I met a car guy recently who really needed a cuff in the head-he was the worst version of an old car hoarder.
‘The kind of car hoarder who would rather see his cars rust into a pile of red dust before he’d sell them.’
Car guys are…by nature, latent car hoarders.
We’d own a thousand car projects if we weren’t limited by lack of space, finances and realistic wives. But that doesn’t stop us from dreaming about acres full of projects like 32 Fords, 55 Chevys, Hemi Super Birds and 66 Mustang fastbacks. In that fantasy world we are also given eternal life-to finish each and every project.
This guy was actually sitting on some really interesting cars-things like 1970 383 Challengers, boatloads of early 50s Fords (mostly 2 doors and convertibles) Roadrunners, Barracudas and several 57 Caddy Biarritz convertibles. He didn’t actually list everything he owned but he admitted that he owned at least 50 cars and most were convertibles or muscle cars from the 50s and 60s.
He took great pleasure in telling me that his game plan for the cars was simple-do nothing.
N-O-T-H-I-N-G…
In fact he was so committed to this philosophy of inaction that he’d stopped working on a really nice 70 Roadrunner in mid-project. All it needed was reassembly-it was even painted. And he is a journeyman body man…
It wasn’t so much that he committed these crimes against old cars. It was the sheer pride that he took in telling the story of these atrocities-gory details like the vintage Cadillacs stored in crumbling, leaky sheds so long that they almost came out in 2 or 3 pieces.
It was like hearing a mass murderer like Ted Bundy revel in the glory behind brutally killing innocent women during his rampage.
I had to break off the conversation with this guy-I was too close to putting a serious choke hold on him and letting the estate sort out this mess. But I did leave with a newfound respect for the 3 or 4 projects that I’ve accumulated over the years and rule # 1 is this-“I will not accumulate another project until at least one of the cars in the “healing line” is done.
But I will push people towards buying projects just to save the poor cars from the clutches of maniacs like the guy I met.
JERRY SUTHERLAND
COMMENTS
DENNIS:”The bulk of these guy have no more regard for an old car than they have for a stock or a bond. They are nothing but investments. You see the same guys buying cars at the Barrett-Jackson Auctions again and again. They’ll never even sit in most of these cars, they have “assistants” that take these cars to garages where they will sit until it’s profitable to sell them again.
