Sites and Sounds at Barrett-Jacksons Scottsdale, Az 2012

Sit back and crank up the sound….you are gonna love hearing this Camaro!!

 

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Thanks for reading

Tim

Model Car 1965 Ford Thunderbird

If I were able to collect any number of cars, I’d need 3 football fields just to park them side by side and end to end (length and width).  Since I don’t have that kind of acreage, I collect a few die-casts, mainly from the Danbury Mint and 1/8 or 1/24 scale.

Here are a few pics of my 1965 T-Bird:

1965 T-Bird

 

Love the white walls and red stripe tires.

 

Tails lights are great.

 

The detail is pretty good.  In the first image you can see all the trunk hardware.

I’m not a photographer and got some tips from my son.

Drop a note if you have a die-cast collection.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Barrett-Jackson – Car Art 2

This is one of my favorite photos thus far (with over 600 to look at it’s gonna take a while).

This is my son’s shot of a 1956 BelAir.

 

Bel Air side molding.

 

Thanks for reading.

Tim

1934 Ford V8 Deluxe Roaster and 1932 Ford Convertible Sedan Give-Aways

Yup you read that correctly.

I’ll be giving away  two (2)  National Motor Museum Mint die-cast (metal) Ford licensed replicas.

1934 V8 Deluxe Roadster (image is of the card that comes with the car)

 

1932 V8 Convertible Sedan (Image is of the card that comes with the car)

Want to know how to win?

Grab my feed/subscribe or follow The Average Guy’s Car Restoration, Mods and Racing (https://www.average-guys-car-restoration-mods-racing.com/ or www.timsweet.wordpress.com) and stay tuned for details.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

Restoring a 1953 Chevy Cop Car!

Whenever I can I like post up a plea for someone doing a restoration that may need some assistance. The Sarasota County Lodge #45 needs assistance with restoring a 1953 patrol car. This car is a ’53 Chevy Bel Air 150.

Here are some details:

1953 Chevy Bel Air 150

 

The Sarasota County Lodge #45 of the Fraternal Order of Police is spearheading a project that will involve the restoration of an antique patrol car. The vehicle will match one that was actually used by the sheriff’s office since the office first purchased patrol cars in 1953. Once the restoration is complete, the vehicle will be donated to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office for various public uses.

By reviewing photographs in “From Shield to Star,” a book by retired Sgt. Bob Snell that documents the history of the department, several vehicles were identified by make and model. The first fleet of four vehicles consisted of 1953 Chevrolet Bel Air 150s. The project is being coordinated by FOP #45 Vice-President Kevin Lynch, who is a retired SSO lieutenant. Lynch has overseen the restoration of several emergency vehicles including two fire trucks and a Cadillac ambulance that he currently owns.
Tax-deductible contributions to this project can be sent to The Community Foundation of Sarasota County, P. O. Box 49587, Sarasota, FL 34230-6587, marked for the antique patrol car project.
The FOP is also looking for in-kind services and donations such as labor and supplies needed for the project, and possibly the vehicle itself. Storage space will also be needed for the vehicle as well as initial transportation to Sarasota. Questions can be sent to FOP Lodge #45 at P.O. Box 1488, Englewood, FL 34295-1488 or e-mailed to Lynch at floridafop45@yahoo.com. You may also visit the Lodge #45 website at foplodge45.com.

Thanks for help out.

Tim

 

Barrett-Jackson – Car Art

I love car art, whether it be paintings of cars or car parts, photographs of either, hood ornaments, door handles, even bumpers and grills.  From time to time I pick up piece, or my wife does. 

My Son is a digital art’s major and photographer and he takes some great shots and produce some fantastic images.  The image of the two corvettes at an auto cross is his creation.  Interesting enough the red vette was my 1984 and the black C6 was an oman, as I now own a black C6.

At Barrett-Jackson besides beautiful cars there is a huge area for venders and car art is everywhere and yes my wife did find a piece for me from photographer Shane Knight – I’ll get to him in another entry.  But it is a mecca for creating your own car art.  It’s a bit crowded to set up you easel and whip out your paint brushes or charcoal, but a good camera and a little skill even the Average Guy and get some shot to take home and play with.

Now I can’t say as I have a great eye for doing this myself but over the next posts associated with this title, I’ll show you some that we took.  Believe it or not my wife did a great job with just her new Iphone 4S camera and of course my son with his higher end digital camera and lens.

First up is a shot my son took.  I can’t recall the car but I bet someone out there can.

Photo by RJS - prints are available

 
Great looking dashand side mirror.  Steering wheel is of course, not original.   This is one of my favorites.
 
Thanks for reading.
Tim

Barrett-Jackson Results – The Tucker

Having attended the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Az. and blogging about it, thought I’d make a few entries as a follow-up.

I written about previous times I’ve attended (actually it is a family and friend affair – last year  went with friends and the previous and this year our son was able make room in his schedule to go) and how much fun it is and all of the events.

An additional thrill is being there in person and seeing some of the rarest cars on the planet.

Case in point is this Tucker.  That eventually sold for $ 2.9 million!!!  This picture is from Hemmings:

Beautiful car...but...

…Under the lights and in person….

1948 Tucker A beauiful Car!!!

Truly a great piece of history.

More coming…like…..wonder where some of those Win Both Vettes or Mustangs end up?   You’ll see.

Thanks for reading.

Tim

My ’71 Olds -COALESCENCE

From:  COALESCENCE
the union of diverse things into one body or form

http://acoalescence.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/my-71-olds/

Posted on January 19, 2012

Back in 1973-75, when I was 16 to 18 years of age, I worked in the maintenance department of Ray County Memorial Hospital in Richmond, Missouri. I mopped, swept, and vacuumed floors, cut the grass and trimmed hedges, hauled trash (that you don’t want to know about) to the local dump, and sometimes cleaned out ambulances after particularly “messy” runs. I earned $1.65 an hour to perform these duties.

During the 2 ½ years I worked for the hospital, I owned four different cars. These cars, my first four, were all Chevrolets: two ‘65 Impala Super Sports, a ’68 Impala Custom, and a ‘67 Malibu. No one handed me these vehicles: I bought them, insured them, and maintained them from the money I earned working nights, weekends, and summers at the hospital. Yes, I’m sure that seems like a lot of cars in a short period of time for a high school kid to buy and keep up with, but cars were cheap in the ‘70s, and I was good with money . . . then.

Now I dearly loved my first four cars, but there was one car I really, really had my eye on during the time I worked at Ray County Memorial . . . but, unfortuately, the car was way out of my league at the time. The assistant administrator for the hospital (a yuppie before there was such a thing) owned that car. I used to salivate every time I went past it on the hospital’s tractor as I mowed the grounds.

What the administrator had was a 2-door fastback 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass S (not a Cutlass Supreme or a 442, but a Cutlass “S”). The car was burnt orange with a matching interior (I would later learn that the color’s actual name was, Bittersweet). It had a white vinyl top, white pin-striping on the front fenders, and a new set of Firestone 500 tires. It also featured cool-looking hood louvers that gave it a bit of an edge. Not only was the car sporty-looking, it screamed sophistication at the same time. It was one damn fine looking car—I swore then that I’d have one just like it someday!

I graduated high school, moved on from my hospital employment, and went to work in a women’s clothing warehouse/distribution center in Kansas City. There I earned the princely sum of $3.52 an hour! About a 1 ½ years into my employment there, I was driving home from work one day and what in the world did I see at a local car lot, but the same ’71 Olds that I used to covet! As soon as I could get my butt to the bank to get a loan, that puppy was mine!

Although I can remember exactly what I paid for nearly all of my cars, for the life of me I can’t recall what this one cost me. It seems to me that it was in the neighborhood of $2,300. But money was no longer an impediment: I was making $3.52 an hour and working lots of overtime, so the car was within my reach; no longer was it something I could only dream of owning.

Now that I had the car of my dreams, I gave my ’67 Malibu—my former love—to my little brother, Steve (look for a future posts on both). I then got to work on building a relationship with my Olds.

I chose not to personalize the car. Rather than slapping decals on it, jacking it up in the back with air-shocks, running loud dual-exhaust, and sticking wide tires on it—as was customary at the time—I decided to leave it stock. It didn’t need all that junk: it looked perfect just the way it was!

I was constantly cleaning this car—believe me: I made the local car wash owners rich! After hitting the car wash, I would use Blue Coral, Blue Poly wax on the body, and Lemon Pledge on the vinyl interior—and the tires. I can’t adequately describe how slick this car looked when cleaned up! (It also felt slick: due to the Lemon Pledge us on the interior, one tended to slide across the seat when going around a curve.) The car was beautiful, and to use a tired old expression, it had class! In my opinion, the ’68 to ’72 Cutlasses had some of the best body-lines and interiors that General Motors ever produced!

I was the proud owner of this car for a little over a year and I enjoyed every second of my time with it! It was a pleasure to drive and cheap to operate. Other than the cost of routine maintenance, I remember spending a grand total of $33 in repairs on it during the entire time I owned it—not bad at all! But although I absolutely loved the car and appreciated the fact that it was a really well-made vehicle, I ended up trading it in on a ’74 Cutlass.

. . . So why would I get rid of a car that I had dreamed of owning for years you ask? A couple of reasons: The impatience of youth for one. Like many kids, I constantly wanted newer and cooler toys to play with. The other reason was the fact that the car reminded me too much of a long-term girlfriend I had broken up with, I figured I needed to let the car go in order to be able to move on.

Ironically, this particular girlfriend—who at the time said she cared for me—never cared for this car much. She found it a bit old-mannish: nice, safe, but a bit boring. She eventually got around to feeling the same way about me and sent me down the road.

My ’71 Olds was Bittersweet in color; the memory of it made bittersweet by the young lady’s rejection of me.

______________________________________

A few months after trading in the car, I was told by the owner of the car lot I had purchased it from that he had seen it show up at a car action in Kansas City. The car lot owner told me that the car looked as good as ever, but someone had rolled the mileage back about 50,000 miles. He went on to say that the car ended up being sold for more money than I had paid for it. Honestly, even with the mileage fraud, somebody ended up buying a great car! I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did!

Five vehicles from Ron Pratte’s collection set to cross the block at Barrett-Jackson – Hemmings.com


Tucker #1043. Photos courtesy Barrett-Jackson

The big Scottsdale auction week is finally here, now with six companies set to to drop the hammer on literally thousands of collector cars in a mere handful of days. In typical fashion, Barrett-Jackson was the first to usher cars through the stage lights, and it’s here where we’ve been alerted to the probable sale of this 1948 Tucker (chassis #1043) currently owned by none other than noted Barrett-Jackson attendee and enthusiastic car collector Ron Pratte.

Specific details about the Tucker are lacking, other than mention of its restoration, on Barrett-Jackson’s auction description. And we use the phrase “probable sale” simply because unlike most of the lots at B-J, the Tucker is listed as having an undisclosed reserve. That said, Mike Schutta of the Tucker Historical Foundation, provided more insight.

This car is very nice and most Tucker fans are keeping a close eye on this auction to see if it will set a new record price for a Tucker. The current record is $1,127,500 paid for Tucker #1045 about 18 months ago. This Tucker is in much better condition.

An interesting tidbit is that Tucker #1043 was used as part of an advertising scheme for a golf driving range in a western suburb of Chicago back in the ’50s. It was painted Tropical Rose and Snowshoe White to match the driving range buildings.

While surfing through the Barrett-Jackson website for more information on the Tucker, we stumbled upon four other Ron Pratte-owned vehicles that will also be offered at Westworld during the weekend, beginning with the car pictured above: the 1947 Bentley Mark VI with coachwork by Franay. The Bentley was last offered for sale by Barrett-Jackson – at no reserve – at their 2006 Palm Beach auction, where the hammer fell at $1,728,000 (including buyer’s premium). At that sale, details of the Bentley were as follows:

4.5 Liter Inline 6 with a four-speed. Coachbuilt by Franay. Magnificent restoration to Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance winning standards. This is the first major winning Concours d’Elegance car after WWII. Winning the first two major Concours in 1948, back-to-back, on the 12th of June at Enghien and the 17th of June at Bois de Boulogne. Mr. Gudol, the original owner and visionary of the Franay, was an industrialist whose sole purpose was to prove to the world that France was not only back from the rigors of war, but ready to reassert its dominance of haute couture and automotive design elegance. The awards the Franay has won over the decades is proof of his timeless vision. Mr. Gudol, in his wisdom, continued to enhance and advance the performance capacity and design elements of the Franay to push the envelope of an ever improving competitive edge in Concours d’Elegance competition. Mr. Gary Wales, who has shepherded the Franay through over 50 major awards and honors since 1990, has scaled back the number of public appearances so that the car is currently eligible for any and all Concours d’Elegance events.

Like the Tucker, the Franay Bentley touts an undisclosed reserve.

Then there’s Pratte’s 1957 De Soto Adventurer convertible, again with an undisclosed reserve. Oft-repeated generic De Soto history aside, specific details provided by Barrett-Jackson state:

Powered by the famous 345/345hp Hemi V-8 with dual quads, an automatic transmission, push-button shifter on dash, and independent torsion bar front suspension. With the division’s top Hemi V-8 under the hood, the Adventurer was an early muscle car with a set of the most aesthetically pleasing tail fins ever seen on virtually any car.

The only two cars listed by Pratte without a reserve are this pair of 2007 Shelby GT500s, which are to be sold as a pair. Details per the auction site are identical for both Shelbys:

In January 2006 Ron Pratte bought the Ford Motor Company’s newest car, a 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 VIN 00001 that benefited Carroll Shelby’s Children’s Foundation. In the past, Ford reserved the first fifty cars produced for Ford family members and senior executives or by other people on a selective list. Ford was so grateful to Ron for his generosity, they offered him the opportunity to buy two more, VIN 00002 and VIN 00005. While Ron is keeping VIN 00001, he is selling the orange Coupe and matching convertible as a pair. The successful bidder will get both cars for one price. These cars are special in other ways as well, as part of the purchase of VIN 00001 was a trip to the Flat Rock assembly plant where these legendary cars are manufactured. At the end of the tour of the assembly plant, Ron was presented with the keys to VIN 00001, VIN 00002 and VIN 00005 by Carroll Shelby and Carroll autographed all three cars for Ron. Along with his cars were three other 2007 Shelby GT 5000′s, for Carroll Shelby, Steve Davis and Gary Bennett. Ron then threw Ford a curve and said he didn’t want any of these cars shipped by rail to the owners, he wanted them trucked, enclosed, to his facility in Chandler, Arizona, bypassing the traditional dealer delivery and inspections. All of the cars, including Carroll’s personal GT 500, were delivered to the respective owner this way. This is a unique opportunity to own two pieces of Shelby and Ford history.

Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction started Sunday and will run through this weekend. For more information, visit Barrett-Jackson.com.

I personally love the De Soto.
 
Thanks for reading.
Tim