From the Shop and Showroom

Last week we covered the 39th annual Colorado Concours d'Elegance here in Denver. If you didn't get a chance to catchup with all the fun we saw this time around, that's ok, I've made it a bit of a tradition to highlight my favorite car at the Colorado Concours each year. Last year, at the event I got to cover the 'Special Wishes' 1982 Slantnose owned by a friend of the shop. This time around we'll highlight a one-of-one rarity, and its long history. Join us as we meet Gilda, an icon of the 1955 Turin Motor Show.

A few weeks back we were happy to bring a few consignment cars out to the Colorado Concours d'Elegance here in Denver. If you missed out on the Concours fun you can catch up here. During the event, we got to chat with passersby about modern cars like our Porsche GT3, but we also looked back and learned a bit more about Porsche history. Before "paint to sample" and "color-matched wheels" became the common Porsche verbiage, there were the Special Wishes cars. Join us as we dig into Porsche history and document a truly unique 80s Porsche.

A few months ago we were lucky enough to see a familiar chassis back in the shop. This Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 Series II has spent nearly its entire life in Colorado, going all the way back to Fo and Temple Buell Jr. selling the car to its original owner back in 1966. We took to calling it the "Final Ferrari" being it was the last example of the 330GT 2+2 produced for the North American market. Now off to the next stable, we wanted to give you just one final update on this Italian.

In the world of classic cars, there's no event bigger than Monterey Car Week. From the chance to see classic icons on the road, to one-off multimillion-dollar cars on the Pebble Beach 18th fairway, it's a week unlike any other. For our shop, Pebble Beach and Amelia Island are some of the best opportunities to develop our relationships within the community and reconnect with old friends. We sent Jack out for the week to keep an eye on the market for us.

Summer has been busy and we just finished editing our latest Around the Shop video. We'll have a look at a Pantera project, some mechanical tuning on a vintage Ferrari and lots of other interesting classic car restoration stuff!

When every new ship is launched, after it is fully fitted out it begins what are known as ‘sea trials.’ These are short voyages with just the crew aboard that are used to test every system and its seaworthiness. No passengers are carried on these shakedown cruises and the ship is deliberately run at maximum speeds and under every stress that can be created before it is certified safe for the public or a full Naval compliment. 

The vast majority of our car sales wind up going out of state and occasionally out of the country. In almost every case, we help arrange truck transportation for those cars. Although this is usually the final step in what is often a multi-week and due- diligence-filled process, it is also the step most fraught with problems and a potential cause of customer complaint.

One of the Golden Rules of the automobile business is: almost any modification to almost any car hurts its value.  This has become even more valid in today’s collector car environment where originality is prized more than faddish ‘improvements.’  We bought the Testarossa above with period BBS wheels and simply HAD to replace them to originals to sell the car.

Fashion trends permeate virtually every human activity, from ladies wear to home design to…auto restoration. Before there was such a term as ‘collector car,’ the only people who drove old cars were laborers and teenagers. Working people were only concerned that their ride was reliable, but younger drivers took more artistic liberties. During the 1940s, kids would paint slogans on the outside of their prewar jalopies (Kilroy was here!) and hang a fox tail from the antenna. During the 1950s, tastes got more refined and shaving off chrome trim and lowering the ride height became popular, along with building enhanced performance into the engines with multiple carburetors, dual exhausts and other modifications.

When reading ads of vintage cars for sale, there will be the occasional prestigious award-winning examples. And then the opposite extreme: completely rotten carcasses sitting under a tree somewhere.  But, the vast majority—no matter the make or model, from Ferrari to Ford—will be billed as “drivers.” However, when reading many ads carefully, often the ‘driver’ car turns out to have been dormant for years and is, in truth, far from actually being driven anywhere.  So, what really constitutes a ‘driver’ car?