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| The proud new owner of 1970 Challenger R/T HEMI, one of three documented Shaker hood 4speeds, during 2009 Mopars at the Strip. |
Being 15 years old for me brought with
it a long walk, 3 miles each way in the dark to work a back to back
close, then open shifts at my local McDonald's. Like most teenagers,
I longed for a car, mostly to turn four hours of walking between
shifts into 5 minutes of driving. But it was those daily journeys
that lit my fire for muscle cars. About two-thirds of the way to work on
a long stretch of road between neighborhoods, was a small gray house
with a detached garage that opened with a single panel overhead door.
Inside and parked around the yard, loitering like barn cats were '67
– '70 Mercury Cougars. No matter the time of night or how early in
the morning I walked by, the light in that garage was on usually
accompanied by sounds of the Steve Miller Band eliminating from
speakers too small for such a large space. One day I was walking by
after an open shift and hear the same music bleeding into the street
from the open garage. So, I decided to walk in. The trajectory of
my life changed.
The gray house and garage were owned by
a Ford mechanic that spent most waking off hours restoring his old
Cougars. I found out that he had been wrenching on them since he was
a boy my age at the time. He taught me how to evaluate a good car
and spot problems. I brought my first car, a '79 Mercury Capri to
him and he showed me how to maintain it. He even taught me how to do
an alignment with little more than pickle bar, some chalk and a tape
measure. That is where I learned, not just desire to own a cool
muscle car, but the ideal of being the current caretaker of these
vintage vehicles.
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| Photographing a collection of Shelby's in front of the Eiffel Tower Paris, France 2010 |
From there I had rescued, wrenched, and
driven everything from vintage Mopars, to Mustangs, and GTO's. Each
car was an learning experience, and not always a positive one. There
is little in this world worse than being taken advantage of with
something you are passionate about.
I started Show Your Auto LLC in 2003
after a career as an Executive Recruiter within the Information
Technology sector during the "tech-boom" that began in the
mid-90's. The subsequent “dot-bomb” bust lead me to downsize my
life, selling our first house and liquidating my modest car
collection. As an I.T. Recruiter and Consultant, I taught companies
to use best practices in marketing and selection so they could build
high-performance teams in mission critical business units. My
greatest personal satisfaction in my recruiting career was finding
the people who were both talented and passionate about their work.
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| Myself
and Sheikh Ali Abulla Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa (to my right), his family and a pair of Englishmen, Robert (far right) and Gerrad (far left). |
Starting Show Your Auto was an
opportunity for me to the same for myself, to marry his skills honed
in the business world with my God given passion for automobiles which
began in the gray garage with the big overhead door. The problem,
however, was that I was busted flat, living in a four flat apartment,
and underemployed. My uncle heard of my plans to bootstrap an
online automobile brokerage and offered to help by giving me a 1967
Buick Wildcat, that was brown and rust. There was only one
condition, I could not keep it. Selling the car for $750, that was
the seed money I used to start www.ShowYourAuto.com.
Since then, my work has taken me around
the world. I've driven a Shelby collection through the street s of
Paris, sold cars to Arab Royalty, and handled the sale of some of the
rarest muscle cars ever to have been produced. What I've learned
from that Ford mechanic as a young man still holds true today. To
pursue and purchase a rare collectable car is not merely a buying
choice, or even just an investment decision, this is about fulfilling
a heart's desire. If you're like me and so many that I've meant
along the journey, it is one that has been there since you were a
boy. 2013 will be the 10th anniversary of my business
www.ShowYourAuto.com and
the best is yet to come.
