May 22, 2014 • 41 mins
It's true: The Smithsonian has a 'secret' stash of cars from across automotive history, including rarities like Tucker, Miller race cars and more. But that's not the only show in town. Join Scott and Ben as they explore some of the world's largest secret car collections.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood, and beyond with
car Stuff from House Step works dot Com. Welcome back
to the show. This is car Stuff. My name is
Ben and I'm Scott, and today we're going to talk
about something that I always always wondered about as a kid.
(00:25):
Riddle me this by way of segue. All right, did
you go to museums fairly frequently as a kid all
the time? Yeah? Um, what was one of your favorite museums?
The Henry Ford which was I think it's called the
henry Ford Museum at the time. They changed the name,
but that was definitely my favorite. So there you are,
(00:47):
the the young tyke Scott Benjamin exploring the henry Ford Museum.
You were a sharp kid, so you probably already noticed
that there were certain areas of the museum that you
could not inter right. Off limits, yea, off limits employees only,
what's behind that door, what is behind that door, what
is in that whole other building, etcetera. That is part
(01:09):
of the inspiration for its day's episode, which is Secret
Car Collections. That's right, And you know it's funny. We
think of, you know, places like museums, We think that
everything that they've got is out in the open. You know,
everything goes on display. There's nothing else to see here, right, right,
And we would think, you know, I understand if there's
(01:30):
some restoration work going on, but once you have that
painting restored or that engine fixed, then of course, why
the heck wouldn't you put it out on display. That's
what you're a museum for, right, I guess so. But
then you see in the back room, you know, you
go down the hallway and then you see that there's
a I don't know, there's a freight elevator that's awful big,
(01:50):
and it goes deep, deep into the ground, and you
wonder what's in the what's in the basement? Look what
could be hanging out down there in the basement of
the Henry Ford or or of the Walter P. Chriser
Museum or places like that. So you know, I know
that there there's some of their displays out on out
in public, but you just don't know exactly what's there.
And we talked recently about the Dale car right and
(02:11):
the Peterson Museum, and we heard that the Dale rarely
makes an appearance in the museum, and the in the
actual museum itself where the public sees. It's typically parked
in the basement in the corner, you know, covered up
under a tarp or something, and you know there's there's
likely a lot of other vehicles down there that are
similar we just don't hear about because we were just
talking about the Dale that episode. But I know that
(02:33):
there's others that are down there that are equally intriguing,
you know, or close to it anyways, that we just
don't hear about. And I wonder what's there, And you
know this is museums are one thing, but there's also
private individuals that that keep collections like this that we
rarely hear about. And you know, there's there's some that
are just kind of squirreled away somewhere that you know
(02:55):
you may have heard tale of, you know, like an
old timer mentions like I know of a warehouse downtown
that has this, and that you kind of think, well,
that's interesting story, but I wonder how much truth there
is to it. Between twenty nine Avenue and thirtieth Street,
there's an unmarked black garage door knock four times on
a Tuesday. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. That
(03:17):
is that there's stories like that all over the place
and which ones do you believe? Which ones do you
not believe? And uh, you know the intriguing thing about
this whole thing. And I always find secret collections intrigue,
it doesn't matter what. And I think that's why people
like to watch shows that you know, like, um, there's
a show and I won't name it, I guess, but
it's a show that people go around to other people's
(03:38):
property and they look at interesting things that they've amassed
over the years, and they make offers to buy them,
and then they bring it back to their own shop
and then sell it in the collections of like shoes,
stands or windows. And I love the show and I
love to see what they find, you know, old barns
and people's property in the basement or wherever they added.
It's just interesting. I think people find it interesting to
(03:59):
see things that rarely seen, that that people don't know about.
Just when you drive by the property, you may not
notice everything that's there. And that's the maybe the most
intriguing thing about these secret collections is that you know
they're not a secret to everybody. I mean, the locals
know about the stuff. They know that you know that
there's a collection of cars that's kind of out in
the out in the woods here that you know, trees
(04:20):
have started to grow around. But but anybody who's driving by,
or anybody who's not from that town may not have
heard of this. And you know, things are just you know,
they kind of accumulate over the years. You know, people
grow collections slowly, you know, they don't. They don't all
happen at once. It's not like, you know, everybody's super
wealthy and they can afford to buy exotic cars at
(04:40):
one time. But maybe they've got a collection of kind
of ordinary cars that they've just gathered over the years,
you know, like over decades sometimes. Yeah, and that makes
sense if you think about it. It's not an unreasonable
proposition for there to be someone who makes an average
amount of money and they save, right, they scrimp and
their thrift, and every few years they buy a car,
(05:03):
maybe not not even a new one, maybe a beat
up car that they then spend some time restoring, and
then boom, a few decades later, forty fifty, even sixty
years later, they have a mass a fleet of amazing vehicles,
some of which are now sixty plus years old. Yeah,
that's right. Were you know, Matt, your your co host
(05:24):
on stuff they don't want you to know. He was
just telling us about this. A friend of his, his father, um,
had such a collection that I think the gentleman passed
away a couple of years ago and left behind a
collection of something like forty like forty really really nice automobiles.
Now not all of them pristine by anything. I remember
talking to him about this collection when it happened, and
(05:46):
he said, this guy, now his son was tasked with,
you know, hanging onto some and getting rid of some,
you know, for the for the estate. And I mean,
what do you do with something like that? I mean,
suddenly you're you're in ownership, You're in possession of, you know,
forty to fifty cars that you just don't want to
do with. You know what the what's the value of them? Uh?
You know is it? Is it sentimental value you want
(06:07):
to hang onto it? Or is it There's just so
many They couldn't have all have been they couldn't all
have been really really special to him in any way.
Some of them you can let go and and which
ones do you do that with? You know, that's a
that's a difficult decision to make. And it's interesting that
you say that because in that anecdote we're talking about
it on an individual level. You know, how do you
use an individual make that decision? But another thing we're
(06:30):
going to find is that institutions have to make these decisions. Uh, Scott,
if you're cool with it, I think our first car
collection we talk about should be the Smithsonian. Let's do it, Okay,
So the Smithsonian worldwide famous, fantastic museums. Uh. You can
(06:51):
see amazing things, uh, from the entire world and from
the United States and specific and one of the things
you might not expect to be able to see and
be automobiles. And just keep that in your mind for
a second, because we're gonna explain a problem that every
museum seems to have, or many museums, the Swithsonian included.
(07:13):
And the problem is this, you can have well meaning
philanthropists or well meaning members of the public, or foreign
governments or companies or whatever. Uh, you can have these
people donate things to you for your museum, for your
collection and say, please, the public needs to know about
(07:34):
you know, the the airplane that fluid Kittie hawk, or
the public needs to know about this amazing natural formation
that we found or this probably the public needs to
know about this wonderful piece of art, right. Uh. But
with that gift also comes the responsibility of maintaining this thing, right,
(07:58):
of repairing it, restoring, simply storing in this item, just
storied it sometimes can can have phenomenal costs. You've got
to have the real estate to be able to do
something like this. And the Smithsonian has grown incredibly. I mean,
this thing it's been around since eighteen forty six. The
Smithsonian has Now, that's a long long time to be
to be running a museum and gathering items. Ben, did
(08:21):
you know how many items they have in the Smithsonian?
You might because you've been reading about this. Oh why
don't you just tell me? Okay, I'll tell you this.
The Smithsonian is a complex of buildings and museums. It's
nineteen museums, nine research centers, and even a zoo. So
there's a lot of a lot of real estate, a
lot of property involved in this huge complex of museums
(08:42):
is the biggest of its type in the world. They
now hold been over one hundred and thirty seven million
items in the Smithsonian, right, and that's everything from you know,
a small thing like an arrowhead to gigantic actual you know, planes,
dinosaur fossils, some um, let's see, I've got a short
(09:02):
list here. I mean, they've got the Hope Diamond. They've
got Evil Kin, Evil's motorcycle. Um, and they've got the
ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. They've got a
giant female squid that they keep, you know, somewhere in
the in the bowels of the thing. They've got the
Spirit of St. Louis, which was you know, Charles Lindberg's plane. Um.
You know some of these big things. They've got presidential
hair clippings. They've got a little bit of everything there,
(09:23):
and that's what makes it such a great place to go.
And all these different buildings, these you know, these nineteen
different museums, they've all got their own focus there on
their own area that they feature. And the museum I
don't want to know the exact name of the Museum
of Transportation. Uh, I'm not sure the exact title of
the one that houses the automobiles and airplanes and things
like that. But they've got a real problem with deciding
(09:46):
what they're gonna put on display, right, yes, because the
real estate is pretty limited. When it gets to the
exhibition space, right, and that's the question. So this is
a little bit of a bait and switch HAPs when
we call the Smithsonian's car collection a secret collection. Yeah,
I guess so. I mean, but you wouldn't expect them
(10:07):
to have the numbers that they do. Hi, Yeah, that's right,
because being open since late eighteen hundreds. Uh, we can
go ahead and say that out if we just say
vehicles in general, right, just every vehicle in general, they
have two hundred and seventeen, two hundred and seventeen vehicles.
(10:31):
Now that would take in a normal and huge warehouse space. Yeah,
they're talking I mean acres of property that they would
have to require to be able to display two seventeen vehicles,
even if they were parked side by side, you know,
not really on display, just jammed into an area that
you could see them all at one time. To build
a display big enough it may even be impractical for
people to walk. Now, of the of the two seventeen
(10:55):
vehicles that we're talking about, only seventy three of those
are actually considered cars right now. The reason is because
these go all the way back to you know, steam
wagons and horse drawn carriages, and things like that. So
you know, you get to a certain point I think,
and you have to get all the way up to
the late eighteen eighteen nineties before you get to what
they actually consider a car that they that they've collected.
(11:17):
You know that they've amassed over the years, because you know,
going back to eighteen forty six and then any vehicle
prior to that that they've decided to store. So they've
got this enormous collections they've just slow, slowly gathered over
the years, and they've got some really really impressive ones.
I mean, I'm going through the list right now, I've
gotta print out. But um, it's vehicles that that in
some way change transportation. You know, they all mean something,
(11:40):
they're all significant in some way, their hinges to the
door of auto history. So like a Stanley Steamer, you know,
from nineteen ten, is what they have on display. They have,
um and I'm just gonna listen, just a couple here.
They have um a Tucker Oh yeah, you beat me too,
Tuckers to Dan number thirty nine of the fifty one built.
Ben Do you want to take that one? No, no,
(12:01):
I I am. I'm just glad that we are mentioning
this one. Yeah, that's right, it's it's impressive. Equal. They
have a they have a nineteen sixty four Chrysler turbine car,
which you know, all those were supposedly destroyed. Now I
think that, you know, the Walter P. Chryst Museum has
one as well, maybe even two. I'm not sure. There
are very few of these things around. I know that,
you know, the the the running versions of these, I
(12:23):
think they were somehow disabled. There may be one in
that still operates something like that, but they're very very rare.
The nineteen fifty three Class Part G two, which was
one of the first fiberglass cars made, and that was
back in the nineteen pre dates the Corvette and um
also the nineteen boiling that nineteen eighties six dodged caravan
(12:45):
and may think, well, why the heck would they do that.
That's the first minivan and that was a big turn
in automotive transportation. I mean, that was the very first minivan.
So they've got one on display and it's in pristine condition. Also,
the V one electric car, you know, the you know,
the whole focus of the Who Killed the Electric Car
documentary that was done. They've got one that's that was
(13:07):
not destroyed. So they've got some really unusual vehicles. But
the problem again is how do they store seventy three
cars when they can only display you know, a handful
of these at a time, because they just don't have
the space right And this is part of Oh. Also
inexplicably they have a Vega from the nineteen seventy seven.
There's gotta be a reason. There's always, Yeah, there's always
(13:27):
if you read the plaques that go along with each
one of these, there's always a reason. It's not just like, hey,
we knew this guy, guy named Ted Johnson, and he
was pretty cool, and here's his car. It was a camera.
It's not like that. It is something that is impactful
because these are part of one of the Smithsonian branches. Uh.
These are part of the National Museum of American History. UH,
(13:50):
which is interesting because the National Museum American History has
a transportation collection, but there's not you know there. While
we do have a National Museum of Air and Space,
we don't have a National Museum of you know, land
or transportation itself. It's a subcategory of a category. I'm
(14:11):
glad you cleared that up because earlier I was A.
Lott confused on what what museum this would be part of? Really,
so that makes sense? It makes uh, I guess that
makes sense. It's just one writer said that part of
it is that the um that the automobiles never really
had an advocate or a champion at the Smithsonian. Because
the only reason that we have the Air in Space
(14:32):
Museum is because President Truman created it in after there
was an a real firebrand advocating for it. UM. So
you have to, you know, you have to push for
something if you want it, and it didn't happen with
the Smithsonian yet. But this is by far not the
(14:56):
only car secret car collection right so now, and we mentioned,
you know, we the henry Ford, And I'll be honest
with you, I don't know if the henry Ford has
many more than what they what they've got on display.
I would think that they would. But I know when
they have you know, special displays like let's say, um,
something that focuses on American culture. Uh, they may bring
in a certain type of vehicles that are donated or
(15:17):
that are their on loan, uh, you know, for that display,
and then maybe they go away. I'm not sure how
that all works. I don't know how the rotation works
at the henry Ford. You know, if they have a
warehouse somewhere that they keep cars that just simply aren't
being shown or being restored, or I would think that
it has to be that way. And if somebody is
listening out there, if anybody out there has kind of
the inside track on what the henry Ford does. You know,
(15:39):
if there's a warehouse in downtown Detroit somewhere that stores
cars for them, or you know, whatever the case may be,
or maybe it's you know, in northern Michigan and they
they truck them in. Who knows. Um, I'd love to
know about the kind of the inner workings of the
henry Ford and how that happens. And I can't give
even an honest count about how many vehicles are on
display because it changes all the time. Right as you said,
(16:00):
if you could be an excellent point there, Scott when
you said that they'll bring in cars from outside collections,
uh sometimes even from private collectors to display. And I
can't even tell you if that's the truth. I mean,
who knows. Maybe maybe the henry Ford owns all of
these cars. Maybe that's their thing. Maybe we have to
own all the cars that are on display. I just
don't know. There's there's like a bit of secrecy and
(16:21):
that you know, you can't easily find this, you know,
just doing simple research. You'd have to really call and
dig around and ask all these questions specifically to the
people that operate the place. We're going to go back
to our episode about secret car collections and Scott I
do have one sidebar here real quick, just going back
to the Smithsonian. Uh, they did something really interesting in
(16:43):
a few years back, and they asked the public to
vote on which cars they should bring out into the
public exhibitions. They did so they've had yeah, but so
they had a list of all the cars that they
have available, you know, the ones that they're able to
able to display, right, and the public voted, yeah, and
they voted on stuff like, uh, the E V one
(17:06):
electric car, which uh the g M or Yeah, the
e V one never reached the market and it's super
rare now, but the Smithsonian has one of those. They
have a long steam tricycle from the eighties, self propelled
bicycle only ways there in fifty pounds. They have the
the GM sun Racer there, which was that that um,
(17:29):
the solar car experiment and solar power. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
and they have uh, they have some We mentioned the
Tucker race car or the Tucker Sedan. We should mention
the Miller race cars, um, which we I won't say
much about those because we might do an episode just
on those later. Uh. But the point being that it's
(17:49):
it's important if you hear about secreted away things and museums.
I've heard this collection called the Noah's Ark of the Smithsonian. Yeah,
it's not quite fair because it's not as if there's
some conspiracy of foot to keep these away from people
know and some people know they're there. It's just again,
this is just like, well, yeah, I know the Smithsonian
(18:11):
and I went there, and they have they have about
five or six cars, and that's maybe about it. You
don't realize that they have seventy three that they have available.
But somebody is taking care of those in a warehouse
somewhere and they're just they're you know, they're stacked up
on a shelf or whatever. Right, they would love to
show us these cars all at once, I'm sure, But
but how Washington, d C. Is not known for its
(18:31):
large amounts of space no it's not. It's not. So
you know, there's likely underground story song which is intriguing.
Just drive them all up, you know once once uh
a year or at some point on the Fourth of July.
Just drive them to the National Mall park on the grass.
That would be really cool to see all of them
on display at one time. I'm I wonder if they would.
(18:54):
I'm sure they would fit in the National Mall. Huge giant,
but um okay. Yeah, Well, if you're listening to this
and you're in charge of Fourth of July celebrations in
d C, and you know someone at the Smithsonian that's
got this kind of pull and you want to hang
out with us for an afternoon, let's make this happen. Yeah,
that's likely. I'm sure that person is listening. So let's
(19:16):
just had our bets. And in case the Smithsonian scheme
doesn't work out for Scott, what are some other secret
car collection? I wish I wish ben I had more
details about the Henry Ford because you know, when we're
talking about that, I feel bad that it's like, well,
here's a general like I wonder if they have this,
I wonder if they have that. But I wish we
had more on that. But I'll tell you what we
do know more about is we know more about the
(19:36):
like the Nissan Museum. Now, Nissan has a secret a
what they call a top secret. Yeah, and Air quotes
Heritage Center, which is in Zama, I think it's Zama, Zama, Japan,
and it's right where the company was founded, just like
something like eighty plus years ago now at this point.
But Nissan dots and you know, that's the brand we're
(19:56):
talking about. And not all the cars that are there
are pristine. They're not all like museum quality cars. Some
of them were raced and placed right directly into the
museum as soon as they were done racing, so they're
a little bit rough, little beat up in as race condition.
There's also some that were donations from the public, you know,
people that donate cars with the knowledge that you know,
(20:17):
your car is going to be safe now because it's
done in donate the museum. It's not gonna be you know,
sitting in the on the street, rotting away, and it's
of some significance. And you know, dots and Nissan didn't
have a copy of that, and they wanted one, and
you happen to have one and you know you don't
really want to hang on to any longer, so you
donate the car. Yeah, and uh, I think it's a
good solution for both people. You can say that, you know,
you did something to preserve the history of of Dots
(20:39):
and or Nissan or whatever. Exactly right. And if you
look at the photo, there's a top Gear article photos
that go along with an article whether that these photos
from this museum are just incredible. Ben, The Nissan Museum
is awesome. You just see the race cars that they have.
They're just lined up one after the other. Gorgeous, gorgeous
race cars. So if you get a ants, check out
(21:01):
the Nissan Museum. Uh, but that is what I like
that one. But we haven't yet talked about a private collection. Yeah,
you know, I want to get to one eventually. You
know here towards the end of the podcast that that
very few people know about, but I think would be
excited if they knew it was there. Um, but I
let's talk about Um, you said, let's throw on one
(21:21):
private one right now? How about that? Okay, Yeah, you
said you wanted to hear one about that. Um, remember
last summer, I think it was last summer. It must
have been. I think it was maybe even later in
the year, maybe in the fall of two thirteen. There
was a place called Pierce, Nebraska that so go ahead,
and you want to just mention it, Okay, well, just
(21:42):
a high level look and check me if I'm wrong here.
There is a field in this town in Nebraska which
is just lousy with cars. Chevrolet's right, only Chevys in Pierce, Nebraska. Yeah,
this guy, his name is Ray Lambrick, and Lambrick I
think it would. I'll remember this exactly when I'm talking
about it. If you're a fan of car stuff, you
(22:03):
probably know about this news. But the Lambrick auction that
was now the infamous Lambrick auction, and that's when the
rest of the world heard about it because people traveled
from countries far wide to Nebraska to bid on these cars.
Here's how big this this was, how big of a
deal it was. The town itself typically has seventeen hundred
(22:24):
and sixty seven um population. That's a relatively small place,
very small town. And I think you know that there
was an additional amount of people that were also on
the phone and you know, skyping or whatever, trying to
get in on the action. You know, on the auction action.
But there's this huge auction that happened in in the fall,
and this is one of those things. Ben. There's there's
(22:44):
five hundred Chevrolet's parked out in a field somewhere and
you know, barns and outbuildings or whatever. But no one
knew about them other than the people of Pierce, Nebraska
and maybe the surrounding town who knew about them for
a while. Yeah, they've known about them for a long
long time because this was a collection that took fifty
years to build. And the story is that the guy,
(23:04):
you know, he was a I think he was a dealer, right,
he was a local Chevrolet dealer, and he said that
you know, the car didn't sell within the first year.
What he do is he would just take it to
this field and park it. And you know, you always
had them available, I guess. Now. Some of them were
station and buildings. Others were of course just parked in
this field. Like we said, um, but this has been
going on since like the late nineteen forties, so you
(23:26):
can imagine that some of the cars that are parked
there early on, you're the ones at the back of
the field or maybe the front of the field. I
don't know. Um, these are the ones that you know,
people are really taking notice of because they were parked
with you know, maybe five or six miles on the
odometer something like that, very very low mileage. And these
are rare vehicles notes unrestored, and you know, some of them,
you know, not every one of them, men were anything special,
(23:48):
you know, some of them. Some of them were just
kind of middle of the road chevrolets, you know, nothing,
the stuff that just didn't sell. I was gonna say,
there's a reason they ended on the field, just were popular.
But some of them over time became very valuable. And
I think some of them actually, you know, garnered quite
a bit of money at these at these at this
auction rather but in the end, uh, the entire auction
(24:09):
raised something like two point eight million dollars and that's
for five dred cars. Not bad. But I think somebody
has done, you know, a kind of run down on
was it worth it to hang on to all these cars?
And I think it was determined it was kind of
a wash. Yeah. And when we say washed, we don't
mean they broke even No, no, no, exactly right. But
you know, you could look into that and find out
exactly what the deal is on that. But you know,
(24:31):
two point eight million dollars in your hands sounds pretty
good after collecting cars for fifty years and really there
was nothing to this. He just parked them, left them
and that was it. And now you know this guy
that's now um, you know, mid nineties. He and his
wife are both still around. He's he's his wife Mildred
is two or she was at the time this was written,
which is the end of last year. Um, I don't know.
(24:51):
It seems like that's a that's a reasonable thing for
them to do, is to sell it off, because what
are they gonna do with five cars at this point?
They're right? Yeah, yeah, So that is an amazing story,
especially because I don't know about you, Scott, but it
gives me the feeling that's a visible tip of a
very large iceberg. You know, yeah, I do too, especially
with the size of the United States. That's one thing.
(25:11):
That's one thing that I think we don't really consider
ourselves having grown up here, and that people from other
countries may not really feel until they get here. This
place is huge. Man. You could hide you could hide
twelve hundred cars, you know, Yeah, I mean, it's just
a matter of like where you are in the world
(25:33):
or where you are in this country really because and
it happens elsewhere to find out. I'm gonna talk about
some from other countries in just a minute. But um,
you know this, this Ray Lamberick guy, there's there's no
doubt in my mind he's not the only one doing this.
And we mentioned, you know, Matt's story here that our
pressure about what he had done. But that was only
forty cars, and I say, only that's an awful lot
of cars. But I mean, I had no idea the
(25:55):
collection was there. And it's relatively close to where we
work here. It's south south of Atlanta somewhere. Um, you
just don't hear about the stuff until something happens where
they say, all right, it's time to sell. Yeah, and
then you become aware of it, and then you think,
why didn't they know that was there? And you know,
we we talked when we're talking about the ed Soel
one time. I remember, remember there was a guy somewhere
that had, you know, fifty ls parked in the field
(26:16):
somewhere and he and he won't he won't sell them
because to them, Yeah, it's a it's a weird thing,
or he sells maybe he sells the parts or something,
or he won't sell the parts, you only sell the
whole vehicle or something like that. Oh, it was something
like that because we were talking about we had talked
before as well about how that can be a differentiation
line because a lot of times when people are collecting
(26:37):
or storing, they don't want to buy the whole car,
They just want to part that they need. Yeah, and
then that leaves you with a pile of junk that
maybe someone else doesn't want. So you know, you've got
to kind of decide you're gonna sell the parts you
can sell the whole vehicle. And there's a lot of
cases like that. But I mean to have fifty edels
parked in the field somewhere, that's unusual, right, I love
just let me describe for our audience, uh, that you're
shrugging a little bit every time you say fifty edels
(27:00):
wild hand gestures like what is this guy doing with anyways?
So let's move on to another thank you for humor
with a with a private collector. But and there's more. Yeah,
but let's go to a public collector because you mentioned Nissan.
We mentioned Henry Ford h oh Um. A quick one
just on the side Walter P. Chrysler Museum, which is
(27:21):
now I think no longer open to the public close
closed down, but it's for private functions. I think you
can still get in, right Yes, you and I talked
about this one, Scott. So for any listeners who uh
really wanted to get into the museum, don't give up yet.
Take heart, because if you just put together the right
(27:42):
private event and uh you can work out the math
on the wallet side, then I'm sure that you can
get in. Yeah. There's two of them like that right
now in Detroit that I want to talk about. Now.
That's that's the first one. The Walter P. Chrysler Museum,
which was open to the public, had a great display.
They also had a base with unrestored cars, and that
was where there was some real intriguing stuff down there
(28:04):
as well, you know, some interesting things, and there were
always cars coming in and going out, and you just
never knew what was gonna be there. It's just an
interesting mix of vehicles and that happens. It wasn't as
giant as the next one I'm gonna tell you about, though,
because this is huge. This is an incredible, incredible stash
of cars that you're you're gonna you would never see
a group in the cars like this ever. Again, I
(28:24):
don't think ever. I know that's pretty bold statement, but
you just might not because this is um. This is
like all of GM's history all under one roof. AH.
The GM Heritage Center, which is in Sterling Heights, Michigan,
also not open to the public. They have something like
six hundred or more cars that go from the very
(28:47):
beginning of General Motors all the way through present day.
And it's significant models. I mean, they have all three
of the Firebird concepts that we talked about, the ones
that look like jets. They have the very first concept
car ever, the Buke wid Job I have here's what
it's called. They have that. Um, they have everything, and
there's everything there and as many corvettes as you can imagine,
(29:07):
you know, and I'm only hitting some of the highlights here,
but there's there's so many cars. There's so many that
literally if you took the day to walk through and
see each one, you wouldn't have enough time. And I
don't think you can't even do that. I don't even
know if they're all in one building. It's something like
a I forget the square footage of this building, but
it is enormous. It's a huge, huge place, and it
(29:29):
covers you know, you gotta imagine a car history that
covers more than one hundred years, yes, exactly more than
one car a year. Two it's a long history for
general motors. And and obviously this connect collection is still growing.
It's again not open to the public, so you have
to either plan a special event or be part of
a special event. I think there may be a day
when it's open to employees. So if you're an employee,
(29:51):
you're lucky enough to be able to go. Personal question,
did you ever do you ever get there? I did not.
My My father has. He's been there as part of
a part of a video crew. He does a lot
of GM filmwork and stuff, and uh so he has
been there, has been there, has seen it, has told
me it's incredible, amazing thing to see that. It's something
(30:11):
I mean, as they say, you know, in this article
they read it's arguably the greatest collection of cars period
anywhere in the world. And of course you can argue
about this, you know, what's what's a better collection. Maybe
you know, Porsche has a better collection at their museum,
and and you know, maybe um Audi has a fantastic
collection there. I know they do. I'm just saying that
this isn't this is you know, with six hundred cars,
(30:32):
that's incredible and all the brands that they have through
the decades, through the century. How can you beat that?
I would you know what I was going to say
that maybe a very very wealthy private individual might have
a collection like like Jay Leno's collection has some astonishing vehicles,
(30:52):
but I don't think it comes close in size and scope. No, no,
it's not. It's not even And I don't know who
would really it's not I mean even that. I mean
we hear about that all the time. And he has
some remarkable automobiles, of course, I mean we we all
know that. But I don't know the exact number on J.
Lennos collection because we were doing secret car collections. But
but nowhere near six cars. I mean, it can't even
(31:14):
be close. Wow, I mean, that's it just doesn't happen.
Now there's another one that um I'd like to talk
about here that is from another country. All right, well,
where in the world are we going where in the
world are we and we're going to We're going to Portugal,
Spain for this next one. Then, and this is a
barn find or a supposed barn. Fine, but you know,
(31:35):
it's it's an intriguing story because initially everybody thought that
it was just something this was just something that you know,
turned up that someone someone opened the door to this
barn and found one hundred and eighty classic cars and
a barn in Portugal. It's it was, you know, just
it was like welded up and no one knew about
it for decades and decades. Not the case. What it
really was was a similar case to um the Lambrick.
(31:58):
It's very similar. The the owner was an automobile dealer
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, and he built
up this huge assemblage of cars over the years and
he stashed them away in this barn, and then when
the barn was full, then he soldered the door shut.
He didn't well to he soldered them shut, which is
a weird choice, but he soldered them shut. And so,
you know, because the structure is full, it's it's just
(32:19):
gathering dust over the years. So when someone did peek
in there. I'm sure it was impressive. I mean, I've
seen the photos of this, and the cars are just parked,
you know, door to door with um with dust, you know,
an inch of dust on everything. It's a you know,
plastic wrappers, no, nothing like that. But um, the guy
that shot the photos kind of cleared up the story
on this whole thing because the photos re leaked first
and someone said, look at this incredible barn find. It
(32:41):
was unknown cars that you know, just turned up and
out of context. Turns out, yeah, exactly right. You know,
this is the same thing. The guy just kind of
squirreled away cars over the decades and it ended up
being an amazing collection when it's done. Not all of
them are fantastic, Not all of them are. All of
them are museum cars by any means. But there's some
notable car is in there. There's some race cars in there,
(33:01):
some cars that are just pretty rare to begin with,
you know, and they haven't been around for you know,
they haven't been on the road rather for forty years.
So do you think that the locals knew about this?
Where in Portugal? Was that? I do? I could, I
can't tell exactly where they were in Portugal. But you
know it must be a tucked away area somewhere that obviously,
I mean, it must be a farm type environment somewhere. Um.
(33:22):
But you know, it wasn't really a secret to the
family or anybody around there. It was just a secret
to the rest of the world. He probably just soldered
it shut for security at some point. Likely, I mean
he padlocked it, you know, that padlocked it and soldered
it shut, so you know, he didn't want anybody getting
in there. I always wonder what was he planning to do.
I don't know. He's got one hundred and eighty cars,
and you know, here it is four years later, he
(33:44):
hasn't touched any of them. You know, there's not gonna
be any There's clearly not any restoration project going on
anything like that. So again it's just one of those
head scratchers, like what's he gonna do with that with
those cars? Before we get to the next one, I
do have to say, um, for all our long time
listeners who recall our episode on the Corvette giveaway, that
(34:06):
one really just broke me up man on a personal level,
because you know, we're always very careful to say that
whether or not we agree with what somebody's doing to
their car. It's their car. But this is uh, this
is the v H one giveaway for a Corvette for
every year that Corvettes have been made. And then this
(34:28):
the guy who is currently in charge of it, right,
just turned it into an art project. Yeah, because he's
an artist, Yeah, and hasn't been taking very good care
of the cars. He bought them from the winner, yeah,
who just sort of also didn't take care of them. Yeah,
that's right, I mean there was. It was an interesting story, though,
wasn't it. I mean fascinating and I'd love to get
an update on this. Oh you know what, the artist,
(34:50):
the artist isn't The artist is actually way better to
the cars. At least he's doing something. Well, it's sort
of ye. Remember it became kind of a secret car
collection because would just discovered them in an underground parking
structure somewhere um after they have been left again ben
for like maybe a decade or more. Yeah, and they
had totally gone to pot. You know, the tires were ruined,
(35:12):
so much of the rubber was eating away, mold and
mildew issues because the windows are left down and things
like that. It's just it was a I guess the
sad ending, but I think that the good and that
was that you know, it got some interest. And I
don't know if it was broken up then if it
was sold, or if he held onto them and and
did anything with him. Finally, because you know there's public pressure, now,
maybe maybe that counts as a as a secret car
(35:33):
collection to Definitely, this brings us to is this uh,
is this the big one that earlier? I think it
is because I think this is the one that maybe
not a lot of people have heard about this And
the only reason that you might have is because of
the condition that Detroit isn't right now there in Uh
they're in bankruptcy and they filed for bankruptcy. Um, you
know last year. I believe it was sometime last year.
(35:55):
And I don't know all the details. I'm not going
to even try to just talk about the details of
the bank see, but there's problems in the motor city.
We all know that, Okay. So now the anxiety that
comes up over something like this is uh is well founded,
I believe, because there's a car collection that is held
at a place called Fort Wayne. Now Fort Wayne is
(36:17):
a historic what and you think of Fort Wayne, Indiana,
but this is Fort Wayne, Detroit, and it's right on
the river, and I guess it would be just south
of Belleisle that area. Okay, if you know the terrain,
and it's a collection of sixty two cars that are
on that property. They're on the Fort Wayne property. And
this is so unique. Then they're they're so strange. It's
they're not really on display. They're not for the public
(36:39):
to see. This is just really a collection of cars
that have been held for the purpose of preserving the
history of the automobile in Detroit. Are they bubble They're
in bubbles. They're all in these uh these um pressurized bubbles,
these clear plastic bubbles, every single one of them. So
you look at this warehouse shot and it's I mean again,
(37:00):
they're parked side by side and there's a hum of
of you know, the generators that that are keeping the
fans blowing these things, you know, keeping them keeping them
cool and dry, cool and dry. They're also you know
that there's no plastic touching them. These are restored cars.
They're they're lovingly restored, as the article says, and I
wouldn't say pristine by any means, but their museum quality cars,
(37:21):
I guess. And you know, these bubbles keep insects out,
they keep humidity away from them. All that. You know,
they're being well kept in this music in this uh
um warehouse. Brother, it's just nobody knows about them that
they're just sitting there. And again the reason for having
them is that it just preserves the history of the
motor city. And it was added to year after year.
(37:43):
You know, people, um, I guess you know, civic minded
citizens would donate these cars and say I want this
to be part of your collection because it's a significant
automobile in some way. And here's the reason I think
they have, um, a Cadillac there from I think, I
want to say that early Nive and you know that
that's right away. That's a that's a very very rare vehicle.
(38:03):
But the one that's maybe the most valuable, it's a
Ford Mustang. It's worth and estimated two million dollars that's
in this building. Um, the whole collection. I don't know
if you could even put a dollar amount really on
the thing, because you know, depends on the market. Yeah,
but I mean it's a huge, huge collection. It's sixty
two cars that are that are there, and they have
like a nineteen thirty four Chrysler Airflow, which is a
(38:25):
significant they have. They have some others that are kind
of middle of the road like they have They have
a maybe not even middle. They have an AMC Pacer,
which is kind of funny, you know, but you know,
it represents some of what was going on in Detroit.
It was part of AMC's history. So it's there. It's
not there just to be the highlights of their favorite
But they do have other stuff that is very significant,
like that Mustang that I mentioned, the two million dollar Mustang.
(38:47):
They have the nineteen nineteen Dodge Coope that belonged to
John Francis Dodge, which has his initials in the door
written in gold, which is pretty impressive. The odometer reading
is something like four thousand miles on it, so it's
very a low miles um. It's just They have a
nine two Oldsmobile Runabout, which they think is one of
the first mass produced automobiles ever, which is significant for
(39:10):
Detroit and in its own way. Just there's amazing group
of vehicles here and a lot of people just don't
even know that it's there because it's just stuck in
a warehouse somewhere. And again there's this anxiety over what's
going to happen to this collection because is it is
it property of the City of Detroit, which is now
going through bankruptcy, which means that its assets can be liquidated,
(39:31):
and they have an emergency um as an emergency manager,
the city city manager. His name is Kevin Orr, and
the city is something like fifteen to seventeen billion dollars
right now, billion with a B. And that's why things
like this collection are being looked at like, well, you
better hang onto that collection because that's part of our history.
But then Kevin Orr is probably looking at it, you know,
(39:53):
as as money symbols, saying, well, if I can get
twenty million, I mean, it's a drop in the bucket,
But you know, if I can get twenty in for
that collection, why wouldn't we sell that to to benefit
the city Detroit to get it out of this bankruptcy situation.
That's the same. And they're looking at things like, you know,
the the artwork and the museum in downtown, you know,
and that's another huge thing that people are and they
get all this anxiety over. But we're talking about cars,
(40:15):
and we're talking about this collection of cards sixty two vehicles.
I can see why a lot of people are sweating
about this, you know, saying like, well, let's get them
out of there. We have to, but there's still property
to Detroit. I believe it reminds me in some way,
just thematically, I guess of the stories of people in
times of revolution who had to burn their books to
(40:37):
keep their house warm. Yeah, I mean, what do you do.
It's a very very difficult, very difficult um. But we
also are going to end on an up note because
one of my favorite parts where we're looking at this
episode and getting ready for it, Scott, was this. I
know that some of you out there listening are acquainted
with a strange and mysterious collection of cars somewhere in
(41:02):
your area or you've heard of it, and even if
it's one of those friend of a friend of a
friend things, which by the way, usually means it's not true.
We usually yeah, usually I'm gonna go with a hard
eighty three percent of the time minimum it's not true.
Very specific, Uh, yeah, I don't know, go specific, but
we would like to hear if you have any anecdotes
(41:24):
or stories or discoveries about local car collections in your
area because we eat these stories up. You can find
us on Facebook. You can tell us about these on Twitter.
You can also send us an email direct when we
are car stuff at discovery dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff
(41:46):
works dot com. Let us know what you think, Send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood, and beyond with
car Stuff from House Step works dot Com. Welcome back
to the show. This is car Stuff. My name is
Ben and I'm Scott, and today we're going to talk
about something that I always always wondered about as a kid.
(00:25):
Riddle me this by way of segue. All right, did
you go to museums fairly frequently as a kid all
the time? Yeah? Um, what was one of your favorite museums?
The Henry Ford which was I think it's called the
henry Ford Museum at the time. They changed the name,
but that was definitely my favorite. So there you are,
(00:47):
the the young tyke Scott Benjamin exploring the henry Ford Museum.
You were a sharp kid, so you probably already noticed
that there were certain areas of the museum that you
could not inter right. Off limits, yea, off limits employees only,
what's behind that door, what is behind that door, what
is in that whole other building, etcetera. That is part
(01:09):
of the inspiration for its day's episode, which is Secret
Car Collections. That's right, And you know it's funny. We
think of, you know, places like museums, We think that
everything that they've got is out in the open. You know,
everything goes on display. There's nothing else to see here, right, right,
And we would think, you know, I understand if there's
(01:30):
some restoration work going on, but once you have that
painting restored or that engine fixed, then of course, why
the heck wouldn't you put it out on display. That's
what you're a museum for, right, I guess so. But
then you see in the back room, you know, you
go down the hallway and then you see that there's
a I don't know, there's a freight elevator that's awful big,
(01:50):
and it goes deep, deep into the ground, and you
wonder what's in the what's in the basement? Look what
could be hanging out down there in the basement of
the Henry Ford or or of the Walter P. Chriser
Museum or places like that. So you know, I know
that there there's some of their displays out on out
in public, but you just don't know exactly what's there.
And we talked recently about the Dale car right and
(02:11):
the Peterson Museum, and we heard that the Dale rarely
makes an appearance in the museum, and the in the
actual museum itself where the public sees. It's typically parked
in the basement in the corner, you know, covered up
under a tarp or something, and you know there's there's
likely a lot of other vehicles down there that are
similar we just don't hear about because we were just
talking about the Dale that episode. But I know that
(02:33):
there's others that are down there that are equally intriguing,
you know, or close to it anyways, that we just
don't hear about. And I wonder what's there, And you
know this is museums are one thing, but there's also
private individuals that that keep collections like this that we
rarely hear about. And you know, there's there's some that
are just kind of squirreled away somewhere that you know
(02:55):
you may have heard tale of, you know, like an
old timer mentions like I know of a warehouse downtown
that has this, and that you kind of think, well,
that's interesting story, but I wonder how much truth there
is to it. Between twenty nine Avenue and thirtieth Street,
there's an unmarked black garage door knock four times on
a Tuesday. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. That
(03:17):
is that there's stories like that all over the place
and which ones do you believe? Which ones do you
not believe? And uh, you know the intriguing thing about
this whole thing. And I always find secret collections intrigue,
it doesn't matter what. And I think that's why people
like to watch shows that you know, like, um, there's
a show and I won't name it, I guess, but
it's a show that people go around to other people's
(03:38):
property and they look at interesting things that they've amassed
over the years, and they make offers to buy them,
and then they bring it back to their own shop
and then sell it in the collections of like shoes,
stands or windows. And I love the show and I
love to see what they find, you know, old barns
and people's property in the basement or wherever they added.
It's just interesting. I think people find it interesting to
(03:59):
see things that rarely seen, that that people don't know about.
Just when you drive by the property, you may not
notice everything that's there. And that's the maybe the most
intriguing thing about these secret collections is that you know
they're not a secret to everybody. I mean, the locals
know about the stuff. They know that you know that
there's a collection of cars that's kind of out in
the out in the woods here that you know, trees
(04:20):
have started to grow around. But but anybody who's driving by,
or anybody who's not from that town may not have
heard of this. And you know, things are just you know,
they kind of accumulate over the years. You know, people
grow collections slowly, you know, they don't. They don't all
happen at once. It's not like, you know, everybody's super
wealthy and they can afford to buy exotic cars at
(04:40):
one time. But maybe they've got a collection of kind
of ordinary cars that they've just gathered over the years,
you know, like over decades sometimes. Yeah, and that makes
sense if you think about it. It's not an unreasonable
proposition for there to be someone who makes an average
amount of money and they save, right, they scrimp and
their thrift, and every few years they buy a car,
(05:03):
maybe not not even a new one, maybe a beat
up car that they then spend some time restoring, and
then boom, a few decades later, forty fifty, even sixty
years later, they have a mass a fleet of amazing vehicles,
some of which are now sixty plus years old. Yeah,
that's right. Were you know, Matt, your your co host
(05:24):
on stuff they don't want you to know. He was
just telling us about this. A friend of his, his father, um,
had such a collection that I think the gentleman passed
away a couple of years ago and left behind a
collection of something like forty like forty really really nice automobiles.
Now not all of them pristine by anything. I remember
talking to him about this collection when it happened, and
(05:46):
he said, this guy, now his son was tasked with,
you know, hanging onto some and getting rid of some,
you know, for the for the estate. And I mean,
what do you do with something like that? I mean,
suddenly you're you're in ownership, You're in possession of, you know,
forty to fifty cars that you just don't want to
do with. You know what the what's the value of them? Uh?
You know is it? Is it sentimental value you want
(06:07):
to hang onto it? Or is it There's just so
many They couldn't have all have been they couldn't all
have been really really special to him in any way.
Some of them you can let go and and which
ones do you do that with? You know, that's a
that's a difficult decision to make. And it's interesting that
you say that because in that anecdote we're talking about
it on an individual level. You know, how do you
use an individual make that decision? But another thing we're
(06:30):
going to find is that institutions have to make these decisions. Uh, Scott,
if you're cool with it, I think our first car
collection we talk about should be the Smithsonian. Let's do it, Okay,
So the Smithsonian worldwide famous, fantastic museums. Uh. You can
(06:51):
see amazing things, uh, from the entire world and from
the United States and specific and one of the things
you might not expect to be able to see and
be automobiles. And just keep that in your mind for
a second, because we're gonna explain a problem that every
museum seems to have, or many museums, the Swithsonian included.
(07:13):
And the problem is this, you can have well meaning
philanthropists or well meaning members of the public, or foreign
governments or companies or whatever. Uh, you can have these
people donate things to you for your museum, for your
collection and say, please, the public needs to know about
(07:34):
you know, the the airplane that fluid Kittie hawk, or
the public needs to know about this amazing natural formation
that we found or this probably the public needs to
know about this wonderful piece of art, right. Uh. But
with that gift also comes the responsibility of maintaining this thing, right,
(07:58):
of repairing it, restoring, simply storing in this item, just
storied it sometimes can can have phenomenal costs. You've got
to have the real estate to be able to do
something like this. And the Smithsonian has grown incredibly. I mean,
this thing it's been around since eighteen forty six. The
Smithsonian has Now, that's a long long time to be
to be running a museum and gathering items. Ben, did
(08:21):
you know how many items they have in the Smithsonian?
You might because you've been reading about this. Oh why
don't you just tell me? Okay, I'll tell you this.
The Smithsonian is a complex of buildings and museums. It's
nineteen museums, nine research centers, and even a zoo. So
there's a lot of a lot of real estate, a
lot of property involved in this huge complex of museums
(08:42):
is the biggest of its type in the world. They
now hold been over one hundred and thirty seven million
items in the Smithsonian, right, and that's everything from you know,
a small thing like an arrowhead to gigantic actual you know, planes,
dinosaur fossils, some um, let's see, I've got a short
(09:02):
list here. I mean, they've got the Hope Diamond. They've
got Evil Kin, Evil's motorcycle. Um, and they've got the
ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. They've got a
giant female squid that they keep, you know, somewhere in
the in the bowels of the thing. They've got the
Spirit of St. Louis, which was you know, Charles Lindberg's plane. Um.
You know some of these big things. They've got presidential
hair clippings. They've got a little bit of everything there,
(09:23):
and that's what makes it such a great place to go.
And all these different buildings, these you know, these nineteen
different museums, they've all got their own focus there on
their own area that they feature. And the museum I
don't want to know the exact name of the Museum
of Transportation. Uh, I'm not sure the exact title of
the one that houses the automobiles and airplanes and things
like that. But they've got a real problem with deciding
(09:46):
what they're gonna put on display, right, yes, because the
real estate is pretty limited. When it gets to the
exhibition space, right, and that's the question. So this is
a little bit of a bait and switch HAPs when
we call the Smithsonian's car collection a secret collection. Yeah,
I guess so. I mean, but you wouldn't expect them
(10:07):
to have the numbers that they do. Hi, Yeah, that's right,
because being open since late eighteen hundreds. Uh, we can
go ahead and say that out if we just say
vehicles in general, right, just every vehicle in general, they
have two hundred and seventeen, two hundred and seventeen vehicles.
(10:31):
Now that would take in a normal and huge warehouse space. Yeah,
they're talking I mean acres of property that they would
have to require to be able to display two seventeen vehicles,
even if they were parked side by side, you know,
not really on display, just jammed into an area that
you could see them all at one time. To build
a display big enough it may even be impractical for
people to walk. Now, of the of the two seventeen
(10:55):
vehicles that we're talking about, only seventy three of those
are actually considered cars right now. The reason is because
these go all the way back to you know, steam
wagons and horse drawn carriages, and things like that. So
you know, you get to a certain point I think,
and you have to get all the way up to
the late eighteen eighteen nineties before you get to what
they actually consider a car that they that they've collected.
(11:17):
You know that they've amassed over the years, because you know,
going back to eighteen forty six and then any vehicle
prior to that that they've decided to store. So they've
got this enormous collections they've just slow, slowly gathered over
the years, and they've got some really really impressive ones.
I mean, I'm going through the list right now, I've
gotta print out. But um, it's vehicles that that in
some way change transportation. You know, they all mean something,
(11:40):
they're all significant in some way, their hinges to the
door of auto history. So like a Stanley Steamer, you know,
from nineteen ten, is what they have on display. They have,
um and I'm just gonna listen, just a couple here.
They have um a Tucker Oh yeah, you beat me too,
Tuckers to Dan number thirty nine of the fifty one built.
Ben Do you want to take that one? No, no,
(12:01):
I I am. I'm just glad that we are mentioning
this one. Yeah, that's right, it's it's impressive. Equal. They
have a they have a nineteen sixty four Chrysler turbine car,
which you know, all those were supposedly destroyed. Now I
think that, you know, the Walter P. Chryst Museum has
one as well, maybe even two. I'm not sure. There
are very few of these things around. I know that,
you know, the the the running versions of these, I
(12:23):
think they were somehow disabled. There may be one in
that still operates something like that, but they're very very rare.
The nineteen fifty three Class Part G two, which was
one of the first fiberglass cars made, and that was
back in the nineteen pre dates the Corvette and um
also the nineteen boiling that nineteen eighties six dodged caravan
(12:45):
and may think, well, why the heck would they do that.
That's the first minivan and that was a big turn
in automotive transportation. I mean, that was the very first minivan.
So they've got one on display and it's in pristine condition. Also,
the V one electric car, you know, the you know,
the whole focus of the Who Killed the Electric Car
documentary that was done. They've got one that's that was
(13:07):
not destroyed. So they've got some really unusual vehicles. But
the problem again is how do they store seventy three
cars when they can only display you know, a handful
of these at a time, because they just don't have
the space right And this is part of Oh. Also
inexplicably they have a Vega from the nineteen seventy seven.
There's gotta be a reason. There's always, Yeah, there's always
(13:27):
if you read the plaques that go along with each
one of these, there's always a reason. It's not just like, hey,
we knew this guy, guy named Ted Johnson, and he
was pretty cool, and here's his car. It was a camera.
It's not like that. It is something that is impactful
because these are part of one of the Smithsonian branches. Uh.
These are part of the National Museum of American History. UH,
(13:50):
which is interesting because the National Museum American History has
a transportation collection, but there's not you know there. While
we do have a National Museum of Air and Space,
we don't have a National Museum of you know, land
or transportation itself. It's a subcategory of a category. I'm
(14:11):
glad you cleared that up because earlier I was A.
Lott confused on what what museum this would be part of? Really,
so that makes sense? It makes uh, I guess that
makes sense. It's just one writer said that part of
it is that the um that the automobiles never really
had an advocate or a champion at the Smithsonian. Because
the only reason that we have the Air in Space
(14:32):
Museum is because President Truman created it in after there
was an a real firebrand advocating for it. UM. So
you have to, you know, you have to push for
something if you want it, and it didn't happen with
the Smithsonian yet. But this is by far not the
(14:56):
only car secret car collection right so now, and we mentioned,
you know, we the henry Ford, And I'll be honest
with you, I don't know if the henry Ford has
many more than what they what they've got on display.
I would think that they would. But I know when
they have you know, special displays like let's say, um,
something that focuses on American culture. Uh, they may bring
in a certain type of vehicles that are donated or
(15:17):
that are their on loan, uh, you know, for that display,
and then maybe they go away. I'm not sure how
that all works. I don't know how the rotation works
at the henry Ford. You know, if they have a
warehouse somewhere that they keep cars that just simply aren't
being shown or being restored, or I would think that
it has to be that way. And if somebody is
listening out there, if anybody out there has kind of
the inside track on what the henry Ford does. You know,
(15:39):
if there's a warehouse in downtown Detroit somewhere that stores
cars for them, or you know, whatever the case may be,
or maybe it's you know, in northern Michigan and they
they truck them in. Who knows. Um, I'd love to
know about the kind of the inner workings of the
henry Ford and how that happens. And I can't give
even an honest count about how many vehicles are on
display because it changes all the time. Right as you said,
(16:00):
if you could be an excellent point there, Scott when
you said that they'll bring in cars from outside collections,
uh sometimes even from private collectors to display. And I
can't even tell you if that's the truth. I mean,
who knows. Maybe maybe the henry Ford owns all of
these cars. Maybe that's their thing. Maybe we have to
own all the cars that are on display. I just
don't know. There's there's like a bit of secrecy and
(16:21):
that you know, you can't easily find this, you know,
just doing simple research. You'd have to really call and
dig around and ask all these questions specifically to the
people that operate the place. We're going to go back
to our episode about secret car collections and Scott I
do have one sidebar here real quick, just going back
to the Smithsonian. Uh, they did something really interesting in
(16:43):
a few years back, and they asked the public to
vote on which cars they should bring out into the
public exhibitions. They did so they've had yeah, but so
they had a list of all the cars that they
have available, you know, the ones that they're able to
able to display, right, and the public voted, yeah, and
they voted on stuff like, uh, the E V one
(17:06):
electric car, which uh the g M or Yeah, the
e V one never reached the market and it's super
rare now, but the Smithsonian has one of those. They
have a long steam tricycle from the eighties, self propelled
bicycle only ways there in fifty pounds. They have the
the GM sun Racer there, which was that that um,
(17:29):
the solar car experiment and solar power. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
and they have uh, they have some We mentioned the
Tucker race car or the Tucker Sedan. We should mention
the Miller race cars, um, which we I won't say
much about those because we might do an episode just
on those later. Uh. But the point being that it's
(17:49):
it's important if you hear about secreted away things and museums.
I've heard this collection called the Noah's Ark of the Smithsonian. Yeah,
it's not quite fair because it's not as if there's
some conspiracy of foot to keep these away from people
know and some people know they're there. It's just again,
this is just like, well, yeah, I know the Smithsonian
(18:11):
and I went there, and they have they have about
five or six cars, and that's maybe about it. You
don't realize that they have seventy three that they have available.
But somebody is taking care of those in a warehouse
somewhere and they're just they're you know, they're stacked up
on a shelf or whatever. Right, they would love to
show us these cars all at once, I'm sure, But
but how Washington, d C. Is not known for its
(18:31):
large amounts of space no it's not. It's not. So
you know, there's likely underground story song which is intriguing.
Just drive them all up, you know once once uh
a year or at some point on the Fourth of July.
Just drive them to the National Mall park on the grass.
That would be really cool to see all of them
on display at one time. I'm I wonder if they would.
(18:54):
I'm sure they would fit in the National Mall. Huge giant,
but um okay. Yeah, Well, if you're listening to this
and you're in charge of Fourth of July celebrations in
d C, and you know someone at the Smithsonian that's
got this kind of pull and you want to hang
out with us for an afternoon, let's make this happen. Yeah,
that's likely. I'm sure that person is listening. So let's
(19:16):
just had our bets. And in case the Smithsonian scheme
doesn't work out for Scott, what are some other secret
car collection? I wish I wish ben I had more
details about the Henry Ford because you know, when we're
talking about that, I feel bad that it's like, well,
here's a general like I wonder if they have this,
I wonder if they have that. But I wish we
had more on that. But I'll tell you what we
do know more about is we know more about the
(19:36):
like the Nissan Museum. Now, Nissan has a secret a
what they call a top secret. Yeah, and Air quotes
Heritage Center, which is in Zama, I think it's Zama, Zama, Japan,
and it's right where the company was founded, just like
something like eighty plus years ago now at this point.
But Nissan dots and you know, that's the brand we're
(19:56):
talking about. And not all the cars that are there
are pristine. They're not all like museum quality cars. Some
of them were raced and placed right directly into the
museum as soon as they were done racing, so they're
a little bit rough, little beat up in as race condition.
There's also some that were donations from the public, you know,
people that donate cars with the knowledge that you know,
(20:17):
your car is going to be safe now because it's
done in donate the museum. It's not gonna be you know,
sitting in the on the street, rotting away, and it's
of some significance. And you know, dots and Nissan didn't
have a copy of that, and they wanted one, and
you happen to have one and you know you don't
really want to hang on to any longer, so you
donate the car. Yeah, and uh, I think it's a
good solution for both people. You can say that, you know,
you did something to preserve the history of of Dots
(20:39):
and or Nissan or whatever. Exactly right. And if you
look at the photo, there's a top Gear article photos
that go along with an article whether that these photos
from this museum are just incredible. Ben, The Nissan Museum
is awesome. You just see the race cars that they have.
They're just lined up one after the other. Gorgeous, gorgeous
race cars. So if you get a ants, check out
(21:01):
the Nissan Museum. Uh, but that is what I like
that one. But we haven't yet talked about a private collection. Yeah,
you know, I want to get to one eventually. You
know here towards the end of the podcast that that
very few people know about, but I think would be
excited if they knew it was there. Um, but I
let's talk about Um, you said, let's throw on one
(21:21):
private one right now? How about that? Okay, Yeah, you
said you wanted to hear one about that. Um, remember
last summer, I think it was last summer. It must
have been. I think it was maybe even later in
the year, maybe in the fall of two thirteen. There
was a place called Pierce, Nebraska that so go ahead,
and you want to just mention it, Okay, well, just
(21:42):
a high level look and check me if I'm wrong here.
There is a field in this town in Nebraska which
is just lousy with cars. Chevrolet's right, only Chevys in Pierce, Nebraska. Yeah,
this guy, his name is Ray Lambrick, and Lambrick I
think it would. I'll remember this exactly when I'm talking
about it. If you're a fan of car stuff, you
(22:03):
probably know about this news. But the Lambrick auction that
was now the infamous Lambrick auction, and that's when the
rest of the world heard about it because people traveled
from countries far wide to Nebraska to bid on these cars.
Here's how big this this was, how big of a
deal it was. The town itself typically has seventeen hundred
(22:24):
and sixty seven um population. That's a relatively small place,
very small town. And I think you know that there
was an additional amount of people that were also on
the phone and you know, skyping or whatever, trying to
get in on the action. You know, on the auction action.
But there's this huge auction that happened in in the fall,
and this is one of those things. Ben. There's there's
(22:44):
five hundred Chevrolet's parked out in a field somewhere and
you know, barns and outbuildings or whatever. But no one
knew about them other than the people of Pierce, Nebraska
and maybe the surrounding town who knew about them for
a while. Yeah, they've known about them for a long
long time because this was a collection that took fifty
years to build. And the story is that the guy,
(23:04):
you know, he was a I think he was a dealer, right,
he was a local Chevrolet dealer, and he said that
you know, the car didn't sell within the first year.
What he do is he would just take it to
this field and park it. And you know, you always
had them available, I guess. Now. Some of them were
station and buildings. Others were of course just parked in
this field. Like we said, um, but this has been
going on since like the late nineteen forties, so you
(23:26):
can imagine that some of the cars that are parked
there early on, you're the ones at the back of
the field or maybe the front of the field. I
don't know. Um, these are the ones that you know,
people are really taking notice of because they were parked
with you know, maybe five or six miles on the
odometer something like that, very very low mileage. And these
are rare vehicles notes unrestored, and you know, some of them,
you know, not every one of them, men were anything special,
(23:48):
you know, some of them. Some of them were just
kind of middle of the road chevrolets, you know, nothing,
the stuff that just didn't sell. I was gonna say,
there's a reason they ended on the field, just were popular.
But some of them over time became very valuable. And
I think some of them actually, you know, garnered quite
a bit of money at these at these at this
auction rather but in the end, uh, the entire auction
(24:09):
raised something like two point eight million dollars and that's
for five dred cars. Not bad. But I think somebody
has done, you know, a kind of run down on
was it worth it to hang on to all these cars?
And I think it was determined it was kind of
a wash. Yeah. And when we say washed, we don't
mean they broke even No, no, no, exactly right. But
you know, you could look into that and find out
exactly what the deal is on that. But you know,
(24:31):
two point eight million dollars in your hands sounds pretty
good after collecting cars for fifty years and really there
was nothing to this. He just parked them, left them
and that was it. And now you know this guy
that's now um, you know, mid nineties. He and his
wife are both still around. He's he's his wife Mildred
is two or she was at the time this was written,
which is the end of last year. Um, I don't know.
(24:51):
It seems like that's a that's a reasonable thing for
them to do, is to sell it off, because what
are they gonna do with five cars at this point?
They're right? Yeah, yeah, So that is an amazing story,
especially because I don't know about you, Scott, but it
gives me the feeling that's a visible tip of a
very large iceberg. You know, yeah, I do too, especially
with the size of the United States. That's one thing.
(25:11):
That's one thing that I think we don't really consider
ourselves having grown up here, and that people from other
countries may not really feel until they get here. This
place is huge. Man. You could hide you could hide
twelve hundred cars, you know, Yeah, I mean, it's just
a matter of like where you are in the world
(25:33):
or where you are in this country really because and
it happens elsewhere to find out. I'm gonna talk about
some from other countries in just a minute. But um,
you know this, this Ray Lamberick guy, there's there's no
doubt in my mind he's not the only one doing this.
And we mentioned, you know, Matt's story here that our
pressure about what he had done. But that was only
forty cars, and I say, only that's an awful lot
of cars. But I mean, I had no idea the
(25:55):
collection was there. And it's relatively close to where we
work here. It's south south of Atlanta somewhere. Um, you
just don't hear about the stuff until something happens where
they say, all right, it's time to sell. Yeah, and
then you become aware of it, and then you think,
why didn't they know that was there? And you know,
we we talked when we're talking about the ed Soel
one time. I remember, remember there was a guy somewhere
that had, you know, fifty ls parked in the field
(26:16):
somewhere and he and he won't he won't sell them
because to them, Yeah, it's a it's a weird thing,
or he sells maybe he sells the parts or something,
or he won't sell the parts, you only sell the
whole vehicle or something like that. Oh, it was something
like that because we were talking about we had talked
before as well about how that can be a differentiation
line because a lot of times when people are collecting
(26:37):
or storing, they don't want to buy the whole car,
They just want to part that they need. Yeah, and
then that leaves you with a pile of junk that
maybe someone else doesn't want. So you know, you've got
to kind of decide you're gonna sell the parts you
can sell the whole vehicle. And there's a lot of
cases like that. But I mean to have fifty edels
parked in the field somewhere, that's unusual, right, I love
just let me describe for our audience, uh, that you're
shrugging a little bit every time you say fifty edels
(27:00):
wild hand gestures like what is this guy doing with anyways?
So let's move on to another thank you for humor
with a with a private collector. But and there's more. Yeah,
but let's go to a public collector because you mentioned Nissan.
We mentioned Henry Ford h oh Um. A quick one
just on the side Walter P. Chrysler Museum, which is
(27:21):
now I think no longer open to the public close
closed down, but it's for private functions. I think you
can still get in, right Yes, you and I talked
about this one, Scott. So for any listeners who uh
really wanted to get into the museum, don't give up yet.
Take heart, because if you just put together the right
(27:42):
private event and uh you can work out the math
on the wallet side, then I'm sure that you can
get in. Yeah. There's two of them like that right
now in Detroit that I want to talk about. Now.
That's that's the first one. The Walter P. Chrysler Museum,
which was open to the public, had a great display.
They also had a base with unrestored cars, and that
was where there was some real intriguing stuff down there
(28:04):
as well, you know, some interesting things, and there were
always cars coming in and going out, and you just
never knew what was gonna be there. It's just an
interesting mix of vehicles and that happens. It wasn't as
giant as the next one I'm gonna tell you about, though,
because this is huge. This is an incredible, incredible stash
of cars that you're you're gonna you would never see
a group in the cars like this ever. Again, I
(28:24):
don't think ever. I know that's pretty bold statement, but
you just might not because this is um. This is
like all of GM's history all under one roof. AH.
The GM Heritage Center, which is in Sterling Heights, Michigan,
also not open to the public. They have something like
six hundred or more cars that go from the very
(28:47):
beginning of General Motors all the way through present day.
And it's significant models. I mean, they have all three
of the Firebird concepts that we talked about, the ones
that look like jets. They have the very first concept
car ever, the Buke wid Job I have here's what
it's called. They have that. Um, they have everything, and
there's everything there and as many corvettes as you can imagine,
(29:07):
you know, and I'm only hitting some of the highlights here,
but there's there's so many cars. There's so many that
literally if you took the day to walk through and
see each one, you wouldn't have enough time. And I
don't think you can't even do that. I don't even
know if they're all in one building. It's something like
a I forget the square footage of this building, but
it is enormous. It's a huge, huge place, and it
(29:29):
covers you know, you gotta imagine a car history that
covers more than one hundred years, yes, exactly more than
one car a year. Two it's a long history for
general motors. And and obviously this connect collection is still growing.
It's again not open to the public, so you have
to either plan a special event or be part of
a special event. I think there may be a day
when it's open to employees. So if you're an employee,
(29:51):
you're lucky enough to be able to go. Personal question,
did you ever do you ever get there? I did not.
My My father has. He's been there as part of
a part of a video crew. He does a lot
of GM filmwork and stuff, and uh so he has
been there, has been there, has seen it, has told
me it's incredible, amazing thing to see that. It's something
(30:11):
I mean, as they say, you know, in this article
they read it's arguably the greatest collection of cars period
anywhere in the world. And of course you can argue
about this, you know, what's what's a better collection. Maybe
you know, Porsche has a better collection at their museum,
and and you know, maybe um Audi has a fantastic
collection there. I know they do. I'm just saying that
this isn't this is you know, with six hundred cars,
(30:32):
that's incredible and all the brands that they have through
the decades, through the century. How can you beat that?
I would you know what I was going to say
that maybe a very very wealthy private individual might have
a collection like like Jay Leno's collection has some astonishing vehicles,
(30:52):
but I don't think it comes close in size and scope. No, no,
it's not. It's not even And I don't know who
would really it's not I mean even that. I mean
we hear about that all the time. And he has
some remarkable automobiles, of course, I mean we we all
know that. But I don't know the exact number on J.
Lennos collection because we were doing secret car collections. But
but nowhere near six cars. I mean, it can't even
(31:14):
be close. Wow, I mean, that's it just doesn't happen.
Now there's another one that um I'd like to talk
about here that is from another country. All right, well,
where in the world are we going where in the
world are we and we're going to We're going to Portugal,
Spain for this next one. Then, and this is a
barn find or a supposed barn. Fine, but you know,
(31:35):
it's it's an intriguing story because initially everybody thought that
it was just something this was just something that you know,
turned up that someone someone opened the door to this
barn and found one hundred and eighty classic cars and
a barn in Portugal. It's it was, you know, just
it was like welded up and no one knew about
it for decades and decades. Not the case. What it
really was was a similar case to um the Lambrick.
(31:58):
It's very similar. The the owner was an automobile dealer
in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, and he built
up this huge assemblage of cars over the years and
he stashed them away in this barn, and then when
the barn was full, then he soldered the door shut.
He didn't well to he soldered them shut, which is
a weird choice, but he soldered them shut. And so,
you know, because the structure is full, it's it's just
(32:19):
gathering dust over the years. So when someone did peek
in there. I'm sure it was impressive. I mean, I've
seen the photos of this, and the cars are just parked,
you know, door to door with um with dust, you know,
an inch of dust on everything. It's a you know,
plastic wrappers, no, nothing like that. But um, the guy
that shot the photos kind of cleared up the story
on this whole thing because the photos re leaked first
and someone said, look at this incredible barn find. It
(32:41):
was unknown cars that you know, just turned up and
out of context. Turns out, yeah, exactly right. You know,
this is the same thing. The guy just kind of
squirreled away cars over the decades and it ended up
being an amazing collection when it's done. Not all of
them are fantastic, Not all of them are. All of
them are museum cars by any means. But there's some
notable car is in there. There's some race cars in there,
(33:01):
some cars that are just pretty rare to begin with,
you know, and they haven't been around for you know,
they haven't been on the road rather for forty years.
So do you think that the locals knew about this?
Where in Portugal? Was that? I do? I could, I
can't tell exactly where they were in Portugal. But you
know it must be a tucked away area somewhere that obviously,
I mean, it must be a farm type environment somewhere. Um.
(33:22):
But you know, it wasn't really a secret to the
family or anybody around there. It was just a secret
to the rest of the world. He probably just soldered
it shut for security at some point. Likely, I mean
he padlocked it, you know, that padlocked it and soldered
it shut, so you know, he didn't want anybody getting
in there. I always wonder what was he planning to do.
I don't know. He's got one hundred and eighty cars,
and you know, here it is four years later, he
(33:44):
hasn't touched any of them. You know, there's not gonna
be any There's clearly not any restoration project going on
anything like that. So again it's just one of those
head scratchers, like what's he gonna do with that with
those cars? Before we get to the next one, I
do have to say, um, for all our long time
listeners who recall our episode on the Corvette giveaway, that
(34:06):
one really just broke me up man on a personal level,
because you know, we're always very careful to say that
whether or not we agree with what somebody's doing to
their car. It's their car. But this is uh, this
is the v H one giveaway for a Corvette for
every year that Corvettes have been made. And then this
(34:28):
the guy who is currently in charge of it, right,
just turned it into an art project. Yeah, because he's
an artist, Yeah, and hasn't been taking very good care
of the cars. He bought them from the winner, yeah,
who just sort of also didn't take care of them. Yeah,
that's right, I mean there was. It was an interesting story, though,
wasn't it. I mean fascinating and I'd love to get
an update on this. Oh you know what, the artist,
(34:50):
the artist isn't The artist is actually way better to
the cars. At least he's doing something. Well, it's sort
of ye. Remember it became kind of a secret car
collection because would just discovered them in an underground parking
structure somewhere um after they have been left again ben
for like maybe a decade or more. Yeah, and they
had totally gone to pot. You know, the tires were ruined,
(35:12):
so much of the rubber was eating away, mold and
mildew issues because the windows are left down and things
like that. It's just it was a I guess the
sad ending, but I think that the good and that
was that you know, it got some interest. And I
don't know if it was broken up then if it
was sold, or if he held onto them and and
did anything with him. Finally, because you know there's public pressure, now,
maybe maybe that counts as a as a secret car
(35:33):
collection to Definitely, this brings us to is this uh,
is this the big one that earlier? I think it
is because I think this is the one that maybe
not a lot of people have heard about this And
the only reason that you might have is because of
the condition that Detroit isn't right now there in Uh
they're in bankruptcy and they filed for bankruptcy. Um, you
know last year. I believe it was sometime last year.
(35:55):
And I don't know all the details. I'm not going
to even try to just talk about the details of
the bank see, but there's problems in the motor city.
We all know that, Okay. So now the anxiety that
comes up over something like this is uh is well founded,
I believe, because there's a car collection that is held
at a place called Fort Wayne. Now Fort Wayne is
(36:17):
a historic what and you think of Fort Wayne, Indiana,
but this is Fort Wayne, Detroit, and it's right on
the river, and I guess it would be just south
of Belleisle that area. Okay, if you know the terrain,
and it's a collection of sixty two cars that are
on that property. They're on the Fort Wayne property. And
this is so unique. Then they're they're so strange. It's
they're not really on display. They're not for the public
(36:39):
to see. This is just really a collection of cars
that have been held for the purpose of preserving the
history of the automobile in Detroit. Are they bubble They're
in bubbles. They're all in these uh these um pressurized bubbles,
these clear plastic bubbles, every single one of them. So
you look at this warehouse shot and it's I mean again,
(37:00):
they're parked side by side and there's a hum of
of you know, the generators that that are keeping the
fans blowing these things, you know, keeping them keeping them
cool and dry, cool and dry. They're also you know
that there's no plastic touching them. These are restored cars.
They're they're lovingly restored, as the article says, and I
wouldn't say pristine by any means, but their museum quality cars,
(37:21):
I guess. And you know, these bubbles keep insects out,
they keep humidity away from them. All that. You know,
they're being well kept in this music in this uh
um warehouse. Brother, it's just nobody knows about them that
they're just sitting there. And again the reason for having
them is that it just preserves the history of the
motor city. And it was added to year after year.
(37:43):
You know, people, um, I guess you know, civic minded
citizens would donate these cars and say I want this
to be part of your collection because it's a significant
automobile in some way. And here's the reason I think
they have, um, a Cadillac there from I think, I
want to say that early Nive and you know that
that's right away. That's a that's a very very rare vehicle.
(38:03):
But the one that's maybe the most valuable, it's a
Ford Mustang. It's worth and estimated two million dollars that's
in this building. Um, the whole collection. I don't know
if you could even put a dollar amount really on
the thing, because you know, depends on the market. Yeah,
but I mean it's a huge, huge collection. It's sixty
two cars that are that are there, and they have
like a nineteen thirty four Chrysler Airflow, which is a
(38:25):
significant they have. They have some others that are kind
of middle of the road like they have They have
a maybe not even middle. They have an AMC Pacer,
which is kind of funny, you know, but you know,
it represents some of what was going on in Detroit.
It was part of AMC's history. So it's there. It's
not there just to be the highlights of their favorite
But they do have other stuff that is very significant,
like that Mustang that I mentioned, the two million dollar Mustang.
(38:47):
They have the nineteen nineteen Dodge Coope that belonged to
John Francis Dodge, which has his initials in the door
written in gold, which is pretty impressive. The odometer reading
is something like four thousand miles on it, so it's
very a low miles um. It's just They have a
nine two Oldsmobile Runabout, which they think is one of
the first mass produced automobiles ever, which is significant for
(39:10):
Detroit and in its own way. Just there's amazing group
of vehicles here and a lot of people just don't
even know that it's there because it's just stuck in
a warehouse somewhere. And again there's this anxiety over what's
going to happen to this collection because is it is
it property of the City of Detroit, which is now
going through bankruptcy, which means that its assets can be liquidated,
(39:31):
and they have an emergency um as an emergency manager,
the city city manager. His name is Kevin Orr, and
the city is something like fifteen to seventeen billion dollars
right now, billion with a B. And that's why things
like this collection are being looked at like, well, you
better hang onto that collection because that's part of our history.
But then Kevin Orr is probably looking at it, you know,
(39:53):
as as money symbols, saying, well, if I can get
twenty million, I mean, it's a drop in the bucket,
But you know, if I can get twenty in for
that collection, why wouldn't we sell that to to benefit
the city Detroit to get it out of this bankruptcy situation.
That's the same. And they're looking at things like, you know,
the the artwork and the museum in downtown, you know,
and that's another huge thing that people are and they
get all this anxiety over. But we're talking about cars,
(40:15):
and we're talking about this collection of cards sixty two vehicles.
I can see why a lot of people are sweating
about this, you know, saying like, well, let's get them
out of there. We have to, but there's still property
to Detroit. I believe it reminds me in some way,
just thematically, I guess of the stories of people in
times of revolution who had to burn their books to
(40:37):
keep their house warm. Yeah, I mean, what do you do.
It's a very very difficult, very difficult um. But we
also are going to end on an up note because
one of my favorite parts where we're looking at this
episode and getting ready for it, Scott, was this. I
know that some of you out there listening are acquainted
with a strange and mysterious collection of cars somewhere in
(41:02):
your area or you've heard of it, and even if
it's one of those friend of a friend of a
friend things, which by the way, usually means it's not true.
We usually yeah, usually I'm gonna go with a hard
eighty three percent of the time minimum it's not true.
Very specific, Uh, yeah, I don't know, go specific, but
we would like to hear if you have any anecdotes
(41:24):
or stories or discoveries about local car collections in your
area because we eat these stories up. You can find
us on Facebook. You can tell us about these on Twitter.
You can also send us an email direct when we
are car stuff at discovery dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, is that how stuff
(41:46):
works dot com. Let us know what you think, Send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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