Paintings and sculptures belong in museums.
They have no moving parts and they justify an extremely weak argument that art history degrees are not a complete waste of four years in a university.
But collector vehicles are a different program.
A vintage ride held hostage in a museum is a little like penning Secretariat in the back yard of your 100ft lot in Suburbia. The horse and car are safe from harm, but baby they were born to run.
So the annual bidding war for low mileage vintage iron has a sad quality to it.
The real high-end stuff will be purchased by people who will confine the vehicles to a shackled life in a building.
Some will be available for gawking purposes (with a nominal admission fee) at a public museum and incarceration facility for cars. Others will be squirreled away by private collectors-far removed from the public eye-and with guard dogs that are meaner than Mr. Burns’s hell- hounds on the ‘Simpsons’.
The likelihood of a warm 70 mph breeze and bug splats on the windshields of these cars is remote-like a “no- holds- barred- motel- romp- with- Mila Kunis” remote. It’s not very likely.
One exception to this rule seems to be John Staluppi, a Brooklyn-born “car guy made good”. He is an all-star player in the collector auction market and he has his own museum.
Cars of Dreams is his Florida car museum, and it caters to his tastes that primarily include 50s, 60s and 70s Detroit muscle and style. He looks like a beefier brother of Robert De Niro and he is 100% car guy.
The cars in his museum get to see the open road on a regular basis. His collection is fluid, so it is safe to assume that some of his collection will get a ‘Born Free‘ Walt Disney ending with a future driver/owner.
We will be rooting for John Staluppi and others of his ilk as the vintage car auction season of 2011 gains traction. We want guys to buy the cars so they can still see the open road where they belong.
Mainly because no car belongs in jail- except Christine.
Jim Sutherland @mystarcollectorcar.com
Many more car and truck articles, stories and photos at…https://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/
