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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]