I’VE LOVED CARS for as long as I can remember, and this collection of strange tales often didn’t seem so strange to me. I’m a little worried about that.
Okay, my will doesn’t stipulate that I am to be buried in the 1964 Ferrari 330 America I once owned, I can’t imagine buying truckloads of rare car parts and then hiding them away, and I would not pay $70,000 for Steve McQueen’s sunglasses.
But our culture’s love affair with cars is an entirely different passion than any other. I can’t imagine a stamp collector wanting to take his treasures along to the grave, or coin collectors neatly displaying their shiny possessions on a golf course.
But car collectors are constantly finding, restoring, showing, touring, and rallying their prized possessions. In the pre-Internet era, having a car gave you instant freedom. And even today, getting behind the wheel of a classic 1965 Mustang convertible with “Surfer Girl” playing on the one-speaker AM radio can take you back to a simpler time. But our passion for old cars has led us to do some strange things:
Who would sink a 1925 Bugatti into a deep lake to avoid taxes?
Who would lovingly restore a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that spent decades submerged in a water-filled vault in Tulsa, Oklahoma?
Why does famous comedian Jay Leno prowl Los Angeles neighborhoods in search of yet another Duesenberg?
Who would buy a car that floats—most of the time—just to drive across a lake as water sloshes perilously near the edge of the doors?
Why would anyone pay $16.4 million for a Ferrari that was once wrecked and twice burned?
The answer to all these questions is simple: gearheads love cars, and we’ll go to great lengths—sometimes to the edge of madness and beyond—to follow our dreams.
This collection of 33 tales sometimes takes us over that edge, but it’s a fun ride. I hope you enjoy the work of Linda Clark and other Sports Car Market writers, and the masterful editing of SCM Executive Editor Chester Allen. Now I have to go find a correct windshield-washer squirter for my 1967 Alfa Romeo GTV. Sounds crazy? It may be. But wait until you turn the page…
—Keith Martin
Founder & Publisher,
Sports Car Market magazine