Editor and Publisher
Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than 40 years. As a writer, publisher, television commentator and enthusiast, he is constantly on the go, meeting collectors and getting involved in their activities throughout the world.
He is the founder and publisher of the monthly Sports Car Market, now in its 38th year. Keith has written for the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications.
He had his own television show, for eight years, “What’s My Car Worth,” shown on Velocity.
Follow Keith on his adventures on his blog here.
Concours & Other Events
He has been an emcee for numerous concours including the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the La Jolla concours, Keels and Wheels, the Hilton Head Concours, the Kirkland Concours, the Forest Grove Concours and more. He was also the host of shows featuring the Barrett-Jackson auctions in Scottsdale and Palm Beach, Florida, and has been a speaker at the Peterson Museum in Los Angeles.
He has been a speaker at Miles Collier’s Revs Symposium. Other speakers included Miles Collier, Gordon Murray, designer of the McLaren F1, Peter Stevens, also a designer for Murray, and collectors Bruce Meyer, Chip Connor and Arturio Keller.
In the early ‘90s, Bob Lutz invited him to be a member of “the Kitchen Cabinet,” a group of automotive experts that met biannually with the C-Suite of General Motors, including Head of Powertrains, Bob Stevens, Director of Design Ed Welburn, CEO Rick Wagoner Jr. and future CEO Mary Barra.
Martin is a member of an automotive VIP group that meets weekly. Members include Tom Cotter (host of The Barn Find Hunter), Jay Ward of Pixar, Bill Warner, founder of the Amelia Island Concours and photographer Michael Furman, and Chasing Classic Cars host Wayne Carini.
He has been on many vintage car tours, including the California Mille, the Northwest Passage, and the Colorado Grand.
He created his own vintage car event, the SCM 1000, which featured 50 classic cars including Ferraris, Porsches and Maseratis.
Racing
In Europe he participated in the Mille Miglia Storica in 1992, driving a 1947 Siata with coachwork by Zagato, and in 1995 in an Alfa Romeo 1900.
Also in Europe, he raced in the Modena Cento Ore and in the Tour Auto several times, in an Alfa Romeo GT Junior. He has raced on many tracks in Europe, including Fiorano at the Ferrari factory, Mugello, Paul Ricard and Montlhery.
He was an active vintage racer in the US, piloting a 1958 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce and a 1967 Alfa Romeo Duetto. In the 1985 Alfa, he came in first overall in the last race to be held at the track in Westwood, British Columbia.
Awards & Honors
He has received many honors, including the Lee Iacocca Award, the Edward Herrmann Award, was inducted into the Concorso Italiano Hall of Fame, and more.
Personal Cars
His personal collection has included a Ferrari 330 America, a Lotus Elise, a Porsche 911 C4S, several Alfa Romeo Giulias and Giuliettas, an Autozam AZ-1, an AMG SL55, Mercedes 250C, Mercedes 219 and 220s, a Citroen DS21, AMC Pacer, a 1974 Chevy Nova wagon, a Plymouth 383 Roadrunner, a Plymouth 440 Superbird, a Ferrari 308GTSi, a Ferrari 308GT4, a Land Rover D90 200TDI, a Citroen DS21 and a Jaguar V-12 coupe.
Notable Achievements
He has served on the board of directors of The LeMay Museum and Oregon Ballet Theater, and was formerly the chair of the board of the Meguiar’s Award.
Martin helped design and produce the first Hagerty Insurance newsletters, working directly with McKeel Hagerty. That went on to become Hagerty magazine.
With Sports Car Market, starting in 1988, he is regarded as creating the definitive way to report on car auctions, with a format that includes the VIN number, mileage, condition and more. The SCM Auction Database has over 400,000 entries.
In developing the auction reporting format, he has consulted with Rob Myers, head of RM Auctions, David Gooding, head of Gooding Christie’s, and Dana Mecum, of Mecum Auctions.
Shifting Gears
Keith writes a monthly column for Sports Car Market magazine called Shifting Gears. Here are the latest articles from that column:
Bad News Bearings – Well, the pin’s still in it for now … The grenade is already in the garage. But I don’t know how far the pin has been pulled. Our 2005 Porsche 911 C4S is not my first rodeo with a 911. But the kerfuffle around its IMS bearing outweighs all the controversies surrounding my previous ones… Read more Clanks for the Memories – I recently came across a photo of my son Bradley and the 1960 Bugeye Sprite I had Chip Starr restore for him a couple of years ago. Seeing that picture took me back to December 22, 1966, at 8 a.m. It was my 16th birthday and I was first in line at the California DMV… Read more Trading Air for Water – It was July 16, 1975. Ronald Andrews arrived at Holbert Porsche Audi in Warrington, PA, to take delivery of his new 911 S. He knew exactly what he wanted. The 1975 S, with its 2.7-L magnesium-case engine, weighed in at 2,370 pounds, about the same as the fabled Carrera RS 2.7. It was an unusual… Read more The Dance of Perfection – I was just settling into my favorite of the 3,000 seats in Portland’s Keller Auditorium. I prefer row N, seat 8, as I am close enough to see the facial expressions of the performers yet far enough back to take in overall staging of the ballet. It was Oregon Ballet Theatre’s production of “The Sleeping Beauty”… Read more A Weighty Decision – I recently got an email from the new owner of our former 2000 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG. He reports that after several thousand miles he has had no mechanical issues and had to replace only a few consumables such as belts and pulleys. That was always a great car, and I began to wonder why I sold… Read more Classic Then, Classic When? – The first Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally was held in 1988. Sponsor Shelton was a Jaguar and Rolls-Royce dealer and sports-car racer in Portland. At that time, the Northwest Classic was the only large multi-day touring event for old cars in the region. It grew quickly, with over 100 entries some years. I entered that… Read more Half-Price Sports Cars – I was sure my 1966 Alfa Romeo Duetto would bring $75,000 — if not more — when I listed it on Bring a Trailer in July 2024. It had a perfect pedigree, had never, ever been rusty, and came with a rare, restored factory steel hard top. A red Duetto had always been my dream car,… Read more Hard Lessons in the BaT Game – A friend recently sold his 2000 Ferrari 360 Modena. In classic red over black, with 31k miles, it was a driver, but it had the desirable gated 6-speed manual. The CARFAX was clean and a recent belt and fluid service meant it was ready to use. This was his third try selling the car at online… Read more From Sporto to Tippy – Over the past six years, I’ve been on a journey through the land of collector cars with two pedals. I can no longer comfortably operate a manual transmission but didn’t want to give up driving classic sports cars. I have discovered that while an automatic may not be as engaging as a manual, in the… Read more A Different World – On September 15 of this year, I’m going to watch the taillights of a fully laden vehicle leave our condo garage, head west on SW Market Street and eventually merge onto Interstate 5 south. I know what taillights they won’t be. They won’t be the iconic rear of our Land Rover Disco II, as that… Read more Modern Times – “Dad, next year let’s take the slow Porsche.” Those were my son Bradley’s first words when he hopped out of the 2024 Porsche 911 Carrera he had been driving. We had just finished a leg of the NW Passage, the biannual tour put on by the Oregon Region of the Porsche Club of America (ORPCA).… Read more Driven to Dance – “Dad, is there any way we can see you dance?” My kids have asked me that many times. Sadly, my short-lived but meteoric career in dance occurred in the era before even VHS camcorders were around. I have no visual records. But here is the written version of the tale. In September of 1971, I… Read more Adventure Time – Seaside, OR, is just 78 miles from Portland. The route there, out Highway 26, is a relaxing mix of 60-mph roads traversing the Coast Range and 80-mph straightaways through Tillamook Forest. It is one of my favorite “Sunday drives” and I like to make it as often as I can — although it’s even better… Read more Wheel of Misfortune – This whole thing started like many of my adventures, behind the wheel of an Alfa. As my stroke-weakened left leg responds to physical therapy, I have begun to be able to drive a manual-shift car again, though in a limited fashion. I took our 1965 Giulia Spider Veloce around the block a couple of times.… Read more Cars vs. Cash – We live in changing times. Which makes the passing of classic cars from one generation to the next a complicated issue. One of my children wants my Lotus Elise; the other, the narrow-body Porsche 911S. As a 1975 model, the 911 is already a classic, while the 19-year-old Elise is well on its way. Neither… Read more In the Year 2525 – In July 1969, I was selling stuffed animals, helium balloons and other souvenirs at the San Francisco Zoo. That’s the month “In the Year 2525” zoomed to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for six weeks. One of the most famous one-hit wonders in recording history, the psychedelic rock song by… Read more Weather-Worn and Waterlogged – We met at Lewis and Clark State Park, at exit 18 off Interstate 84. It was a drizzly, overcast day, with the temperature in the 40s. This was a weekly tour put on by the local region of the Porsche Club of America, ORPCA. There were 13 cars in all: three Macans, two Boxsters, three… Read more A Two-Way Ticket Down to Tennessee – I’ve finally taken a ride on the Chattanooga Choo Choo. This was my fourth visit to the Chattanooga Motorcar Festival, sponsored by Millennium Bank. Like a fine wine, this event gets better each year. Developer and philanthropist Byron DeFoor is the founder of the festival. His commitment to nurturing the resurgence of the city’s downtown… Read more A Meditation on Preservation – Some winners are easier to pick than others. At the Kentucky Derby, it’s the nose of the horse that crosses the finish line first. At the Super Bowl, the team with the most points when the clock expires is the champion. The first team to take four games in the World Series is the victor.… Read more There and Back Again – I recently had the opportunity to speak at the 49th national meeting of the North American MGA Register, held locally here in Welches, OR. The convention was organized by SCM contributor Reid Trummel and hosted by the Columbia Gorge MG Club. My address to the group concerned a trip I made as a 17-year-old in a… Read more Escape From the Ordinary – Most cars lead a mundane existence, barely noticed accessories to our lives. We drive them to the supermarket and the malls. If they are lucky, and the kids put away their bikes and skateboards, they might get parked in the garage once in a while. Classic-car tours flip this paradigm on its head. We just… Read more Ciao, Bella Macchina – When I was director of dance for the Portland Opera, a large part of my life revolved around yearning, passion, searches, mysteries, findings and farewells. It’s not so different with the classic cars that roll in and out of our garages. After 10 years and 15,000 miles, I am selling our 1967 Alfa Romeo Duetto.… Read more People, Places and Things – Museums were on my mind recently. The same week the Mullin Collection was dispersed through a sale by Gooding & Company, I was visiting Washington, D.C., immersing myself in the capital. You are truly swimming in the sea of our country’s history no matter where you go in the city. My first stop was the… Read more Love the One You Have – Erratic. Nonsensical. Devoid of any appearance of logic. That’s how my friends have described my approach to collecting over the past few years. But thanks to a recent temptation, my unfocused and somewhat frantic searching may be nearing an end. An adequately powered sports car that handles well on skinny tires and weighs around 2,500… Read more Hope Springs Eternal – I’ve got a new favorite Porsche. This isn’t my first Stuttgart rodeo. Over the years, I have owned a 1968 911L, a 1978 911 SC, a 1991 928 S4, a 2000 911 Turbo, a 2000 911 Carrera and a 2000 Boxster S. They each spoke their Porsche dialect with a distinct accent. The 911L presented… Read more Dakar or Bust? – I’ve been writing about off-road Porsches since 2003. That’s when my review of the new Cayenne models appeared in The New York Times. My first reaction to an SUV from Stuttgart was that it was like watching someone hiking the Yosemite Falls Trail in an Armani suit and Gucci loafers. However, Porsche management was more… Read more Fantasy Meets Reality – As I wrote about in the October 2023 issue, my son Bradley got his driver’s license last summer. As a “safe and sane” first car, we decided on a 1982 Chevrolet Corvette Collector’s Edition. It was probably more my fantasy than his, but the right car at the right price suddenly appeared. I am genetically… Read more Gone in 60 Minutes – After five years and just 2,000 kilometers, our 1971 Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato is gone. In a happy moment for all, it went back to SCMer and longtime Alfa enthusiast Gordy Hyde. I bought it from him five years ago for $60,000. I spent these years and over $20,000 attempting to get a vacuum-operated hand… Read more Auf Wiedersehen – We filled the tank of our 2004 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG for the first time on July 1, 2020. The odometer read 45,389 miles. We had purchased it from a collector in the Los Angeles area for $22,500. SCM Contributor Philip Richter had urged — no, commanded — me to buy the car. He said the… Read more That Monterey Magic – My relationship with the Monterey Peninsula started in the late 1960s. I was a wrench (that was before the term “technician” came into vogue) on Hilary Luginbuhl’s SCCA F-production Alfa Romeo Giulietta race car, aka Rubber Chicken Racing. There was fierce competition in our class against the factory-backed cars, the Jon Woodner Huffaker MG Midget… Read more The Kumbaya Corvette – You could hear the screech of the A/C compressor belt up and down Main Street. Forty classic cars were lined up for the start of the concours wine tour. Now in its 49th year, the Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance is the oldest concours in the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1973, it is certainly the finest.… Read more Why We Do the Things We Do – The fifth annual SCM 1000 is in the books. I have many memories to savor. To start, I’ve never seen anything like 45 classic cars dwarfed by the majestic presence of the Grand Coulee Dam. It was certainly a tribute to engineering prowess. Speaking of which, I watched Grand Marshal Mitch Silver’s mechanics diagnose closed… Read more I Can C Clearly Now – Here’s how I ended up spending $42,310 on a $25,000 car. And I’m not done yet. Last summer, I decided that our Citroën DS21 would be moving on after the SCM 1000. Longtime SCMer Allen Stephens mentioned he was pleased with his W114 Mercedes-Benz 250C as a classic four-person long-distance cruiser. I had barely started… Read more Learn and Yearn – When I first started hunting cars in the ’70s, my routine was simple: I would scan the daily classifieds in my hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. That’s where I found my 1959 ID 19 for $400. It was listed under the “Citroën” heading. Yes, such a category in the classifieds actually existed back then.… Read more Being “Adventuresome” – It was a humid spring day in 1992. I was standing at a rent-a-car kiosk in Fort-de-France, Martinique. We had decided to take a family vacation to the Caribbean. My daughter Alexandra was less than a year old. We expected terrific French food in addition to the delights of the tropical scenery. When I asked… Read more Wait and Pounce – “If it’s not really the car you are looking for, pass on it and keep looking.” Those were Miles Collier’s words to me as I was engulfed by the red mist. I was at a Silver auction in Portland when I spotted a handsome 1969 Alfa Romeo Spider. I recall calling Miles from the auction… Read more
Blasts From the Past – Soon you will have the entire contents of 35 years of SCM at your fingertips. We are about to unveil a project we’ve been working on since the very first issue was created. This magazine was born in the midst of a revolution in desktop publishing and database management for microcomputers. The database program dBase… Read more A Date to Remember – January 6 was the fourth anniversary of my stroke. That day in 2019 started like any other. I was up at 5 a.m., put on my Hoka running shoes and pounded out a relaxed 5k along the Willamette River. I had just turned 68 years old, and I was trim and healthy. Little did I… Read more It’s Not a Restoration, It’s a Build – Let’s make one thing clear right from the start: A car is only “as-born” once. It can never be returned to that state. Any attempts to do so result in a fictional re-creation, done to please the owner and whatever standards he is aspiring toward. And that’s okay. We can’t go back in time. We… Read more From Vague-O-Matic to Cash-O-Matic – In all my years of selling cars at auction, I have never had a “miracle moment” where the bidding went far beyond my expectations — until our 1971 Citroën DS21 Pallas sold this past fall. When I saw the car offered on Bring a Trailer in August 2021, I was immediately curious. I had been… Read more “This Fool Has Now Set Off To Find His Grail” – I was recently doing my three-times-a-week stroke and cardio rehab at Oregon Health & Science University. My post-exercise resting blood pressure is down to 88 over 58. I haven’t had those numbers since I was a Juilliard dancer. Mobility and shifting are still challenges, but I persevere. To while away the time during my sessions, I… Read more The Guns of August – The confetti cannons fired as owners Lee and Penny Anderson were presented the Best of Show trophy by Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Chairman Sandra Button. The swirling bits of colored paper marked the culmination of Monterey Car Week, the largest car-enthusiast celebration in the world. On Sunday, August 21, their 1932 Duesenberg Model J Figoni… Read more Two for 2022 – Sixty-six thousand. That’s how many miles cars wearing an SCM 1000 roundel traveled last summer. And we’re just counting the entrants. The tally doesn’t include the dozens of support staff and amazing volunteers involved who kept the events running like a Halda Speedpilot. The SCM 1000 AMG Invitational was held in Bend, OR, in June… Read more The Original Jaguar – This is all Miles Collier’s fault. I attended one of his early symposiums on collecting. I was the guest of noted collector and Lamborghini expert Simon Kidston. During the seminar, I was first introduced to the notion that we were not owners, but just the current caretakers of our cars. They had a past that… Read more Show It Your Way – In the era before Cars & Coffee-style events, it was rare to see gatherings of collectible cars outside a highly organized setting. These were generally semi-formal concours-style events. They started with the early arrival of the entrants’ cars, sometimes before dawn. Cars were most often shown with the hoods shut, so that the overall design… Read more Three-Shoes Were Made for Walking – Fred Amigo lived in a modest house on 28th Avenue near Quintara Street in the Parkside District of San Francisco. You could see the Pacific Ocean from the back of his home. I lived eight blocks away at 20th and Taraval. I first met Fred at an Alfa event in 1969, when I was 18… Read more The Market Ate My Sporto – “Dad, it’s like a U-shape. ‘Start’ is to the far left, then you move the wand across the steering column to get to the other gears.” That’s how my 14-year-old son Bradley explained the arcane and obtuse shifting pattern of the Citromatic transmission in our 1971 Citroën DS21 Pallas. When I told this story to… Read more Collector-Car Climate Change – If you live in the Maldives, you are aware that the seas are rising. Whether temperatures are going up because of diesel emissions, home barbecue grills or cows farting methane doesn’t really matter. In the end, the earth is warming and the ocean is getting higher. It’s the same with the collector-car market. Values are… Read more A Vessel of Memories – Facebook didn’t exist when SCM was created. My first posts with pictures of Bradley were made 12 years ago, when he was 3. The equivalent period of his sister Alexandra’s life is captured in piles of three-by-five-inch photos scattered and stashed and filed and piled in innumerable places. I tell myself I will someday gather… Read more Pomp and Circumstance – If all goes as expected, I will be a full-time student at Portland State University next quarter. I will need to complete 45 credits, or about one year, to be awarded a degree. My plan is to enter the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. According to the PSU website, it is the nation’s… Read more Everything In Its Place – Our former headquarters covered 6,000 square feet, and had both individual offices and conference rooms. Best of all, we had a 10-car garage in the basement. When my Alfa collection was at its peak, I recall the vanity and conceit of arranging the cars by coachbuilder, (Bertone, Pininfarina, Zagato), and then rearranging them by year.… Read more “Keefie, Come Wake Up the Camel” – My love affair with Citroëns started 50 years ago in San Francisco. I was 20 years old and in between studying intellectual history at Reed College in Portland and dance at The Juilliard School in New York City. I had decided to spend a few months with my grandmother, Dorel, at the family home in… Read more Covering 50 Years in Two Hours – Recently, I took another vintage-car-inspired trip through time. For 44 years, Portland International Raceway has been the home of the All British Field Meet. Cars arrive on Friday, there is an informal concours on Saturday, and a swapmeet on Sunday. My good friends Paul Duchene and SCM contributor Jeff Zurschmeide were giving walking tours on… Read more Using, Breaking and Repairing Your Time Machine – Three cars from the SCM fleet recently completed the 2021 SCM 1000 Classic. While they all finished the tour (“returning home on their wheels rather than a flatbed”), they were walking wounded at the end. This is not a bad thing. Old cars like to be driven, and by putting miles on them, we expose… Read more You’ve Always Been a Member – As of this issue, your subscription to SCM has become a membership in the SCM family. For at least two decades, we have referred to you, the readers of Sports Car Market, as SCMers. Without realizing it, we had created a membership organization through the features and benefits you automatically received as a reader of… Read more Welcome to the SCM 1000 Touring Series – Building on the success of the SCM 1000, we are going to be offering more driving tours for those who own special cars, both old and new, along with immersive experiences for these participants. The events will be a part of the SCM 1000 “Modern Enthusiast” Touring Series, beginning with an AMG Invitational held in… Read more Cars and Kids and Moms and Dads – When we produced our first issue of the then-Alfa Romeo Market Letter, I was 38 years old and had never had children. Now, more than three decades later, I have watched my daughter, Alexandra, and my son, Bradley, grow and prosper in this car-centric household. They both started their automotive relationships early. At nine months,… Read more VIN-dicated – CARFAX was founded in 1984 in Columbia, MO, by a computer professional named Ewin Barnett III. He worked together with Robert Daniel Clark, an accountant from Huntingdon, PA. It started with a database of 10,000 records, but the company was soon getting reports from all 50 states. CARFAX is now headquartered in Centreville, VA, with… Read more Recognizing the Next Gen – We are now accepting nominations for SCM’s second group of 40 Under 40 honorees. First awarded in 2017, this program became our most popular in terms of industry recognition and resultant newsstand sales. It’s time to revisit it. In the October issue, SCM will again honor 40 enthusiasts under 40 years old who are making… Read more Risky Business – Some shy away from doors that open to unknown places. I have always been drawn to them. I don’t recall what caused my instant and all-consuming obsession to own a 928, this most-unloved of exotic Porsches. But once I got onto the roller coaster and the safety bar clicked down, there was no getting off.… Read more A Busy, If Not Boisterous, Market – Enthusiasts are buying and selling cars. Although the market is not boisterous, it is busy. The current COVID-19 situation has not eliminated or diminished our love of cranky old cars. Rather, it has caused us to find appropriate, safe ways to enjoy our cars and each other, all while modifying our collections. Look at some… Read more Back to the Basics – One year ago, my 12-year-old son Bradley and I were getting ready for a Caribbean cruise. We didn’t think twice about the flights from Portland, OR, to Chicago to Fort Lauderdale, FL. The lines at check-in didn’t faze us, nor did the wait to get through security. While short, the cruise on the Royal Caribbean… Read more Travels with Bradley – “A journey is a person itself; no two are alike.” — John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America Buffalo, elk, coyotes and wolves. Yellowstone National Park. A 2,000-mile route. A 500-horsepower Mercedes-Benz. A 13-year-old boy just itching to get out of the house. Those were the perfect ingredients for this summer’s road trip.… Read more From Successful Upstart to Corporate Ownership – Hearst can buy the Bring a Trailer community but it can’t own it.” As the shock and awe of the sale of Bring a Trailer subsides, we asked the founder of eBay Motors, Simon Rothman, for his thoughts about the sale and his predictions for the future. He said, “Over time, Hearst will absorb Bring… Read more Bring a Trailer’s Big Step – There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” That’s how Martin Swig introduced me to Randy Nonnenberg, co-founder of Bring a Trailer. We were in front of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where the cars for the California Mille were staged. “Randy has created this great website called Bring a Trailer. He finds interesting cars… Read more Every Car Is a Book – Think of the world of collectible cars as a giant lending library. While every book is different, most have just five chapters. Aware. Acquire. Activate. Exult. Farewell. These are the five chapters that mark the relationship with every collector car that comes into your life. When the last chapter is completed, it’s time to close… Read more A Time of Transformation – This pandemic sucker-punched all of us. In the past 30 days, the collector-car world has gone from hoping that things might stay the same to realizing they are changed forever. The cancellation of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the Queen Mother of all car events, sent a clear signal. Is our future uncertain? Yes. Are… Read more The Road Forward – “Despite the challenges we all face today, we believe the Pebble Beach Concours will be able to take place on August 16, as originally scheduled…” The email from the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance selection committee arrived like a flashing beacon in my inbox. It was an early sign that there is a New Normal ahead.… Read more Two-Pedal Mettle – I broke “The Draneas Rules.” Again. Our “Legal Files” columnist, John Draneas, constantly says that you should never buy a car without an inspection — and you should never send money to someone you don’t know (for a refresher, see this month’s column on p. 48). After willfully and intentionally disregarding both these maxims, I… Read more A New Year’s Day Ritual – On January 1, vintage-car tribes gather in the early morning darkness. From snow-covered Montana to sunny San Diego, old-car lovers prepare to “start the new year right” with a cruise in a classic. For more than two decades, the local “Round-Fender Volvo Club” has hosted a New Year’s Day run. Organized by longtime SCMer Dean… Read more Culling the Collection – I’m thinning the SCM collection. My mentor Martin Swig once said, “We don’t choose the cars, the cars choose us.” As I prepare to send these cars on to their next caretaker, I reflect about how each car chose me and came into my life. Why now? I just have too many cars and not… Read more You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone – I’ve been driving something for as long as I can remember. It started with the blue-and-white pedal car my grandfather got me when I was 3 years old. Soon enough I had a Hawthorne 20-inch single-speed coaster-braked bicycle. We ordered it from the Montgomery Ward catalog and picked it up from their local store —… Read more Hands-On Experience – I first met Gary Bartlett at a small gathering of Americans participating in the Mille Miglia in 1992. We were in the small town of Soragna, near Brescia, Italy. Longtime SCMer Joe Tomasetti organized the dinner. This was before the “MM” became a bucket-list event for wealthy enthusiasts from all over the world. There were few… Read more I Missed Monterey Car Week – For the first time in 31 years, I missed Monterey Car Week. On the weekend before the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, I can usually be found leading a ragamuffin “Catch Me If You Can” group of sports-car fanatics on a road trip down the Pacific Coast from Portland, OR, to Carmel. It’s SCM’s annual Caravan… Read more Conducting the SCM 1000 – Steven Harris was a modern-day Herbert von Karajan, conducting the Bridal Chorus from Wagner’s “Lohengrin” in downtown Baker City, OR. Two by two, he brought forward and arranged the multi-colored array of Porsches outside the Geiser Grand Hotel, which is located on the historic Oregon Trail. Harris, a noted Porsche collector and New York City-based… Read more Birth of an Obsession – A red 1972 Chevrolet Impala convertible was the very first car I bought at an auction. It was 1995. My then-wife Cindy Banzer and I drove seven hours north from Portland to Bob LeFlufy’s AutoClassic auction in Vancouver, B.C. Alexandra, just 4 years old, accompanied us. “LeFluf,” since deceased, was a classic-car raconteur, the Canadian equivalent… Read more Heart vs. Head – There are two cars that always pull at my heartstrings. The first is a 1956 Mercury Montclair. My grandfather bought one new. I have fond memories of riding in the backseat of that car. It was two-tone Bumblebee Yellow and black. My grandfather loved that car — it was a step up from the Mercury… Read more It’s the Memories That Matter – My son Bradley was 10 when I bought him a 1960 Bugeye Sprite two years ago. I was setting us up to make father-and-son memories together. I chose a Bugeye because that was my first car. The day I turned 16, I was first in line to take my driving test. An hour later, after… Read more The Next Gen Wave – We are in the middle of a sea change in the collector-car world. In my three decades of publishing Sports Car Market, I have never seen anything like it. Much has been written about the changing of the collector-car guard, with Millennials and Gen Xers rapidly joining Baby Boomers as front-line buyers and sellers. It’s… Read more On the Road to Recovery – January 5 was a crisp and clear Saturday in Portland. I had no inkling that my life, in the blink of an eye, was about to turn upside down. I ran an easy three miles along the Willamette River that morning. That afternoon I watched the NFL playoffs. The Ravens were playing catch-up to the… Read more
Enthusiast Collectors – Editor’s note: Publisher Keith Martin is making steady, strong progress on his stroke rehab. In fact, he’s back to writing his weekly blog for the SCM Email Newsletter. That said, we’ve invited a few friends to fill in for Publisher Martin’s “Shifting Gears” column until he’s ready to return. This month, Donald Osborne is here… Read more
The Times, They Are Unchanging – Exactly 20 years ago, I wrote this lead to the “Shifting Gears” column for the March 1999 issue of Sports Car Market: Would you have bought it anyway? That’s what we seem to be asked most frequently about our 1964 Ferrari 330 America, pulled from a barn in Butte, MT, last October. As the bills… Read more
Uncorking Two Top-Shelf Supercars – Irecently had a chance to drive two state-of-the-art supercars — a McLaren 720S and a Ferrari GTC4Lusso T. The press kits that accompanied each car were full of cutting-edge technobabble. Lightweight turbines capable of 160,000 rpm. Twin injectors improving fuel nebulization. Magnetorheological dampers. They carry price tags worthy of their prowess. The 720S that I… Read more Like a Kid in a Candy Store – I grew up in the Parkside District of San Francisco, with a view of the Pacific Ocean from the bedroom in the back of our house. There was a bakery shop around the corner on Taraval Street. Each day on the way home from elementary school, I would stop in. The baker would squirt some… Read more
Thirty Years, 1,000 Miles – On July 12 of this year, the last of the classic cars on the SCM 30th Anniversary tour arrived at the posh Heathman Hotel in downtown Portland, OR. For the previous four days, these 1950s and 1960s sports cars, all owned and driven by SCM subscribers, explored the backroads of Oregon. Stops included Timberline Lodge… Read more
The Bidders of the Future – In the years that SCM has been reporting on Monterey, we’ve watched the auction sales totals go from $10.8m in 1996 to this year’s $374.4m. From just 209 cars being offered in 1996 at Monterey (Rick Cole and Christie’s), there were 1,389 cars looking for new buyers this year at six auctions. The 2018 results… Read more
The 4-Door Key to the Magic Kingdom – I’ve known Brad Miller for 20 years. We have many mutual friends, and his wife, Nancy, and I serve together on the board of directors of Oregon Ballet Theatre. Brad, who’s a successful real-estate investor, and Nancy keep a barge in France in which they ply the canals of Europe several months each year. He’s… Read more
Get Your Red-Hot GTO Here! – For the past 40 years, the Ferrari 250 GTO has been the “Mona Lisa” of the collector-car market. They represent the last of the front-engined Ferrari customer cars that could be driven on the street and then taken to the track. They were contenders for overall victory in events such as the Tour de France.… Read more
Deliverance on the Road to Astoria – There was no one home at the farmhouse; I knocked on all the doors. I had seen a rototiller in the nearby shed, with one-gallon gas cans next to it. “Anyone here?” I called out again. There was no answer, so I picked up a can and poured the contents into the empty tank of… Read more Who is Your Favorite Restoration Tech? – We all have our favorite specialists. We have our go-to chefs, sommeliers, gardeners, travel agents and interior designers. We also have our favorite restorers. These are the men and women we turn to when we need our cars done just right. They’re the solution providers when we come across a problem that has others scratching… Read more
SCM’s Endless Summer – Imagine 40 classic cars — many of them Alfas — hitting redline as they climb to historic Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Or after a day cruising the wide-open landscapes off Highway 97 past Fort Rock, gathering again to drive around crystal-clear Crater Lake. We’re just a couple of months away from the Sports Car… Read more
The Siren Song of an MGA – I was about 30 miles south of Twin Falls, ID, when a connecting rod broke and exploded through the side of the engine block. I coasted silently to the side of the road in the late-afternoon sun. I was on State Highway 93 — right in the middle of nowhere. Although this happened 50 years… Read more
Arizona Auction Week and One Star Car – We picked the cars we planned to profile in this issue during a routine editorial meeting last January. Each month, Managing Editor Jim Pickering goes through recent sales, and he then presents those of interest to me, Executive Editor Chester Allen and Art Directors Dave Tomaro and Jeff Stites. We try to have an entertaining… Read more Rhapsody in Blue – The McLaren 570S Spider left a swirling vortex of freshly fallen snow in its wake. I was piloting the 562-hp supercar through Government Camp as I crossed Oregon’s Mount Hood on Highway 26. The road was dry, and the snow wasn’t sticking. I felt confident pushing the Curacao Blue car just a little harder. This… Read more When Will It Be Time to Sell? – There’s been a lot of talk recently about Baby-Boomer collectors “thinning their collections” and “right-sizing them.” Whether you have six cars, 60 or 600 — the dilemma is the same. Over the decades you’ve been collecting, as you’ve found the specific model you’ve been looking for, you acquire it — often paying above market —… Read more
Raising the SCM Family – I’ve raised a family of three over the past 30 years. They include my daughter, Alexandra, 26, my son Bradley, 10, and Sports Car Market, which is nearly full-grown at 30. Just as I’ve watched Alex and Bradley mature and develop, I’ve seen SCM go from a little black-and-white newsletter that we printed on our… Read more
The Ultimate GTV is a 911 – Our old cars haven’t changed in the past 30 years. What has changed is the world around them. In 1988, when we produced the first issue of The Alfa Romeo Market Letter on a mimeograph machine, our 1967 GTV would have been 21 years old. Most GTVs in 1988 were just tired used cars that… Read more The Royal Treatment – In the September issue of SCM, I predicted that sales in Monterey would total $331 million. As the dust continues to settle, it appears I was within a few million dollars — close enough. The current sales total, roughly $330 million, represents a slight decline from the $343m sold in 2016. However, with the addition… Read more
Two-Lane Tour de Force – 2018 marks SCM’s 30th Anniversary. When we published our first issue of the Alfa Romeo Market Letter — quick-printed on blue paper — we never imagined the roller coaster ride that was ahead of us. To celebrate this anniversary, we are going to have a five-day, 1,000-mile tour of Oregon’s best back roads. Dates are… Read more Your Mission in Monterey – The confetti cannons will belch their crumpled-paper payloads around 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 20. Best of Show for the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will have been crowned. And with that culmination of the week’s activities, hundreds of thousands of car fanatics will begin the trek home from Monterey Car Week. While our focus… Read more A Heads-Up on Hoods-Up – I have a pet peeve at concours. It’s owners who insist on leaving the hoods of their cars open all day long. It’s hardly the way designers would want their cars seen. Further, the hoods jutting upwards are a jarring contrast to the elegant setting of a concours field. A few weeks ago, I wrote… Read more An Alfa is Reborn – We were crossing the Oregon High Desert at 80 mph in a 52-year-old Alfa Romeo when Bradley’s jacket blew out the window. A second earlier he had been struggling to get one arm out of a sleeve. We were about 20 miles from Madras, OR, in a caravan of vintage Alfas. This was the Alfa… Read more
A Father’s Day Note – The 1960 Bugeye I bought for my 10-year-old son Bradley 18 months ago is finally home in the SCM garage. When I bought this Bugeye, I accomplished two goals with one car. First, I was paying a tribute to my own beginnings in sports cars. My first car was a Bugeye — purchased the day… Read more
Join SCM’s Bonkers Miami-to-Monterey Drive – We’ve come up with the ultimate SCM road trip. We’re combining perhaps the most insignificant collector car with the longest possible trip. Here’s your chance to become a part of it. We’ve acquired a 1974 Bradley GT. My 9-year-old son is named Bradley; how could I resist? Think how much more interesting my choices would… Read more
The Millennials Are Coming! Vote Today – We at SCM believe the car hobby is thriving and growing, and new generations of enthusiasts are becoming a part of it all the time. Here’s your chance to help us recognize them. Later this year, SCM will name 40 enthusiasts under 40 years old who are making a difference in the classic car world.… Read more Cool Runnings – We do these things to ourselves. On purpose. It’s part of our old-car madness. When American Car Collector contributor Michael Pierce and his wife, Linda, invited me to spend Christmas Day night with them, it became an excuse to give an old car some exercise. They live in Carlton, OR, a bucolic town in the… Read more Three Cars Calling to Me – When I start fidgeting around wondering which car I should get next, my friends call it “car knitting.” Currently, I’ve got a tidy, tightly focused collection of Alfas, ranging from a 1958 Giulietta Sprint Veloce to a 1967 Duetto. All the cars are in fine fettle or approaching it. The cars that have been calling… Read moreDeath Waits for No One – The email arrived on July 1, 2016. It was from my oldest and dearest friend, Bjarne Holm: Hi Keith. Bad news on the health front. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer early last month. My prognosis is a few months to a few years, depending on how I respond to treatment. … I’m trying to… Read more
From Chateaus to Lava Fields – Each August and September, the collector car world hits high gear. Everything that happens before just anticipates the explosion of activities that mark the end of summer. Normally, this is a busy time for me — and the gang at SCM. But this year, hectic, frenetic and “my hair was on fire” seem too-mild adjectives.… Read more Monterey Week Isn’t Just About the Money – The pundits didn’t wait for the Monterey Car Week auctions to end before weighing in with banshee-like wails of market distress. “Saturday night auctions fail to meet 2015 levels” The Los Angeles Times headlined before the Gooding auction on Sunday. Bloomberg weighed in on Monday, “Monterey Auctions Continue to Slide after 2014 Peak.” “Next month,… Read more Money is Big, But Passion Drives the Hobby – Each year, this issue falls in the lull just before the great Super Bowl contest that is Monterey Car Week. Each of the auction companies on the Peninsula has its lineups set. All the seven- and eight-figure, market-defining cars have been extensively promoted and the potential bidders courted. Within a few days after you read… Read more Why We Do the Things We Do – According to Jerry Tilley, captain of the Aleutian Ballad, a crab boat featured in TV’s “The Deadliest Catch,” the scene in which a 60-foot rogue wave catches his 107-foot boat broadsides and flips it onto its beam end is one of the most-watched excerpts of the hit show on YouTube, with more than 1.45 million… Read more Mind If We Gawk? – It was just three months ago when, in this column, I pompously and piously pronounced that I would never again drive at excess speeds on a public highway. I referred to the 140 mph I had averaged testing the Ford GT in 2006. Two days later the call from Lamborghini came, asking if I would… Read more Saying Goodbye to the Amazon – It was two years ago that we watched our 1967 Volvo 122S arrive on a car hauler from Madison, WI. And now we’re going to watch it leave. Owning the Amazon has been a delightful and enlightening experience. It was a good car when it arrived (unlike so many of the cars that I acquire),… Read more You Can Go Home Again – As you read this, the 2006 Lotus Elise that we sold in May of 2013 is in a car transporter and headed from Connecticut back to SCM World Headquarters in Portland, OR. We first drove an Elise in 2009; Legal Files contributor John Draneas has one. We were entranced. Weighing just 1,984 pounds, and propelled… Read more Here Comes the Judge – What do a 1968 Ford GT40 Mk III, a 1967 Porsche 911S, a 1972 4.9 Ghibli Spider SS, a Toyota 2000GT, a 1972 Ferrari 246 GT and a 1968 DeTomaso Mangusta prototype have in common? These are exotics with 6- and 8-cylinder engines placed in the front, middle and rear of their chassis. The GT40… Read more How Fast Is Too Fast? – It was October of 2004. I was watching the speedometer hold steady at 140 mph as I rocketed down Highway 395 in Nevada headed toward the Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley. I was reviewing the new Ford GT for The New York Times, and I was the first journalist turned loose with the car… Read more The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling! (Well, Maybe Not) – “We’ve got to separate the signal from the noise.” That’s what collector car connoisseur Miles Collier says when we are trying to find our way to the core of a challenge. Miles’ saying refers to tuning a vintage radio, where you adjust the dial until the static disappears and a voice can be heard clearly.… Read more No Regrets in the Morning – I’m now into the restoration of my 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider over $50,000. What I have to show for it is a completely stripped body shell, with all the rust removed and damaged panels repaired. It is ready for paint and reassembly. As I wrote in my January “Shifting Gears” column, I have been… Read more People, Places and Things – Forty years ago, when I lived in a gritty section of New York City near Canal Street and Avenue of the Americas, I was happy when the cockroaches didn’t dance on my toothbrush at night. My space was so small that the refrigerator doubled as the headboard of my bed. I couldn’t have imagined that… Read more Something Lost, Something Gained – My 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider Veloce, s/n 390290, left the factory in Arese, Italy, on January 28, 1965. It was one of 1,096 Giulia Veloces built. It was painted the unusual and highly attractive color of Grigio Mare, with a lipstick red/orange interior. It was just a nice used car when I bought it… Read moreFrom Wide-Eyed to Bugeye – Being a part of the collector car world offers a multitude of experiences, from the grand to the familiar. During the past month, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of the absolute high end of the collector car world, which included watching the car-as-art Maserati Boomerang sell as a part of the Chantilly… Read more
New Players on the Peninsula – A new set of players ran onto the Monterey Peninsula this August. They were young, cocky, and didn’t give a rip about what we baby boomers thought they should buy or what they should spend. These guys in their 30s and their 40s reminded me of confident baseball players during their first season in the… Read more
If I Were King of a Concours – One of the magnificent spectacles in the collector car world occurs as the morning mists lift off a concours field. Dozens of rare and important machines that trace the history of the automobile are revealed. From diminutive Hupmobile roadsters to imposing Cadillac phaetons, our love affair with cars is on display. But like all aspects… Read more A Supercar for the Ages – During the 900 miles I drove a McLaren 650S Spider, my heart only stopped twice. Once was at a gas station at Spirit Mountain Casino in Grand Ronde near the Oregon coast. When you come to a halt in the McLaren, it takes the transmission a couple of seconds to realize you really are stopped,… Read more Modena Cento Ore 2015 – It was 6 p.m., and we were driving towards Perugia, the capital city of Umbria, in central Italy. It was 100 degrees, and we were in the thick of rush-hour traffic. Our day had started in Rome, and we had completed four laps at the Vallelunga track as well as three timed hillclimbs on closed… Read more Bad Driving Is Here to Stay – Cars are safer than ever. The fatality rate per million miles traveled in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, was 1.1 — a nearly 25% decline since 2004, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Not only do cars handle and brake better than ever before, they are also loaded… Read more What Were You Thinking? – Having me co-host a television show about cars sold at collector-car auctions is like turning a chocoholic loose in the Hershey factory. When evaluating cars for “What’s My Car Worth?” a TV show I co-host on the Velocity channel, I find myself slipping from the objective to the subjective. “This ’67 Healey BJ8 drives… Read more When Cars Become Immortal – The market has redefined itself over the past decade. We’ve watched it happen from the SCM crow’s nest. From multi-million-dollar catalog auction sales to text-only postings on Craigslist, we keep a finger on the ever-changing pulse of the market. Prices have soared in the category we follow most closely — sports cars from the… Read more Another Roadside Attraction – It was a weekend to remember. At 6 a.m. on a Saturday in February this year, my daughter Alexandra joined me on a flight from Portland, OR, to San Jose, CA. We’d bought a 1964 Volvo 1800S last July, and it was time to bring it home. Mike Dudek of iRoll Motors picked us up… Read more Crowdsourcing Our 911 Turbo – This all started innocently enough. A friend gave me a ride to a Porsche event in her black 993. I hadn’t had a sip of that clattering air-cooled elixir for some time, and it was intoxicating. I immediately emailed my good friend and Porsche guru Jim Schrager, and asked him for the best buy in… Read more To Patagonia and Beyond In an E-type – We had just crested the 4,311-foot Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass, crossing from Argentina into Chile. The 1969 Series 1.5 Jaguar XKE we were driving was performing brilliantly. It was a clear day, and we were surrounded by the snow-covered peaks of the Andes. This was the second day of the 26th Annual 1000 Millas Sport… Read more Barrett-Jackson is the Pebble Beach of Arizona – Our collector car world has four epicenters, and each has its own anchor event. The vintage car calendar starts with Monterey in August, followed by Arizona in January, Paris in February and Amelia Island in March. The signature event for the Monterey Classic Car Week is the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It follows the auctions,… Read more I’m Not Really Looking, But… – There are many stock phrases in the vocabularies of car collectors. They range from “that’s one of one” to “wonderful patina” to “I never should have sold it.” The one that seems to get me in the most trouble is, “Well, I’m not really looking, but…” You know the drill. You have a vague interest… Read more Priced Fresh Daily – At the highest level of the U.S.-based catalog-sale collector car auctions, Gooding & Company and RM Auctions are the major players, with Bonhams now a hard-charging, fast-rising contender. All three of these companies are now going toe-to-toe in Monterey, Scottsdale and Amelia Island. There will be no shortage of high-dollar fireworks as billionaires compete for… Read more When It’s Time to Say Goodbye – Is it fair to say that we love our cars? Over time, we develop relationships with them based on the things we have done with them — from changing spark plugs to repairing upholstery to going on tours and rallies. In a way, a favorite car is like a faithful Labrador retriever. It sits… Read more From GTO to Mercer in 72 Hours – It was late on a Wednesday afternoon, and I was hoisting the Coleman tent and sleeping bags onto the roof rack of our Defender 90 in preparation for the weekend’s vintage Land Rover tour. Then the phone rang. It was Jamie Knight, Group Director of the Bonhams Motoring department. “Hello Keith,” he said. “It’s Bonhams’… Read more The Perfect Pairing – As the SCM fleet continues to grow, I am beginning to wonder just why we need so many old cars. We currently have eight collector vehicles, ranging from a 1958 Giulietta Sprint Veloce to a 2000 Viper GTS ACR. That means eight insurance bills, eight parking stalls, eight sets of maintenance records, eight battery chargers… Read more Does Value Change with Price? – I recently came across a photo taken just after the 1992 California Mille. It showed me in a Ferrari PF cabriolet S2, along with my grandmother, Dorel McDowell. I recall exactly how she came to be in that car. When I finished the tour, in my 1958 Giulietta Spider Veloce, one of the participants asked… Read more Buy, Sell or Bubble? – The collector car market is steamrolling along with the largest price increases we’ve ever seen. From 2009 to 2013, combined sales of all the auctions in Monterey jumped from $120m to $308m. That $188m increase in four years represents a 157% change, and a return of 26.6% per year. For Scottsdale, from 2010 to 2014,… Read more Acceptable Imperfection? – Many years ago, I was considering buying a Mercedes 230SL and called Mercedes guru, SCM contributor and collector Alex Dearborn to ask for his advice. I told him the car was straight enough, a little scruffy in and out, would need a torn swing-axle boot replaced, had a 4-speed and both tops. At that… Read more Cranking Up the Collector World – I love the way the collector-car year launches. Arizona in January is like Mardi Gras, with cars to be auctioned replacing floats. The procession of delectable automobiles is non-stop, with the six big auctions pulling out all the stops. For me, the action started earlier this year than usual. It included a quick trip… Read more A Collector-Car Catechism – At times, the SCM offices resemble an automotive confessional. Emails, texts, Facebook postings, faxes and sometimes even old-school, hand-written letters flood in — each missive asking for collector-car absolution or permission. “Dear SCM, please forgive me as I have sinned and bought a car over the Internet without seeing it in person… again.” “Keith, I… Read more Grooming the Young Collectors – There’s no question that America’s love affair with the car has changed dramatically. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal regularly report on the decline of numbers of driver’s licenses among young people, of fewer miles being driven and declining sales figures of new cars. This lack of interest in driving is even more… Read more A Concours Comes of Age – Concours d’Elegance is just a fancy name for a fancy car show with fancy awards. Whether it’s the weekly Beaches Cruisin’, which draws 1,500 vintage cars and thousands of gearheads every Wednesday all summer long in Portland, or the rarified air that surrounds the multi-million-dollar cars at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance — car shows… Read more 36 Hours in Modena – The invitation came on a Monday, from Luigi Orlandini of Canossa Events Srl. “Would you like to spend two days in Modena, learning about the restoration program Modena Classic Works, tour both Ferrari museums and drive some classic Ferraris on the Modena Circuit? The event starts this Friday, so you would have to leave from… Read more Passing Into History – We just put 1,611 delightful miles on our 1965 Giulia Spider Veloce. It was our first real road trip in years, and it brought home the reasons we fool around with these old cars. The occasion was the Alfa Romeo National Convention, held in Rohnert Park, CA, south of Santa Rosa. Good friend Doug Hartman… Read more From Acquiring to Collecting – I’ve never counted the number of cars that have passed through my garage over the past four decades, but they’ve numbered in the hundreds. They’ve ranged from mundane 1965 MGBs to exquisite Maserati 3500 GTs. Sometimes there have been 20 cars at my place, other times just one. Fishing for my acquisitions (I hesitate to… Read more New Money Chasing Old Cars – If the collector-car market were a cappuccino, its frothy foam would spill over the sides of the cup and cascade to the tabletop like a miniature Niagara Falls. Is there a major auction that doesn’t set a few world records? Even Toyotas are now worth more than a million dollars. Well, not all Toyotas. As… Read more Dodging the Bullet on a 356 – Dear Keith: Now that I’ve purchased the SCM Volvo 1800ES and it’s on the way to my garage, I’d like to ask your opinion on a 356C sunroof coupe that’s been offered to me. I’ve taken a quick look at it, and it appears to be a really nice older restoration, holding up well. There… Read more Becoming a Florida Car Guy – We’ve seen more gators than ducks or beavers recently, as we’ve spent 20 of the past 30 days in Florida, with our home state of Oregon becoming more of an imagined entity than a place. We had barely unpacked our bags from our February trip to Rétromobile when it was time for another early-morning taxi… Read more Cacti and Campari – Just weeks ago I was toodling through the Arizona desert, sneaking away from the auctions for a quick drive to Sedona in a lovely dark blue Aston Martin V8 Vantage. I was seeking a brief respite from the ceaseless shattering of world records at the auctions being held, where one high sale after another was… Read more Let’s Get On With the Next 25 – I remember clearly when I decided to launch the Alfa Romeo Market Letter. It was 1988, and the market was beginning to heat up. I had recently left my day job as a manager of Ron Tonkin’s Gran Turismo in Portland, OR, where I sold Ferraris, Maseratis, Alfa Romeos and Lotuses. I devoured the various… Read more It Was a Very Good Year – As this is our December issue, it’s the right time to reflect on the past 12 months, and to project forward into 2013. Sports Car Market is by design a reflective magazine; we report on sales and events that have happened, and analyze and comment on them. Our world is large and all-inclusive, as we… Read more Riding the Wave – Our Executive Editor, Chester Allen, is a dedicated surfer. He tells me there is a moment when a paddling surfrider catches the pulse of energy traveling through the water, pops up on the board and starts the ride — accelerating effortlessly as he becomes part of a wave. This year, every auction house in Monterey… Read more The Triumph of Time – Fifty years ago, Bob Russell was driving home from work when a flashy red sports car caught his eye. “I had been thinking that we needed a second car, and my wife needed to learn to drive a stick,” Russell, 84, said. “So I just bought it.” He brought the 1962 Triumph TR3B home… Read more Martin Swig, 1934–2012 – He lived on his own terms I only saw Martin Swig two or three times a year. So the fact that he is now gone, forever, doesn’t create an immediate void. Instead, there’s a small, dull ache that will become a little more apparent each August when I think about his traditional Sunday night party… Read more GTOs and Cobras: Investments or Insanity? – Here at SCM, we like to maintain two simultaneous views of the collector world, with one seen through a long-range spotting scope, and the other viewed through close-range binoculars. For example, in the short-term viewfinder, the sale of a 250 GTO for $35m is a breathtaking escalation of the value of these most-watched Ferraris. Long… Read more 12 Years of SCM — Searchable Online – We expect instant gratification from our computers. Type in “How many times have Ferraris won at Le Mans?” “Nine,” Wikipedia answers instantly. How many Corvettes have been sold since 1953? More than 1.3m, you learn after a few keystrokes. What’s the current wheel-driven land speed record over one mile? You’re an instant expert as your… Read more From Car Show to Concours – In the course of a year, I attend at least 30 car shows, ranging from the Beaches Cruisin at Portland International Raceway to maximus supremo, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Despite wildly varying locations, audiences and car offerings, I have come to recognize that the shows have more in common than they have differences. As… Read more Sometimes You Just Say No – Whether it’s a cheap car or a million-dollar one, some elements of the buying decision are the same. And sometimes, even though a car is priced right and is in excellent condition — in fact, it is just what you have been looking for — saying no and walking away is the absolute right… Read more Two Coasts, Two Weekends, 5,000 Cars – “To Infinity, and Beyond!” That’s how I felt as I left Scottsdale, AZ, where 2,694 cars had crossed the block, and headed to Kissimmee, FL, where another 2,326 consigned vehicles were looking to find new owners. For 25 years, attending the January auctions in Scottsdale has been a fixture in the SCM calendar and in… Read more The Future of Collecting – Dear Mr. Martin, I’m a 20-year-old college student from Dallas, TX. I’ve been a car guy since birth. A few years ago I stumbled upon television coverage of Barrett-Jackson and Mecum, and that’s when I discovered my passion for the collector car market. However, whenever I watch televised car auctions, I notice that the majority… Read more The Anatomy of a Buy – Chances are good that you are preparing for the Scottsdale five-ring circus while you’re reading this. You’ve pored over the SCM Arizona supplement and used the digital edition to instantly link to the auction company web sites.You’ve probably hooked up with a transport company, insurance company and even a finance company so that you’ll have… Read more Successful Collecting? Trust the Force – “I’ve never owned a collector car, and I’d like to get into the hobby. How should I start?” It’s a question we hear often. The path to collector car happiness is relatively straightforward; regular readers of SCM are familiar with our maxims. But this, our first issue of the new year, is a good… Read more BMWs at Buttonwillow – I’ve been to a variety of driving schools, with instruction ranging from cursory to custodial. When the opportunity came for my daughter Alex and me to attend a two-day BMW Car Club of America high-performance driving school in Southern California, I thought I knew what to expect. I’d be in the advanced class (of course… Read more From Carlisle to Carousel – The collector car summer goes out with a roar. For me, it was a blur of events that included Fall Auburn, the Kirkland Concours, Funfest, Fall Carlisle and a visit to the Milhous Collection. My airline status for next year is assured; I’ll always be the one who gets asked first whether he wants… Read more Monterey Millions – This issue offers the most complete and incisive coverage of the Monterey weekend, with 75 pages of comments and analyses. More than 220 collector cars are discussed in detail. Million-dollar cars sold like there was no tomorrow, with no fewer than 31 going to new homes. In short, Monterey 2011 was a particularly good… Read more The Demise of the SCM Ponton – It happened in the blink of an eye. I was standing in the repair shop, VISA in hand to pay a $4,500 repair bill, and the next moment I watched as my 1959 Mercedes 220S rolled backwards down a ramp from the second floor, sans brakes, and slammed into another car. This was our second… Read more A “B-Ticket” Ride – Old cars are admission tickets to old car events. You can’t go on the Mille Miglia unless you have a pre-1958 car similar to one that was raced in the event. Pre-1968 Alfa convertibles are the preferred ride for the local Alfa Club’s annual “Old Spider Tour.” Think horses for courses. So when the National… Read more Compelled to Collect – With Monterey just around the corner, collectors’ thoughts have shifted from the restore-and-refurbish activities of winter to the buying and selling of summer. While car transactions happen year round, there’s no doubt they attract more attention in the warm months—and the most attention of all in August. For me, there was a time, more… Read more The Season of the Road – Buzzing like a multi-colored swarm of bees, the cars of the California Mille cruised through Bodega Bay on California Highway One. It was the morning of day four, and Wendie and I had pulled over for a quick espresso and to stretch our legs.This was the 21st running of the Mille, an event created to… Read more Flying in the Star – The Martins and Flying Star owner Paul Emple Location, location, location. The mantra of real estate agents, it applies equally to concours and vintage tours.Who can deny that a significant part of the appeal of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is its stunning setting, on the 18th Fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Course, with… Read more The Allure of the Automobile – Portland, Oregon is a quaint town. Bicyclists swarm in their own lanes, groups of runners go clomping by like gazelles or hippos—depending on their body mass—and there always seem to be a few happy people in line at the medicinal marijuana dispensaries. Given its tree-hugging reputation, it comes as a surprise to some that the… Read more Sea Change in Scottsdale – By now the Scottsdale numbers are familiar: $160m in total sales, very close to the record $167m set in 2007. 2,221 cars sold. Attendance up at every event, and strong individual prices across the board.But the biggest news to come from Scottsdale could be found in a press release issued on February 14, 2011—23 days… Read more Collector Agonistes – Saved searches and RSS feeds are now the Pandora’s Box of my collecting life. Years ago, I would get giddy and feel the onset of the red mist once a month when Hemmings arrived (by first-class mail, of course). And when I went to an auction or swap meet, I would be temporarily overcome by… Read more The Rattling Road to Reno – My first car was a 1959 Bug Eye Sprite that I bought in 1966, on the day I turned 16 and got my license. The Bug Eye was just seven years old at the time. Today, we think nothing of buying a seven-year-old car—doesn’t 2004 sound like new? But back then, a seven-year-old sports car… Read more Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue – I felt like I had entered a tinkerer’s medieval blacksmith shop. Vintage Gran Prix Bugattis from the 1920s and ’30s were strewn haphazardly about the courtyard of the tony Chaminade Resort and Spa in Santa Cruz, CA, and seemingly half of them were being taken apart and put back together. The tap, tap, tap of… Read more Yelberton and the Duesenberg – When I was growing up in San Francisco, my grandparents and I watched the ’49ers play in Kezar Stadium. Or, more correctly, we drove to our weekend farm in nearby Novato, which was just outside the 30-mile blackout range of the broadcasts, to watch the games on television. I remember the sometimes-heated discussions that occurred… Read more Gloriously and Completely Wrong – In our August, 2010 issue, I went out on an automotive limb and predicted that the aggregate total of the sales from the 2010 Monterey weekend would rebound from last year’s paltry $120m and reach the lofty, record-breaking plateau of $140m. The reaction on the web was immediate, with various chat rooms and blogs using… Read more Art Cars and Gladiators – Mix American artist Jeff Koons, the 35th anniversary of the BMW Art Car Collection, a 3-series prepped for the GT2 Class at Le Mans and a gala reception at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and the result is a striking race car that reaffirms BMW’s commitment to high performance, and to high art. In… Read moreBuy the Car, Start the Journey – {vsig}2010-9_2530{/vsig}There are two new members of the SCM menagerie, aka collection, representing opposite ends of the car world. The first is a 2006 Lotus Elise, the best new vintage car you can buy. The second is a 1958 Mercedes 220S, the beginning of the fabled S-class model that continues today.Each of these cars has taught… Read more
Looking Into The Crystal Piston – Here are two extremes of collector car acquisition. The first is the barn find, where, wearing your “Tom Cotter Taught Me How to Buy Cars” T-shirt, you slog through the backwoods of the (usually southern) countryside, until you see the back of a Ferrari 250 Monza or Split-Window Fuelie inside a falling-down garage. You find… Read more Happy Days are Here Again – On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11. A direct consequence of that was the collapse of the collector car market. For instance, Daytonas, the poster children of the Ferrari market, fell almost overnight from their August 2008 heights in Monterey of $350k, to a more earthly $225k. Alfa TZ-1s stopped changing hands… Read more Buckets of Fun – “Not all who wander are lost.” That’s a fitting description of the day I spent trolling for treasure at the Portland Swap Meet. The largest event of this type on the West Coast, it has over 4,200 vendor booths and attracts more than 50,000 gearheads. But that’s not the end of it. Right next door,… Read more March Madness – I’ve just returned from a sensory overload collector car experience in the Sunshine State. Somewhere between RM’s BMW 600 “limousine,” Gooding’s Alfa 2000 spider, Sam and Emily Mann’s Mercedes 540K Special roadster, and the Collier ex-Martini Porsche 917, ten days of March have disappeared in a collector car blur. Between auctions, seminars, meetings, and television… Read more The Market Walks Tall – Two years ago, the art market had cratered, with both Sotheby’s and Christie’s suffering huge year-over-year declines in their annual New York sales.But on February 3, the market spoke with an authoritative voice, as “Walking Man I,” a life-size bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, was sold by Sotheby’s for $104.3m, a world record for the… Read more Government-Created Collectibles – At every car club meeting, gray-haired elders debate the future of car collecting. They wonder if the current generation will wean itself from texting and playing World of Warcraft long enough to learn to use a Uni-Syn to balance their SU carburetors, or feeler gauges to measure valve clearances.They also wonder where are the Austin-Healey… Read more Pleasure and Punishment, Collector Car Style – With this February issue, we are now well into the 22nd year of Sports Car Market.Twenty-two is my lucky number. My birthday falls on the 22nd, and my race cars have always been numbered 22. When we first started SCM in our basement, as the four-page mimeographed Alfa Romeo Market Letter, we never imagined that… Read more Five Steps to Smart Collecting – In the collector car world, January is Arizona time. Last year, in an economic atmosphere that seemed considerably more bleak, 1,726 cars went to new owners, and $133m changed hands. This year, I predict we’ll see a slight uptick in sales, perhaps 10%. If the surprising strength of the recent Sotheby’s New York art sale… Read more Quirky Trumps Practical – For the past three months, I’ve managed to use the SCM 1964 Volvo 544 as my primary family car, and as my daily driver. I’ve put just over 2,000 miles on it. In September, my wife Wendie and I and our two-year-old Bradley piled into it for the 400-mile round-trip journey to Sunriver, Oregon, where… Read more Steady as She Goes – Every week, we send out the “SCM Insider” email, chock full of breaking news, auction results, select videos, and a reader poll to more than 30,000 rabid collectors like you. Our question in the June 30 newsletter asked readers to choose one of four outcomes for the 2009 Monterey weekend. Forty-four percent of you thought… Read more Assisted Suicide, Clunker Style – Over the next few months, nearly 750,000 clunkers are going to be scrapped. Not dismantled, mind you, but smashed and melted into their base, formative materials.Whether or not this is good government policy we’ll leave to our friends at The Economist. And others can debate the relative environmental effects; for instance, some claim the energy… Read more Pebble Beach, 2020 – Each year, we call this our “Pebble Beach” issue. We wrap it up about one month before the Monterey week, and through the coordination of our printer and the trucking companies, copies magically appear at nearly every Monterey venue, from the Lodge at Pebble Beach to Concorso Italiano. By its nature, SCM is both reflective… Read more Predilections and Predictions – July is an oddly quiet month in the collector car world. While there are auctions going on, vintage car shamans are still picking apart the results of the RM Maranello ($28.4m), Bonhams Monaco ($6.2m), and Mecum Indy ($33.6m) sales.And through those results, they are attempting to cast their stones and predict what will happen in… Read more Something Old, Something New – It’s been nearly ten years since I last drove in the California Mille. Dodge was the primary sponsor then, and I enjoyed the Northern California countryside from behind the wheel of a Viper. After growing up driving Alfas, with their puny 4-cylinder, 80-ci engines, mashing the throttle on a 450-horsepower, 488-ci V10 rocket sled was… Read more From Occupation to Recreation – The Grays Harbor Indoor Professional Rodeo is a three-day event, and includes Bronc Riding, Bull Riding, Calf Roping, Breakaway Roping, Steer Wrestling, Team Roping, Barrel Racing, and more. My wife’s father has a race-engine shop outside Elma, Washington, where the rodeo is held. Located between Olympia and Aberdeen in central-western Washington, it’s just two hours… Read more Far From the Madding Crowd – I propose we take a break from the constant bric-a-brac of the market. At least for a few days, let’s transport ourselves back to a simpler era, when the fundamental question wasn’t how much your motorcar was worth, but whether it could actually travel 60 miles without breaking down.In conjunction with Steve Austin, we will… Read more The New Market – Since the end of the Scottsdale auctions, the flow of emails, letters, and phone calls has been relentless. Half are shrill diatribes, demanding that SCM support the market. Any description of prices as falling, or buyers being cautious, is viewed as sabotaging the market.The second half contends that SCM is soft-pedaling the truth and doing… Read more One Fine Day – Sometimes you just need a break. So last Saturday, we pulled out the 1965 Alfa Giulia Spider Veloce and the 2000 Boxster S. SCM Legal Analyst John Draneas and wife Carlyn fired up their Lotus Elise (or would have had it actually started; more about that later), and CM Contributor Michael Pierce and his significant… Read more “As on a Darkling Plain.” – If ever we needed a respite from being pummeled by bad news, it is now. Scarcely a day goes by without a headline about an investment firm failing, a newspaper declaring bankruptcy, or a car company down to its last few billion dollars.The Dow continues to swing unpredictably like the needle of a magnet exposed… Read more All That’s Gold Still Glitters – We’ve had quite a run-up in the past few years, so a modest correction will still leave most collectors far ahead of where they were in 2004 At SCM, we sometimes feel like we are in a small spotter’s ship, stationed in the middle of an ocean. From time to time as we crest a… Read more Global Economics and Local Tomfoolery – The headlines have been relentless. “Dow plunges another 600 points.” “Consumer confidence slips again.” “Banks in every country facing liquidation.”Those of us who have been around the collector car market for a while can’t help but think of the crash of 1987, which started the flow of funds into the collector car market. The trillions… Read more Gazing Into the Crystal Piston – The continued buoyancy of the market at the top end is proof that America has the largest number of wealthy people of any nation in the world The Monterey vintage week takes up about four months of every year. There are two months of preparation for it, which at SCM means poring over each auction… Read more Just Be Glad It Runs – The cockpit swathed us in leather-trimmed functionality; ancillary systems like heating and coolant temperature control were just afterthoughts “Have you noticed the oil streak that runs across the golf course and ends up under your Alfa?”That was the comment I was greeted with as I ended the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally. A 500-mile, two-day… Read more SCM at 20-Now a Survivor® – In 1988, I had just finished a stint as a sales manager for Ferrari dealer Ron Tonkin at his Portland Gran Turismo store, and was beginning to sell collector cars, by the container-full, to the then-hot European market. While at the GT store, I had discovered Gerald Roush’s Ferrari Market Letter, the grandfather of all… Read more Do You Know the Way to Monterey? – The Insider’s Seminar is the one time each year that SCMers can come together to discuss the state of the market and the trends to come More than 20 years have passed since my first vintage-car-themed Monterey visit. The tale below is now an oft-heard one, repeated by nearly Monterey veteran. Back then the vintage… Read more Cobras, Cobras Everywhere – “My brother and I just wanted to have a car that would always be the fastest at a stoplight drag race, and it has been” Driving a 427 Cobra with sidepipes and an open exhaust is a ticket to be the badboy you always dreamed of being in high school. Within seconds of turning the… Read more The Shadow of the Internet – It’s a miserable, wet, 45-degree day in Portland as I compose this. And for the first time in a decade, I have missed the 44th annual Always-in-April Portland Swap Meet.Billed as the largest event of its kind west of the Mississippi River, it claims to have over 4,200 vendor stalls and 50,000 shoppers. An event… Read moreThe Future as History – {vsig}2008-5_2178{/vsig} As I look at these pictures of my children, Alexandra and Bradley, taken 16 years apart, I wonder what kind of automotive world they will inherit.We Baby Boomers are the last generation to experience raw, unregulated cars as daily drivers; those built from 1955 through 1974 represent a golden age of motoring. Engineers and… Read more
The End of No Reserve – At times, being at the epicenter of a collector car weekend is like sitting in a command bunker. In Scottsdale, SCM’s boots-on-the-ground team included nearly 20 market analysts, staff, and support crew. During the weekend, they fanned out to all the events, notebooks and cameras in hand, and began submitting their reports back to HQ.… Read more The Swede Meets the Italian – If I worked in a regular job, I would surely be fired for sendingand receiving so many links about collectible cars for sale First, I’d like to thank SCMers Craig Wood, of Brighton, Michigan, and Donald Sanders, of Durham, North Carolina, for being so quick to respond. When I wrote in the January issue that… Read more Leaving 1990 in the Dust – In my 20 years of writing about the market, I have never seen high-end cars accelerate in value like this For the first time in two decades, we’re considering pulling a tattered banner out of storage and hoisting it above SCM world headquarters. It bears the fabled words of Monterey Sports Car Auction founder Rick… Read more Mucking out the SCM Stable – We began to wonder if the BMW had had some conjugal visits with our failure-prone Fiat 2100 and been the recipient of its DNA You might think that with all the transactions we track, and all the conversations we have, the principals at SCM world headquarters would make nothing but brilliant deals. We’d buy perfect… Read moreOn the Road Again – If you’re reading SCM, chances are you’re an enthusiast. Your friends may uncork a vintage Barolo and marvel over the bouquet; you’d just as soon go out to the garage and inhale the gasoline and oil vapors that constantly seep out of a vintage car.This has been an exceptionally busy year for me and SCM,… Read more
Why Market-Driven Beauty is Only Skin Deep – Buckle your seatbelts and tighten your shoulder harnesses. Based on the results from Monterey, the collector car market is in the midst of a wild and woolly ride, with little way of predicting the crests and valleys in the year ahead.There are a few things we can all agree on as we plow through the… Read more
Factory Fake or Certified Authentic? – The market continues to surge toward all-time highs and surpass the prices made 18 years ago as more and more people look to buy used cars at all levels. For those looking to buy, questions about authenticity and provenance continue to be one of their keys to valuation. As we noted in our review of… Read more
Time to Buy, Sell, or Hold? – It’s been nearly 25 years since we’ve seen prices like this in the sports and exotic market. As nearly everyone knows by now, RM came within just $500,000 of setting the record for the most expensive car ever to sell at auction at their Maranello sale, where the 330 TRI/LM, s/n 0808, brought $9,281,250. It… Read more
Jurassic Swamp Meet – Fifty years from now the Petersen Museum may feature a diorama dedicated to the social gathering once known as an “automotive swap meet.” Young children will tug on their daddy’s shirtsleeves and ask, “Thousands of people just showed up and walked around for hours, hoping they might find something?” And Daddy will answer, “Yes, and… Read more
Old Car Tricks – “Push? We’re going to push the car?”It was a balmy day in the Pacific Northwest, so I had decided to take out our orange and black 1979 Triumph Spitfire. My 15-year-old daughter, Alex, was pleased with my choice, as the previous owner had put large speakers behind the seats, making it a perfect car by… Read more
A Six Pack of Sense and Sensibility – We at SCM have long maintained that a well-filled garage is like a well-stocked wine cellar. Just as different times of day, different events, and different meals call for different pourings, so, too, do different motoring adventures require different motoring choices. And just as each wine has its own trademark taste, bouquet, and color, each… Read more
Somebody Stop Me! – Perhaps SCM should be in the soft adventure business. But rather than offering a chance to parachute off mountaintops attached to a safety-line, or fly a Russian Mig with an instructor who will keep you from nosing into the ground, we have something even better. Last year, my former editor at Automobile Magazine, Joe Lorio,… Read more
A Steering Wheel as the Circle of Life – “How did you get started with cars?” is a question I’m often asked.While I have been fortunate to have a variety of careers and occupational passions, cars and machinery came first.My earliest memories of the mysteries of the internal combustion engine revolve around my grandfather, Thomas Lester McDowell, who, along with my grandmother, Dorel Evelyn,… Read more
Riding High – Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and other times it leads to nothing but trouble. Our 1978 911SC is a perfect case in point. Relatively pampered, in mostly original paint, and with 177,000 miles on it when it joined our stable last year, it rode low and had an appealing “boy racer” look. It also had a… Read more
Going to the Mat with a Paddle – “That’s a good piece, you should buy it.”The auction catalog description read, “Persian Heriz carpet, geometric central medallion and stylized floral decoration on madder red ground with ivory spandrels, 9′ 6″ x 11′ 9”. Estimate: $700-$900.”Offered by local auction house O’Gallerie, the rug met my three criteria: It was the right orange-red color; the size… Read more
Another Soft Adventure – The two emotions dominating the market today are exuberance-especially from new collectors-and wariness, from those who have seen this all before.I’ve just finished participating in the three-day, Miles Collier-hosted symposium, Connoisseurship 2006. This was my third time attending, and the second time I have been privileged to be a member of the faculty.In addition to… Read more
It’s Not a Bubble, It’s a Wave – For the past decade, we’ve been watching the price of real estate escalate, seemingly without an end in sight. Some houses seem to double every decade, and, despite the increases, there appears to be no shortage of eager, willing buyers. So why are we so surprised when GT350s, worth $50,000 five years ago, routinely sell… Read more
The Year of the Car – The 2006 North American International Auto Show in Detroit heralded the return of the car. As gas prices soar, customers are looking for-and manufacturers are competing to offer-products that are decidedly European in flavor. Compact size, styling, affordability, efficiency, and performance all seemed equal parts of the equation, and were a welcome respite from the… Read more
You Can Go Home Again – If knowledge is power, SCMers are about to become an even more formidable group of collectors. The information on all 40,000 cars in our database will soon be available to you 24/7, from anywhere in the world, via your handheld devices.Starting at the Scottsdale auctions in January, anyone with a Treo, Blackberry, or similar device… Read more
Frommer, Zagat, and Me – What makes a car collectible? And what makes one car more desirable than another? We all might agree that a 1967 911S is more desirable that a 1977, but exactly why? At SCM, we have long felt there was a need for an evaluation and rating system for collectible cars that considered more than just… Read more
An Affair Revisited – Just after Monterey, I got a call that delighted the enthusiast in me, and terrified what remains of the sensible adult. In 1995, I sold one of my favorite cars, a 1965 Alfa Giulia Spider Veloce, to Ken Metzger, a friend in Belvedere, CA, for $22,000. Now, a decade later, he offered the car back… Read more
Shredding Rubber and Shedding Parts – I took the SCM 1963 Corvette split-window out for a spin last week, a shake-down for this year’s running of the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally.I stopped to pick up my good friend Steve Sargent, who, although not a full-bore car guy, does drive a four-cylinder BMW Z3 convertible in addition to the practical Volvo… Read more
Pick Six – Alfa Romeo is the featured marque at a variety of events in Monterey this year, so sprinkled throughout this issue you’ll find a focus on Alfas. Putting all this stuff together had me itching to write yet another chapter in my long saga with the marque, so last week I tried to buy a Spider… Read more
How My Bimmer Turned into a Pacer – I drove to Seattle on a Saturday morning in a 2006 BMW 325i, and by the time I returned the following day I was behind the wheel of a 1977 AMC Pacer wagon. And yes, it was by choice.The BMW is a fine car, with a pleasing appearance less Bangle-ized than its upmarket stablemates. As… Read more
Where Have All the Cheap Cars Gone? – The first issue of SCM roared off the presses (or more accurately, was spit out of a mimeograph machine) in 1988. We were just in time to ride the upsurge in the market through its crest in early 1990.I was buying and selling sports and imports at the time, and day after day through February… Read more
The End of Collectible Cars – It’s time we all stopped pretending. For all intents and purposes, the last collectible serial production car rolled off the assembly line sometime in the mid-1970s.SCM has long maintained that the 1955-73 period will be regarded as the Golden Age of collectible cars, when the automotive equivalents of Van Gogh, Puccini and Frank Lloyd Wright… Read more
Of Miatas and Mini-Cars – The 1974 Mustang II, by nearly any standard, was a pathetic shadow of the original. It was also a terrific sales success, its 384,000 units sold far outstripping the 134,267 of the 1973, final-year, “Big Mustang.”The reason Mustang IIs flew out of the showroom was simple. Gas prices zoomed as a result of the 1973… Read more
Grandpa’s Mod-Con Mercury – While I’ve never been to a 24-hour race, the Speed Channel coverage of the 2005 Barrett-Jackson auction came close. Although my duties in the broadcast booth were spread over four days, that’s a lot of hours to put in watching the world’s shiniest used car lot in action.Bob Varsha and Brock Yates, my boothmates, were… Read more
The DMV Reunion – I celebrated a birthday recently, which was marked in part by an obligatory journey to the local DMV to get my license renewed. The good news was that I weigh nearly 30 pounds less than I did eight years ago when I last renewed, thanks to my daily before-dawn five-mile run. The bad news is… Read more
The SCM Superbird – We don’t do things halfway here at SCM. I’ll offer as proof my first muscle car purchase: A 1970 Plymouth Superbird, Vitamin C orange with a black vinyl interior.The year was 1989, and the following advertisement appeared on the front page of the local Autotrader: “1970 Superbird, 29,000 original miles, 4-speed, 440-4bbl, bench seat, window… Read more
Getting Our Kicks – I’m going to blame this one on Ed Welburn, General Motors design chief. The two of us were kicking tires at the RM Amelia Island auction last March, and came across a 1966 Sting Ray coupe. Welburn mentioned that it was nearly exactly what he wanted, a car in driving condition with a small-block.”But it… Read more
Giuliettas, GTs and Gullwings – Imagine a car collection to be like a well-stocked wine cellar, with each flight contributing its own particular palate, body and boquet. During the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to drink deeply from three quite different appellations, that of the Ford GT, the Alfa Romeo Giulietta and the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing.I was just… Read more
You Can Never Have Too Many Rotors – The SCM E-type has come and gone, but its brief time with us was memorable.White with black leather, it was a 1967 4.2-liter Series I coupe. My co-conspirator in this latest adventure was Dave Stewart, of Aurora, OR, whom I met when he attended an SCM Insider’s Seminar at Barrett-Jackson some years ago. (At that… Read more
Forever Young – Austin-Healey was really a one-trick pony, a company that produced a single design and a few variations on that theme. From the first svelte, unadorned 100-4, with its graunchy three-speed gearbox and fold-down windshield, to the final ornate and luxurious BJ8, all the models we now call Big Healeys shared the same basic look. But… Read more
Ferraris as Everyday People – I remember the first time I saw a Ferrari being used to haul lumber. It was in the late ’80s and I was in the midst of rebuilding my front porch. I’d driven my 1983 Jeep Grand Wagoneer to the local lumberyard for a couple of sheets of plywood. In the parking lot, a fellow… Read more
Monterey, Then and Now – It was July of 1985, and the Monterey Historics were just a few weeks away. The featured marque was Alfa Romeo, and for the first time in a decade, I didn’t own one. My 1969 boat-tailed Spider with rusty floors had just gone away, and I was desperate.In those days when my day job was… Read more
Lucky Drives Again – It was 18 months ago that SCM Legal Analyst John Draneas and I bought a 1965 three-cylinder, two-stroke Saab 96 on eBay, plucked it out of a barn in Rimini, MT, and tried to drive it home to Portland.Readers may recall that we covered 400 of the 700 miles with little drama aside from a… Read more
E-Types, E55s and XR-75s – I recently spent two weeks streaking across Florida in a Mercedes E55 AMG, one of today’s definitive high-performance full-size sedans. From its 469-horsepower supercharged V8 to its crisp-shifting, manually-controllable automatic transmission, the car is a finely-tuned machine that delights in gobbling up vast distances effortlessly. Aside from its expectedly pathetic navigation system, the E55 is… Read more
Reality TV, Barrett-Jackson Style – I like auctions as much as the next guy. In fact, I probably like them a little more than that-a good thing given my day job. But even for me, an hour or so at a time is about all I can take of the cacophonous babble emanating from most auction podiums.But I put in… Read more
America By Fiat – Chalk it up to the power of the press.Two months ago, I mentioned that I was looking for a Ferrari GTC/4. In response to that, SCMer Howard Jacobs, of suburban Cleveland, wrote us advising that rather than a C/4, we should consider a 456 GTA, similar to the one he used as a daily driver.… Read more
“At The End Of The Day, The Best Car Wins” – We all love cars of such varying types, shapes and accoutrements that it’s hard to generalize what makes a car appealing when new, or to predict whether it will become collectible as it ages. The North American International Auto Show is a litmus test of attitudes, of each car company’s ability to achieve that hallmark… Read more
His ‘n’ Hers Ferraris – The Martin-Banzer garage is about to get more interesting. It appears that Cindy Banzer, my wife and SCM Executive Editor, has found her blue 308 GTS, and I’m back in the hunt for a GTC/4.The past few months have been a collector-car dry spell for us, as we’ve focused on growing the magazine. In August,… Read more
“I Don’t Care What You Say, You’ll Never Have As Many Cars As Harold E. LeMay” – Harold LeMay was a car guy, just like you and me in a lot of ways. He figured out how to use his day job, owning waste-hauling franchises, to help him build his car collection. Myth has it he paid a spiff to garbage collectors who told him about interesting cars they came across on… Read more
Why Healeys are Worth More Than Ferraris – Watching an Austin-Healey 3000 sell for $90,000 is both exhilarating and bewildering. The bidding in the crowded auditorium at the DoubleTree, for the brilliantly restored blue BJ8, started at $30,000 and sped quickly to $60,000.RM’s auctioneer, Peter Bainbridge, was enjoying himself. And why wouldn’t he, when he’s got real bidders, a good product and a… Read more
“Better Than New” – In the midst of the thunderstorm, a bolt of lightening struck the century-old, 200 foot tall fir tree next to our home, and then jumped to our roof. The force of nature is powerful; The electricity that surged through the house blew me back five feet from my computer keyboard. Our network router melted, the… Read more
First Drive – There’s a lot going on at SCM world headquarters this month, but we’ll get to that in a minute. There’s been a milestone occurrence in the Martin-Banzer family. Last weekend, our 11-year-old daughter, Alexandra, learned to drive. Early piloting is a tradition in our family; My grandfather, Tom McDowell, taught me how to operate his… Read more
Black LT1s and Blue 308s – “I love you guys. When a new SCM hits my mailbox it feels like a letter from good friends. Seriously. So as your friend, Keith, I want to help you enjoy a Ferrari and NOT LOSE LOTS OF MONEY ON IT. Which can be done despite your last two experiences, with your 330 American and… Read more
The $22-A-Day Ferrari – Our 1984 Mondial has gone to a new home. For $23,000, a Ferrari enthusiast in Benicia, California, put it into his garage. It seemed a fair-enough price for a 53,000-mile car, in light metallic green, that was in need of its major service. And then I did something no owner of an exotic car should… Read more
Art is Where You Find It – RAROTONGA, COOK ISLANDS, SOUTH PACIFIC Oregon’s a nasty place to be in the winter, dismal with gray skies and endless rain. Hence, when spring break comes along and our eleven-year-old daughter Alexandra has some time off, Managing Editor Cindy Banzer (my spouse) and I make sure our annual vacation takes us somewhere very far away… Read more
Puttin’ On The Ritz – Amelia Island, FloridaRain is the natural enemy of car shows. Carefully manicured golf courses quickly turn to muddy quagmires and cars that have been meticulously cleaned for judging get spattered with grime. Spectators, rather than trying to snap memorable photos, vie to see who can carry the largest umbrella. All of which makes what happened… Read more
Lord, Won’t You Buy Me A 4Matic Benz – For the first time in 18 years, there’s a new car with SCM Managing Editor Cindy Banzer’s name on it, heading our way. Well, not exactly brand new, but new to the Martin-Banzer family. A 1999 Mercedes E320 4Matic sedan in champagne with tan leather, it’s currently on a transporter making the journey from St.… Read more
It’s a Vision Thing – DETROIT, MICHIGANThe future of the automobile will be shaped by the collision of grand strategies and the realities of the marketplace. At the recently concluded North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), held at Cobo Center in Detroit, the struggle between car makers to hold and increase market share was palpable and ferocious.Like gladiators in a… Read more
Sweet Fifteen – Fifteen years ago, in 1989, the first issue of Sports Car Market magazine rolled off the presses. Or more accurately, the eight pages of the Alfa Romeo Market Letter, as it was then called, spewed out of a mimeograph machine. At the time, we thought we were launching a business. But we were really just… Read more
Andalusian Suite – VALENCIA, SPAINSomewhere outside of Grenada, Spain, I watched from the passenger seat as Jean Sage ran the engine in his 250 SWB to 6,500 rpm. Accelerating up a short straight on a closed-road hillclimb, he cracked a perfect upshift into third before hitting the brakes, double-clutching back down into second, and pitching the car sideways… Read more
Different Strokes – Leaving Helena, Montana, we passed the Wok ‘N’ Roll sushi house on our way towards the Continental Divide. Our mount was a newly purchased 1965 Saab 96, with a 46-horsepower, 841cc two-stroke engine.My co-conspirator John Draneas and I found the car on eBay Motors, the result of a late-night Internet search after a few too… Read more
The Stuff of Dreams – STRATFORD-ON-AVON, EnglandAs I write this, we are nearing the end of our SCM Goodwood Tour. Yesterday we visited the ruins of Old Sarum, where the builders of Stonehenge are thought to have lived, and then went on to the monument itself. A superb and provocative performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company of “The Tempest” filled… Read more
It’s a Jungle Out There – While getting ready to take our Healey to the frame shop (more on that later), I thought back on the collector cars Ms. Banzer and I have owned over the past few years.A few, like the ’72 Datsun 240Z, were painless experiences. Others, including our ’59 Isetta and ’72 Chevy Impala convertible, involved minor automotive… Read more
Quality Seat Time – We hadn’t gotten more than 20 miles from our Portland, Oregon, home. Trapped by rush-hour traffic, the big Healey’s temperature started to climb. The needle on the gauge quickly passed the 212-degree mark, and visions of warped heads and steaming radiators danced in my head. “Just drive on the shoulder, around the traffic,” offered my… Read more
The Cuban Galapagos of Yankee Cars – Sometimes we collectors should just leave well enough alone. A recent article in the New York Times about American cars in Cuba, written in part to preview a PBS program entitled “Classic American Cars of Cuba,” extolled the creativity of the owner/mechanics there. Since the embargo in 1959, no American cars or parts have been… Read more
SCM, Phase II – In October, 1963, Austin-Healey introduced the BJ8, with an updated interior including a wood-veneered dash. Several months later, the so-called phase II version of the Big Healey was unveiled, with many updates such as dual lenses for braking and winking, and exterior refinements including such advanced features as locking door handles.SCM is moving at a… Read more
A Thousand Here, A Thousand There – In Oregon, May 1 is the official beginning of our sports car season. Our garage is soon filled with the chirping of a half-dozen vehicles, each, like a hungry baby bird, crying out for hundred-dollar bills to be tossed under its hood in an annual rite of spring awakening.Cindy’s 1978 Alfa Spider was first out… Read more
Give That Car an “A” – At SCM, we often describe cars as being “first tier” or “second tier” collectibles. These terms are used intuitively, rather than being based on any analytical system. While putting together this year’s Pocket Price Guide, we were reviewing our five-star short-term appreciation rating, and felt it left something to be desired.The short-term appreciation scale, which… Read more
Shamed by Swig – Ferrari Mondials and snow-packed roads don’t mix very well. That was just one of the many thoughts that crossed my mind as we slid sideways towards the edge of the mountain road. I hadn’t planned on using the Ferrari as a snowmobile, but Martin Swig has a way of rearranging reality to suit his priorities.… Read more
My Green Ferrari – The car hauler should be pulling up any day now, delivering the newest addition to the Martin-Banzer menagerie. Or is that collection?It’s a 1984 Ferrari Mondial Cabriolet, in the distinctive color of light metallic green, with a tan leather interior. A birthday present, sort of, it came into my life this past December 22, the… Read more
Mooners and Masterpieces – January and August are the two busiest months on the collector car calendar, but they are as different as desert and ocean. August in Monterey is a three-day spectacle of disposable wealth, with million-dollar cars selling haphazardly across the Peninsula the way oils are splashed on a Jackson Pollock painting.January in Arizona is more like… Read more
Shuffling the Deck – It’s a good thing we thrive on change. During the past two months, the Martin-Banzer garage has seen a lot of comings and goings.It all started back in June when our 39,000-mile 240Z went off to a subscriber in Lorton, Virginia. With a slot in the garage to fill, we were immediately on the hunt.… Read more
Where Do We Go From Here? – “As hobbies go, buying, restoring and driving old cars is a harmless-though often expensive-indulgence, far removed from the worlds of global politics and terrorist plots.”That was the lead sentence for an article I wrote last month for New York Times, exploring the reactions of the collector car community to the terrorist attacks on America.As our… Read more
A Done Car – For the past month, I’ve been enjoying the company of an old friend. It came into our life in 1988, just after I had left my position as artistic director of Ballet Oregon and become a sales manager for Ron Tonkin Gran Turismo, hawking Ferraris, Alfas, Maseratis and Lotuses. Cindy was in elected office as… Read more
Lancias ‘R’ Us – Both nature and car collectors abhor a vacuum.In July we bid farewell to our 1972 240Z and our 1967 Alfa Duetto race car. The Z went to an SCM subscriber in Lorton, Virginia, and the Duetto to good friends and SCM’ers Doug Zaitz and Portland’s Veloce Motors owner Dan Sommers, who had maintained the car.This… Read more
Going, Going, Gone Forever – Monterey is a bellwether weekend, as RM, Christie’s and Bonhams & Brooks duke it out. Each is offering a delectable array of first-tier collectible automobiles, and the automotive investment world watches and holds its breath as four-hundred special cars cross the block.Will collectible autos get caught up in the widespread financial misery reflected by the… Read more
It’s All About the Hunt – I venture to hypothesize that SCM readers are always searching for the flimsiest posibble excuse to justify buying another car. “I don’t have one in that color.” “It’s cheaper to buy this one than restore the one I have.” “I always wanted one when I was in high school.” And the perennial favorite, “At that… Read more
Do You Know the Way to… Auburn? – We confess. As sports car fanatics, Auburn, Indiana has never been at the center of our radar screen. But as SCM continues to expand its coverage of America’s grand luxury marques, including Duesenberg, Cord and Auburn, a trip to their home city seemed appropriate. Additionally, Auburn is the location of the eBay/Kruse International complex, so… Read more
The General Meets the Snake – Brand heritage has been the rage with new car makers for some time now. “Bentley Returns to Le Mans” trumpets one ad agency, as the now-VW-owned, once-English company attempts to regain some of the glory it covered itself with sixty years ago. The PT Cruiser is a gangster car for the 21st Century while the… Read more
Skinned-Knuckle Diagnostics – We of the Boomer generation grew up sneaking J.C. Whitney and Warshawsky catalogs onto our desks during biology lectures. Figuring out how to afford those trick, high-compression, .040-inch oversize pistons and rings for our Bug Eye Sprites was a daily topic of discussion. Tinkering with cars was our lifestyle. There was all sorts of wonderful… Read more
Our Own Fakey-Doo – This is all Martin Swig’s fault. The iconoclastic, San Francisco-based collector and enthusiast has been trying to lay us away in a Ford for some time. Not just any Ford, mind you, but a 1954 Mainline Six Business Coupe. “It’s the model Piero Taruffi drove in the ’54 Carrera,” Swig related. “It was sponsored by… Read more
Just A Car – I have long argued that cars are machinery first, and art second. With the very rare exception of pure show cars, they were designed to be driven, not to be displayed for gawking passersby. It is only through the use of a car that its underlying magnificent strengths and disappointing weaknesses emerge.Our Ferrari is nearly… Read more
Computers, Chickens & Bedsprings – The streets of X’ian, China are a maelstrom of transportation contraptions, from hand-drawn oxcarts laden with unopened, boxed color televisions to brand-new Mercedes S-class sedans. While the Chinese may suffer from a lack of political freedom, in terms of motorized conveyances, they are Joan Claybrooke’s worst nightmare. The rule of thumb seems to be, if… Read more
The Rites of Winter – As the Pacific Northwest settles into winter and the temperatures drop below freezing each night, we dress our cars in their winter clothes just as we make sure our heavy coats and gloves are hung by the door. Cindy’s ’83 Mercedes-Benz 123-body 300 Turbodiesel, which lives outdoors, suckles nightly on an orange extension cord attached… Read more
Legends in Kentucky – Watching Formula One Champion Phil Hill tinker with the handbrake assembly on a 1929 Bentley three-liter open tourer was like being at a rehearsal in Manhattan while modern dance choreographer Martha Graham fine-tuned her ballets. Graham had an instinctive understanding of how to put a dance together for maximum artistic and intellectual effect. Hill, after… Read more
Kill It Or Keep It? – It’s hard to kill a car you care about. Case in point: two years ago we bought our son Eric, then eighteen years old, a 1978 Mercedes 280 saloon. This car was chosen after his older brother managed to hasten the path of two more sporty automobiles, a Fiat 124 Spider and a ’65 VW… Read more
Hitting the Road – Can there be any time of year better than this for the enthusiast? As this issue of SCM is being put to bed, we are preparing our 1962 Ferrari 330 America for its vintage event debut on the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally, and, simultaneously, the SCM staff is packing all of the requisite paraphernalia… Read more
Is That Your Car, Mr. Bond? – The array of cars being offered by RM’s Monterey Sports Car Auction, Christie’s at Pebble Beach and Brooks at Quail Lodge during the Monterey weekend is unprecedented in its scale, scope and quality. There will be over $50M in cars crossing the block during a three-day period, a tribute to the American economy which continues… Read more
The Beat Beat Beat of the Auctions – With the driving rhythm of a Cole Porter tune, the names of the summer’s events unfold. Collectors are tidying up their bank letters of credit and consignors are performing last minute detailing. RM at Meadow Brook. Mecum at Road America. Silver at Reno. Kruse at Auburn. Spectrum at Palm Springs. Christie’s, RM and Brooks at… Read more
Thank You, Mr. Petersen – We’re busy packing our bags for a pair of trips. First comes an overnight jaunt to Los Angeles for the presentation of the Meguiar’s Collector Car Hobby Person of the Year Award to Robert Petersen. While Petersen is best known for his creation of the car magazine industry with titles including Hot Rod and Motor… Read more
The Rites of Spring – If you’ve got gasoline in your blood, and live in an area with four seasons of weather, it’s easy to tell when Spring has arrived. Suddenly all the vehicle maintenance projects you’ve been putting off since last October rear up and demand attention. Terminals are cleaned and batteries charged, oil changed, brake fluid flushed and… Read more
Buicks and Pontiacs and Alfas, Oh My – General Motors recently announced that it has purchased 20% of Fiat Auto, and that Fiat has, in return, purchased 5% of GM. Buried in the body of an article in the Wall Street Journal was the following statement: “In the U.S., where Fiat hasn’t played for years, the two are likely to team up. The… Read more
Ferraris & Blue Jeans – We’ve been using our 330 America as a daily driver. Picking up our daughter, Alexandra, from elementary school and taking her to gymnastics. (“Daddy, are you going to drive me in the noisy red car today?”) Going shopping. Running errands. A 29-gallon aquarium, perfect for rearing Apistogramma agassizi cichlids, fits nicely in the back seat… Read more
A Golden Age of Sports Cars – As we write this, we have just returned from the Detroit International Auto Show, and are preparing to make a quick turnaround and head to the four-auction carnival in Arizona. If one had to choose between the two places, certainly the baking heat of January in the Southwest would win over the blustery cold of… Read more
A Collector Car Oasis – The American collector car auction year has just two seasons. One is the end-of-summer Monterey Historic extravaganza, with six months worth of activities crammed like a pkzipped computer file into 96 crazy hours. The trends we saw in Monterey boded well for the market, with high selling rates from all three companies there (Christie’s, Brooks… Read more
Slick At Last – After twelve years and 144 issues, SCM has gone slick. Printing on coated stock allows us to reproduce black and white photos at a much higher level of quality, and the increased number of full-color editorial pages will enhance the market information in every issue. Even better, we can begin to add select pictorial concours… Read more
Big Bear to Big Apple – From Imogene Pass, snow-covered at 13,114-feet in the Rockies, to the sea-level canyons of Manhattan, it was a busy month. First, taking a break from the world of vintage cars courtesy of Land Rover, I had the opportunity to drive a Range Rover across the Colorado Rockies. We passed through Ouray, Telluride, Gladstone and Old… Read more
A $45 Million Fireworks Display – Monterey this year was a three-day auction-block fireworks show, with 228 of 286 cars that crossed the block selling for a 79% rate and a sales total of just over $45 million. We’ll have a complete report in next month’s issue, but our first reaction is that while the overall sales rate was strong, a… Read more
Bonneville, Bugattis and Gruel – As you read this, I will be hurtling across the Bonneville Salt Flats in a highly modified 1991 Alfa Romeo Spider, in an attempt to set a few class Land Speed Records. Mike Besic and Craig Beilat will share the driving as we take turns flinging ourselves at a variety of goals in the 150… Read more
Car Collecting in the 21st Century – Isn’t it time to give the Monterey weekend an official name? Let’s get the folks from Pebble Beach, Concorso Italiano, the auctions and Laguna Seca together and keep them sequestered until the white smoke from the chimney indicates they’ve chosen something that encompasses the myriad activities that go on. It doesn’t have to be complicated;… Read more
An L.A. Weekend – It has long seemed strange that Los Angeles, the first metropolis in the U.S. shaped by the motorcar, and the birthplace of nearly every automotive trend from hot rods to low riders, should have a paucity of high-end automotive activities. Auction companies have tried and failed to establish a regular foothold, concours have come and… Read more
A Focus Group 300SL? – We’ve spent the last five days behind the wheel of an Oldsmobile mini-van, chasing vintage cars. As the host of a television show Martin Swig is producing about the California Mille for Speedvision, my task was to cheerily interview participants first thing in the morning, then criss-cross the route looking for good taping locations, and… Read more
No Longer The King – It’s painful to watch once high-performing veteran athletes in the last years of their careers, as they try desperately to hold on to their departing glory. We see less of their past brilliance than of their current diminished capabilities. I thought about this while piloting my ’64 Ferrari 330 America on urban freeways last week.… Read more
The Never-Ending Auction – If I were running an auction company, I’d be paying more than a little attention to the proliferation of cars being sold through the Internet. While much of the hype about the Internet is admittedly overblown, nonetheless there are trends emerging that bear watching.Amongst the proliferating on-line auction sites, the only one that has reached… Read more
Bring on the Mosquitoes – Would you have bought it anyway?That’s what we seem to be asked most frequently about our 1964 Ferrari 330 America, pulled from a barn in Butte, Montana last October.As the bills pile up, and the car remains stationary, that’s a fair question.Since taking delivery of S/N 330GT5077, we’ve had Nasko of Nasko’s Imports put in… Read more
They Shoot Pintos, Don’t They? – Although Peter Egan at Road & Track probably doesn’t pen his monthly column just to goad us into philosophical musings about the hobby we share, nonetheless he’s done it again. In a recent column, he writes of stumbling across a derelict TR4 in a barnyard, and making the obligatory $50 offer for it, rationalizing that… Read more
When Old Cars Were New – “It was a grand time to be writing about cars,” said Car and Driver’s Brock Yates at the recent International Automotive Media Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was referring to the ’60s and early ’70s, when the horsepower race between American manufacturers was in full swing, Ford was locked in its titanic battle with… Read more
A Red Egg for Christmas – Our day started innocently enough. Seven-year-old daughter Alexandra and I headed to a local swap meet in search of a pre-’55 American car to use in Martin Swig’s La Carrera Nevada event. While wading through the rusting junk, a.k.a. valuable restorable collector cars, she pulled suddenly at my sleeve.”Look Daddy, it’s an Easter Egg car.”… Read more
From the Speedway to Syracuse – Our circuitous, car-filled week started with a trip to the Autofair at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina, where I was co-host of a Speedvision special, “Muscle Car Mania,” to be broadcast Thanksgiving weekend. The swap meet and car show occupied the entire infield of the Speedway, and presented over 100,000 enthusiasts with the… Read more
The V12 in the Driveway – Now that the annual Monterey convention of dealers and stealers, gearheads and tire-kickers, lookie-lous and wallet-flashers is over, it’s time to reflect. For several years, the weekend’s events have overlapped, but this year the congestion was ludicrous. The traffic jam to the track on Saturday rivaled the Bronx expressway on a Friday afternoon before the… Read more
Collapsed – We’ve just returned from a grand three days, participating in the 10th Annual Monte Shelton N.W. Classic Rally. Our ’68 Porsche 911L performed splendidly for the 1,000 miles through Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, and never missed a beat until it was three miles from home. We stopped to pick up our daughter at my wife’s… Read more
Enjoy the Ride – If you’ve been dabbling in collector cars for a decade or more, you’ve been through the meteoric highs and the dismal, depressing lows. Eight years ago, carbureted Ferrari 308s sold for over $70,000, and Boxers passed $250,000. Porsche Speedsters were bringing $100,000, and flat-floor Jaguar E-type convertibles even more. If you were selling, those were… Read more
Let’s Tape the Headlights and Go – Until the late 1950s, it was not uncommon for production sports cars like Alfa Giuliettas and Porsche Speedsters to be driven to the track, raced and driven home. Competition preparation consisted of criss-crossing their headlights with pieces of black tape to keep the lens from shattering into a thousand pieces if a rock hit it,… Read more
Seize the Moment – Fifty years from now, this period will be looked upon as the golden age of vintage car motoring. We are fortunate to live at a time when our classics, the cars just now becoming 30 years old, are very proficient machines, capable of satisfying back-road velocity along with high-speed autoroute transits.Consider this. Our newly acquired… Read more
It’s Your Deal – We are frequently reminded that there are no constants in the car market. No price is absolutely too high or too low, no deal completely good or bad. A 1966 Triumph TR4 that may only bring $8,000 when dragged out of a garage in Arkansas may fetch $18,000 when fully detailed and offered under the… Read more
Just Another $40 Million Buying Spree – While most of the collector car market percolates along, with prices for sound cars appreciating gradually, one segment has ignited with the fury of a Saturn V booster rocket. During the last month, John McCaw of Bellevue, Washington, who made his fortune in the cellular phone business, has spent over $40 million enhancing his already… Read more
Completely Original (Mostly) – What constitutes an original car? Decipher the following advertisement: “Completely original except for new paint, fresh interior and redone engine.” Exactly what is original about this car? Is the new paint enamel when the original was lacquer? Have the seats been upgraded from vinyl to leather? Has a higher-performance camshaft been fitted when the engine… Read more
