint cars to the
final air-cooled 911s, the dirty little secret that people hate to say,
and sorry, Porsche guys, but I've owned them all.
So I can say this, they all drive the same.
Yeah.
They were liable.
They're practical.
Everything's in the same place.
Everything's where it should be.
Everything works the way you want it to.
There are all the improvements or incremental improvements on a design
that was already pretty spectacular out of the box.
It is a testament to how good they were from the jump.
And that's why they're hot, because you can get into a 1973 911
and start it up and leave.
You can get into a 1967 911, start it up and get there and you'll get home.
I will disagree with you on the Corvette thing in one regard.
Having owned a bunch of the third gen Corvettes and then also having
owned the 65, the 65's got better room.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's much roomier cockpit.
Yeah.
Much more definitely.
But the steering feel and the way the doors shut and there's just
something about them that I just think is also, if you're tall in the middle,
a C2 Corvette is not your friend and a C3 Corvette is your friend,
because there's more headroom.
Yeah.
Inches more headroom.
And so that's my take on it.
But again, there's a reason I'm starting to see an uptake in C3's.
Well, you can put the key into God dang thing and start it up.
It's going to start.
It's going to start.
True.
If the battery's not dead, it's going to start.
Yeah, that's the F.
Yeah.
Battery tenders are your friend.
They absolutely are.
But I mean, again, I think that, you know, I think that guy that we met
is not an anomaly.
I have a lot of friends, a friend of mine in San Diego,
who's got a staggering collection and starting to get into more modern
things because he wants to drive his cars without having to worry about
is it going to start?
If you're seeing a shift in cars to more modern stuff that's probably
easier to live with, how about the shift in the attendees or the bidders
at auctions and concours?
They're younging up.
There's a lot of younger people there.
Yeah, the big, you know, the floor at Broad Arrow was all modern cars.
I mean, inside it was, you didn't, you know, it was not, there was very
little classic cars under under the roof or under the ceiling inside
the Ritz when what Broad Arrow was.
And I would tell you, you know, something Andy and I, we've discussed
on a couple of different cadence.
I've talked to some other people, you know, speaking of Florida, you
know, the modern, let's call it the modern collector, if you will,
doesn't own 18 of these things.
It's a kid who owns one or two or maybe even one and maybe they lease them.
You know, he's got some car that he bought from, you know, a Lamborghini
or he bought a Ferrari and he has that car and they keep them for a year,
18 months, they turn them in and they get another car.
They don't, they don't have 18 of them.
They don't do it.
What we do is we hoard them out and wait till they start deteriorating
and, you know, we can't keep up with the maintenance and, you know,
a lot of these kids are urban dwellers.
So they keep one car, they have a garage nearby, you know,
and they're making some dough and that's, you know, that's how they're,
that's their idea of collection.
And they belong to some of these high-end clubs.
They go on tours and they drive around and they come back.
They're not doing what we did, you know, where we bought it.
We buy something where, you know, you, you know, Mark,
Mark's talking about, you know, his Thunderbird and, you know,
I think if I just hit the light switch on the floor first, you know,
maybe the lights, you know, we grew up, you know,
and I would tell you, you know, as far as the bird goes,
that's where all the, that's where the headlights start.
You know, it's wired to this foot switch first and then from there,
it goes up to the switch on the, on the dash.
So I've got a client in California who's got three classic cars.
Money's not the object, right?
He can buy anything he wants.
I mean, probably even like a McLaren F1 level kind of buy anything he wants,
but he's got a 440 CUDA.
He's got a 79, 930 and he's got a 60s Cadillac.
Because they all do different things.
All right.
And he doesn't need to go and someone's like,
another Porsche, he's like, I've got a 89, 30 in a paint to sample color.
No, I'm good.
I don't need another Porsche.
I've got a Porsche and people are, you know, we're like,
then you have other collectors who are Porsche mad like Steven Harris,
who's got like 37 or 57.
Because he can because he loves that.
But, but he's, he's a few years older than me.
Probably have quite it.
I think he's about 10 years older than me.
But younger collectors are not collecting and there are some,
but for the most part, John's not wrong.
They're trying a car out, experiencing it, using it and moving it on to the next thing.
You know, that may not be a bad idea because you've got your car bucket list.
How many things do you want to drive but you don't want to be married to?
I've never had more than like five or six cars.
I mean, I mean myself and at the, you know, collector cars at once ever.
And because it's manageable.
I've had a lot of cars though.
So I'm going to burn through seven, eight cars in a year, nine cars in a year.
But I got to try them out.
And I kind of always operated that way because I know what the upkeep on a big
collection is.
It's staggering.
Nine cars in a year.
I don't like spending that much time at the DMV.
And it's not even that.
It's, it's maintenance and servicing and it's insurance and it's storage.
And it's going to be a place to store this stuff.
And something's always wrong with something.
I mean, again, I manage this big collection of 100 some odd cars.
Now there's always something wrong with one of them.
It's impossible.
Cause you, there's not enough man hours and staff to get to them all.
And, and people with these big collect, I think this is a thing of that.
This is a, not to be mean to be a baby boomers.
John, you're not a boomer.
You're really a Gen X guy.
You just don't know it.
But the boomer generation that bought like 80, 90 cars, the billese of the world
and such, that's, that's not even people.
The guy with the biggest collection I know of my age is Trent, right?
John Abbott and he's got like crap, 12, 13, 14 cars.
And he's got a storage place to put it.
And, but I mean, he's an, and he's an anomaly these days.
I think it is, it is different.
I mean, it's just changing.
And I, I, you know, I don't, I don't know what it's going to look like, but I,
you know, you can, you can tell that there is a change in the, in the marketplace.
You know, and as I said, you know, I think the cars that they were showing and selling
at broad arrow are kind of indicative of a move towards younger.
Quite frankly, you know, Pebble Beach was, was kind of amazing too.
Insofar as they're having problems, believe it or not from, and I call them kids because
they're probably under the age of 30 down coming up from Orange County.
Okay.
And new Lamborghinis and, and the clearance and all sorts of crazy shit.
And, and they're, you know, these, these are people, these are kids that are probably
making a decent living.
Let's call it, you know, six figures plus and they're living a lot of them are living
at home.
And all they have their expenses are leasing these cars.
Yeah.
They're hauling us up to Monterey and they're all hanging out and we, and we saw a bunch
of them.
They were, you know, hanging out together and, and they're terrorizing the roads.
No, I, I, I kid you not.
And it was, it was, you know, broadcast on the, on the news the next day.
And in the newspapers, it was, Alan Gelbreth was telling us about it.
Yeah.
And they leased their cars and they leased their Rolexes.
It's bizarre.
They financed their stuff.
You can lease a Rolex.
Oh yeah.
Of course you can.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
And that's, and so it's like, it's, it's like make believe land.
It's like, you know, we talked to one of them, John, like, do you, you know, what's
in your savings?
You know, well, I don't save anything.
I'm like, huh, are you married?
Yeah.
It's just, it's just, you know, there's just changes, changes occurring.
I guess we're all kind of old fashioned in terms of, you know, you buy a drive it,
you know, sell it.
They don't do that.
It's just a different, it's just a different environment now.
That is, that is odd.
You can lease a watch.
Who the hell leases a watch?
Someone who doesn't do the math.
Just buy the thing you stupid.
Okay, never mind.
Well, if your income is X and your watch is 18 grand and your income is X, you don't have
18 grand spare cash.
And so you buy a time.
It's all about, it's all about, it's all about looking cool.
Whatever.
It's YouTube.
It's kind of the YouTube and the Instagram effect to a certain degree because that's what
they see other people doing.
You know, it's interesting.
Some of the YouTubers like, well, he's a YouTuber.
He made all his money on YouTube.
No, he's his fam, his dad was a multimillionaire and he's funding him.
I mean, people don't realize a lot of those guys like the, you know, our, that are Instagrammers.
It's because they grew up, they can afford to be because they, they have tons of family
money behind them.
And we know a few of those folks.
Yeah.
And we don't need to name names at all.
No.
Because we all know who they are.
And if you dig, if anybody wants to dig deep, they can figure it out too.
But what's interesting is that people, the kids see this, right?
And they want that.
They don't realize the backstory because they don't do a deep dive.
And oh, I want to do that too.
And so they leverage themselves against the wall with this stuff and either live in an
apartment with no furniture or live in their parents' basement.
Well, you can just walk away from it.
You just walk away from it.
You don't have to worry about, man, I don't want to have this.
It's going to depreciate.
I got to sell it.
I got to do this.
Andy and I were just talking about a friend of his.
He bought a used Mustang, right?
We were talking about the guy with the used Mustang the other day.
In 2020.
Yeah.
In 2020, he bought a used Mustang, paid 12,000 bucks, financed it.
Okay.
Still owes.
Like, I don't know.
What did you say?
Four grand on it and the cars were two Gs or something.
It's like, but I'm like, oh, that's right.
I, you know, I remember those days, you know, but these are like adults.
These are normal.
I'm like, holy cow, you know, they don't worry.
If you lease, you don't worry about that.
You just turn it back in.
I don't want it anymore.
See you later.
That's all.
It's kind of an easy way to do it.
When you can do that with wives, though, now that'll be the key.
You know, just lease the wife for the year and, you know, turn her in on a new
body.
When you lease, when you lease a wife, it's got a different word associated
with it.
Mine's got it.
Mine's got it.
My wife's a permanent collection.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Okay.
He's awesome.
But, um, yeah.
No, it's interesting.
There is a change of foot in the hobby to a certain degree, but you know, people
are like, well, all these value initially when these values started spiking.
I mean, the funniest thing this year was I was at Arizona preparing to do a thing
on the auction market at the Arizona concor on Saturday with a bunch of experts.
And we're sitting around watching me come as we're preparing and talking about
what we're going to do.
And I'm watching these numbers hit from the Bachman collection.
Yes.
Uh, I had a prescript that didn't, you know, questions already like you guys did
for us.
And I looked at my four panelists and said, well, I guess we're throwing all that
away.
We're talking about a weak market.
At that point, the market was a little soft and everything else.
I'm like, well, we're just going to throw that out and made it up and didn't, you know,
created some new questions and talked about what's happening.
And initially I thought it was a big asset transfer event going on with big assets, just
moving, you know, people moving money from one thing into another.
But then we saw in Arizona, John and I were there.
We saw those same cars selling for that same money.
We saw a loft Enzo is selling for 10 million bucks.
And we saw over and over again.
We saw Carrera GT is selling for 3.2 million bucks.
When it six months before they were 1.5 million bucks.
And we saw the trend continued.
And then we saw it in Paris, the trend continued.
And we saw it in Amelia and the trend continues.
It's not an asset transfer event.
The market for modern stuff is hot right now.
Do I think it's going to correct?
Oh, heck yeah.
It might be not.
Enzo's maybe not.
But 360 scuds at $765,000.
That's ridiculous.
It's a car.
Yeah.
380, 74 or something, 348 of them.
Great.
Still a 360.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know what they're going to be.
Yeah.
They're not, they're not particularly collectible.
Does anybody think they're going to be worth a lot more money
in five years?
You know, the speculation.
Well, there's a real little speculation.
Yeah, but consider 348's languished forever and ever
and didn't do anything.
And they seem to be on the rise now too.
Well, they should be.
That's the last Enzo V8 car.
They should be.
I've driven enough of those.
I had one.
It's not a bad car.
But it lived in the 355 shadow for a long time.
And see, and I didn't get that because I'm the guy.
I'm that one guy out there that thought that the 308,
the 328, the 348 and the 360 were all better looking cars
in the 355.
I thought the 355 was a boring looking Ferrari.
Yeah.
I thought that there was no drama about the three about
that it would look like a lot of other mid-engine stuff.
And we get squint hard.
It looks like a Lotus Esprit V8.
And I just never thought that the 355 was the deal.
And having driven the whole run, you drive a 355
and you drive a 360 and you're like, this is just junk.
And because it's a better car.
And I thought the 348, it feels like a go car.
They feel so much lighter than the 355.
They're just something different about it.
See, and I'm kind of a 308, 328 guy.
I really like those.
They're great cars.
It doesn't have shit to do with Magnum PI
or any of that other garbage.
I just think they're cool.
Look at the profile of the GTB.
It's gorgeous.
But part of that has to do with a girl I was dating
when I was 19 or dad was a dentist and he daily to 308.
And I just thought that was the coolest thing ever.
And I understand better now what goes into it,
but I still think it was cool.
The guy, he didn't have to drive anything except what he wanted to
and that's what he wanted to drive.
See, and that's a cool thing.
And that's why we all end up like in cars,
certain cars we like for similar stories like that.
Yeah.
So if I can ever get my head out of my Corvette,
maybe I'll go find a 308.
And they're pretty stable right now, I'd have to say.
You can still get one in the 70s.
And that's not a lot.
It might seem like a lot of money, but it's not.
But you can still find a good driver in the 70s, 75 range.
Yeah.
They were peaking six figures for a bit there.
And the fiberglass ones still are, but not the most of them are kind
of languishing a little bit.
Well, if you find them with super low miles,
they can cross the six figure mark.
But I'd rather have one that had been driven and had a little
road pepper on the nose and then you don't better believe it.
Yeah.
No guilt driving it.
Also, no redoing the entire hydraulic system of all the different
hydraulic systems on the car.
Yeah.
You know, cooling system, brake system, clutch system.
If it's been driven, all that crap's already been addressed.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And the rubber isn't all, you know, petrified, blotted out of it.
All right, guys.
John, we've had you on a little bit in the last six months,
but Andy, it's been a really long time for you.
So what's the dumbest thing you've seen happen or dumbest thing
you've personally done in a car in the last few years?
Oh, and motorcycles count too.
Oh, okay.
So good story.
Well, you and I, you and I are both bike guys.
So I had to throw that in.
John was there.
So I do, I've got a nice association with BMW.
I do help them out and do some stuff with them.
I'm a foundation ambassador and a bunch of things.
And so I was down, John and I were down at Hilton head this year.
And I was directing the, one of the Le Mans competition,
McLaren F1s onto the pop transporter leaving the Concorde.
Remember this?
And so we're pulling out, you know, it turns like a truck,
like a big giant truck, because they don't turn.
It's a race car.
It's a Lamar race car.
It's a 250 mile an hour thing.
So we're moving the thing around jacking it around,
trying to get it on the truck.
We pull around and this lady who's stuck in traffic on a road
she's not even supposed to be on starts leaning on her horn.
Just not beep, beep, beep, just meh.
And so we look at each other and we're like, whatever,
we pull the car out there.
She leans on the horn and she cuts around the person.
You know, this is a $30 million or easy $30 million thing.
Right.
You can't see crap out of it, out of it either.
Right.
That's like, except for the front.
So she comes whipping around and Greg,
who works with BMW group classic,
comes out there with a cone, puts it in front of her car.
So we can get the car on the transporter.
She runs over the cone.
So there's like 30 people videotaping this.
You can look this up on YouTube.
It's great.
And because they were videotaping us,
bringing the F one up because people don't usually see an F one,
especially in a racetrack.
Sure.
And so everybody in this lady, she runs over the cone,
rips the entire, it's an X five, which is ironic.
And you think about it too, that she's in a BMW.
She rips the entire bottom underpan, you know,
the underpan because the cone grabs it and just rips it all away.
And she goes down the road and with the cone under her car,
it finally rip comes out and along with the rest of her underpanning.
And people are like, is she crazy?
Is she crazy?
If she hit that car, they take her house.
And no amount of insurance is going to fix that.
I don't care how much your limits are.
It's not going to cover whatever this is.
And that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
And we just, we sat, I was on that when she finally got out of there.
We were on the transport.
I'm like watching her going, wow, that just happened.
It was just the craziest, stupidest thing.
Having that car at all is really a wonderful, crazy experience.
It's, it's a magical thing.
F ones are magical things.
They transcend.
But that was just, couldn't believe the level of stupidity going on.
Did we have something dumb go on at Pebble in the tour?
Did something stupid happen, didn't it?
I thought somebody had something stupid happen.
Oh, so we're on the Pebble tour, that truck that drove us over the shoulder.
So we're on the Pebble.
Oh, yeah.
There's a my box.
Yeah, thank goodness you passed that guy.
Oh my God.
There's a my box in front of us.
There's a, in front of the my box is a one of Ferrari 250 race car in front of,
you know, it's, it's the Pebble tour.
So it's call it $25, $30 million in four cars and probably safe to say.
And this guy in this Toyota pickup cuts us off, runs us into the,
all of us runs us into the dirt on the left hand side where there's no lane.
Just kind of makes a lane around these cars.
And, and I know the people in the cars ahead of me.
Cal's in front of it.
Cal was in that my box and he looks around like, what just happened?
So a cop saw him.
Did you see that part, John, that the cop?
Yeah.
So he gets to the top.
It's where the turnaround is to go into Pebble, you know, where that,
when you get off the road, you have to, when you're coming from south,
from, from south to north, you get off and you go and you go up the hill.
A cop was at the hill and you just went and pulled him over and we all clapped.
We almost got, yeah, almost cream four of our cars, some local almost cream
four of our cars and like a Toyota Tacoma with like three different color
fenders and all that.
And again, it doesn't matter what kind of insurance you got.
It ain't going to cover that.
Not going to go well.
And, and, um, no, it's, it's, no, it's not going to cover it at all because
you were, you were, they're going to, they're going to deny your claim.
Number one, because you did it and you did it on purpose.
And, uh, and, but no, I was just, that was, that was crazy.
It was really, it was the only spooky part of the whole Monterey thing.
I was like, Oh, wow.
Cause they were, I mean, when I was, he was close.
He was like that close.
He was really close.
My buck was wider than us.
He had to be like that to that stupid my buck.
Jesus.
Jesus.
So those are the dumbest things I've seen around and been around.
Um,
John, you got anything new?
I tell you, you know, just the usual stuff.
I did know that the best drives, quite frankly, we're in a backseat of that dart
this year when we, um, went out on the grass at Pebble or he went out on the,
uh, went on on the tour.
I mean, it was, it's pretty awesome.
You know, it was awesome.
And, uh, you know, you just don't realize how, you know, what a big deal that
is until you see the literally thousands of people lining, lining the side of
the road on that tour with their cameras out, taking pictures.
I mean, they're, and they're making a day of it.
You know, they've got tents up and they've got canopies up and they're, you
know, they're hunkered in for a couple of hours watching cars go by.
And it was, it was, it was quite awesome.
I was thinking, Jesus, this is pretty cool to be in this, uh, you know, to be
watching this go by, you know, we, we all get a little jaded, you know, as we get
older and all of a sudden I was kind of awestruck, you know, and then although
Andy decided, you know, everybody needed to get up and get up at three 15 in the
morning, um, so that we would be down there, uh, you know, before any, any light
from the, you know, from the universe, you know, it was, was, was, was where we had
to pick up the car to go out of the grass in the morning.
Hey, don't bet you had fresh cookies.
It was dark.
It was dark.
It was dark.
But it was the right choice.
It was.
Oh man.
No, no, it was great.
But it was, but it was funny because, you know, that's another thing.
You know, you go down there and you hear about the on patrol and all this good
stuff.
But I got to win his dawn patrol from the best seat in the house.
Okay.
Best seat in the house from the inside looking out.
That was pretty, pretty awesome.
Quite frankly, I was way, way, way awesome.
And then, you know, even, even Amelia, which we've, we've done, you know, together,
I don't know, four or five years now and, and way fun.
But this time, you know, they, we all climbed in the car, you know, like a bunch of
kids going to, uh, going to church on Sunday morning.
And we drove up on the, uh, we drove up on the podium and picked up the trophy.
I mean, that was way cool.
That was just way cool.
Maybe I'll be able to sponge one of those rides someday.
I'd really like to.
It sounds like a blast.
You have to, you have to pry my fat ass out of there.
You know, it's going to be, if I'm in, I'm, I'm plunked in the car.
But no, we, I would tell you that for over the last year, that was probably the three,
the three kind of coolest things.
I, you know, I, I mean, I, I raced, I'm raced in my car, you know, my alpha and my BMW
and I, you know, riskfully driving to and from work and doing all that.
But, you know, really from a, from a memorable mold, you know, from a memorable standpoint,
that was the best.
That was just really cool.
And, uh, that would, you know, I was very, I'm very fortunate to have been able to
participate and watch it from that angle.
I even said thanks to Andy for bringing my, you know, bringing me along.
Not ungrateful, not ungrateful.
Driving on the drone patrol is the single most extraordinary thing I have ever done
in the car hobby.
It was pretty cool.
Really cool.
Uh, that's saying a lot.
Very, very cool.
We've been speaking with John Sacramento of sport and specialty and Andy Reed of classiccars.com.
Gentlemen, please take a moment and tell us where we can find you online and on social
media.
Well, for me, um, yeah, it's sport and specialty, uh, uh, is I have a Facebook, Facebook page
for sport and specialty, but also John Sacramento.
Um, and then an Instagram account for John's or Sacramento, I think is what it is.
It's just Sacramento is actually an Ellis Island screw up.
Um, should be Sacramento, but I'll take it because when you, when you Google that, it
pops up.
So, and you can Google Sacramento or John Sacramento or sport, especially, and you'll
probably get me either way.
So, uh, you know, if you're interested or want a tour, you're in the neighborhood.
Stop on by Andy.
My stuff is the easiest way to get them in classic cars journal, but the easiest way
to find me is Google Andy Reed classic cars.
Um, because if you type in Andy Reed, you're going to get this football coach.
Yeah, we might be familiar with him.
Yeah, you might have my Google stuff and so Andy Reed classic cars brings you podcasts
and videos and stories and links and my Facebook page.
All that stuff.
So nice.
Guys, as always, it was absolutely perfect.
Thank you for being with us.
We appreciate you taking the time out of your evening.
Thanks fellas.
It's always good to talk to you.
Thank you.
It was really a pleasure.
Thanks for asking us.
So that's been way too long since we've had those guys together.
They are a riot.
And, you know, they're like, we've been started.
They're like brothers.
They just pick at each other.
They just go, go after.
I mean, it was, it wasn't even a shot across the bow.
Uh, first, when we first got up on zoom, I mean, God almighty.
Andy's got, Andy's got some new glasses and they're kind of big.
They're thick red.
And so the very first thing John says is, Oh, it's Mr.
McGoo.
Jesus Christ.
How about hello?
You can tell how much they like each other and how much time they spend together by the
amount of crap they flip each other.
Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
And I just love it.
It's fun just to be around them.
So Andy and John, thank you very much, man.
I always love having you guys on the show.
Um, while we're thanking people, thank you for listening to Driven Radio.
We love what we do and we wouldn't be able to do it without the support of our listeners.
You can find us online at drivenradioshow.com, find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
at Driven Radio Show and on LinkedIn as Driven Radio Show podcast.
If you have a story you would like to tell or someone you would like to ask to interview
and from the emails we're getting, there are people who have stories to tell.
It's pretty, I'm, I'm interested.
I am way interested.
Uh, you're just interested because those guys are driving a mopar.
Hell yeah.
And, um, and we'll have them on just as soon as I can get it arranged.
Excellent.
But if you've got a story you would like to tell or someone you'd like us to interview,
please contact me at Brett.
That's B-R-E-T-T at drivenradioshow.com.
I am Brett Hatfield from Mark L. Groves.
Thank you for listening.
We'll see you next time here on Thunderbird Radio.
About this episode
Thunderbird and Harley updates kick things off—headlight and wiper fixes, plus a slow Amazon parts saga—before Andy Reid and John Sacramento return after a 3.5-year gap. They trade stories from Amelia and Pebble, including showing a 1957 Chrysler Superdart 400 at Pebble and winning preservation at Amelia. The conversation then pivots to auction/concours market shifts: modern cars are hot, some mid-tier classics are soft, and younger collectors often lease rather than hoard. They also share the dumbest near-disaster moments involving multi-million-dollar cars, plus Porsche/Corvette “feel” debates.
Original notes
Brett and Mark welcome Andy Reid, East Coast editor for Classic Cars.com and John Saccameno, owner of Sport and Specialty, to discuss showing cars at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, Dawn Patrol, doing the morning drive in a one-of-one concept car, and the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. This and much more on Driven Radio Show!
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