Keith Martin

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

“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…

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…