Hidden Treasures

Have you ever wanted to discover some hidden treasures? I'll take that as a yes. Young boys especially are prone to dream of digging up a chest of Spanish gold. Many young men grow up and, yet, there is still a part of them that yearns to go along with Indiana Jones on his next adventure. Well, in the world of cars this happens more than people realize. Somebody stumbles on an immaculate 1968 Shelby GT-500KR in a barn in Tennessee, where it has been forgotten since 1975 because the young man who owned it never came back from Vietnam. A story that was recounted to me by one such discoverer around 1970 is even more amazing. As I recall, this man was a newspaper writer who had heard a story about a 1938 Mercedes 540K that supposedly had been specially built for Eva Braun by Adolph Hitler and had been driven out of Berlin in 1945 before the Russians encircled the city. As the story goes, the Army driver took the car to his farm in the country and the car was never seen again. This writer heard this story many years later and did some investigating. He eventually found the name of the driver and where he had lived. Well, he found this place, and, as it turns out, the driver was dead but his elderly wife was still living. He questioned her about the car, and, to his amazement, she said the car was still out in the barn where her husband had left it. Since she did not drive, she did not even pay any attention to it. He went to the barn and there it was. Now, this was not any ordinary Mercedes 540K. This car was very special. It was cast in one piece, only the doors, hood, and trunk lid, were added and it was all gold plated. It was made with two gas tanks so it could run on either regular gas or diesel. This car had a special gearbox with 7 forward speeds and 4 in reverse. The car had been untouched since it had been parked years earlier, the drivers' Schmeisser machine pistol was still laying on the front seat. He purchased this car from the woman and I suspect it was a bargain. Now, you might say that sounds like a good story, much like the Lost Dutchman Mine and other famous mystery treasures. Well folks, I saw this car in person. This writer was taking this car on a US tour and charging a few dollars for people to see it at each stop. This car was absolutely beautiful. I was a college student at the time and could not verify its authenticity, but, if it was a fake, it was the most expensive fake that I have ever seen. What makes this interesting now is that nobody seems to know where it is and many people say that the whole story was a fraud. Curiously, in 1942 a toy company had made a tin-plate model of this very same car. If this car ever makes it to the Barrett-Jackson Auctions you will definitely hear about it. People with a "Walter Mitty" complex, like me, dream of being in on such a discovery.

The 5 cars I have listed below are also rare to varying degrees, but mainly just plain interesting.


1) 1963 Grand Sport Corvette

This is the car every Corvette owner would "kill" to own. There were only 5 built and they all still exist. This car was created by the legendary Zora Duntov as a "Cobra Killer". Corvette wanted revenge on the stable of cars that Carrol Shelby was destroying everybody with on the racing circuits around the world. It has a 377 c.i. small block engine that produces 550 hp. The program had been started in secret by Duntov and he planned to build 125 of these beasts. Chevrolet got wind about his plans and put a stop to it, although 5 had already been built. These fabulous five did get to race and they tore up the competition. The one pictured was driven by Bob Bondurant. If anyone ever sells one of these, the buyer will spend millions.

2) 1956 Continental Mark II

This car was produced by the new Continental Division of Ford in 1956 and 1957. It was separate from the Lincoln Division but it did have the trademark spare tire hump on the rear deck lid. If you ever see one of these, only about 1700 were built, it looks like a luxury version of a 1956 Thunderbird. In fact, it is a lot more than that. This car had the Lincoln 368 engine (300 hp) and was practically handbuilt. It had multiple coats of paint, was hand sanded, and had 2 layers of lacquer. This car cost $10,000 which was the price of a Rolls or twice the price of a high end Cadillac at the time. Elvis and Sinatra owned one of these.


3) 1931 Bugatti - type 41 "Royale"

If you want to be noticed, and can afford it, you might want to have one of these. I warn you though, there are only 6, and any one of them will cost you millions. The Type 41 has a 12.7 Litre straight 8 engine with 3 valves per cylinder which produces about 300 hp. This car was designed by Mr. Bugatti for "royalty" but his timing was off, way off. These cars were coming out just as the Great Depression was also making its debut. The Great Depression won. Originally scheduled to make 25 of these cars starting at around $30,000 each, Bugatti only made 6 which saw the light of day and each of of these has a different body. All 6 are still in existence and one of them went for around TEN MILLION DOLLARS at auction in 1987.

4) 1965 Sunbeam Tiger

Can you say "greased lightning"? This car was under the radar (except for the police variety) when it came out and has remained so for most of humanity. It was not especially stylish or luxurious but it was and is FASSST! This car was another Carrol Shelby project for Ford that they hoped would become another success like the AC Cobra. A small 260 c.i. V8 was dropped into a Sunbeam Alpine which transformed it from a pussycat sportscar into a "Tiger" on wheels. I had the hair raising experience of riding with a fellow college student in a new '65 that belonged to a friend of his. One of my memories of my freshman year is screaming down Hillcrest Road in Dallas, Texas doing 105 mph at two in the morning (in case you didn't know Hillcrest Road is a major thoroughfare). This car turned out to be a great little sports car but it had a short life. It had been a joint venture with Rootes Group, England which made the Sunbeam and Rootes was bought by Chrysler in 1967. Chrysler took a dim view of the car having a Ford engine so they stopped any further production. The last two years of production, 1967-68, saw the introduction of the Tiger II which had the Ford 289 V8 under the hood. The 260 c.i.d, engine produced 160 hp and the 289 produced 200 hp. About 7,000 cars total were produced and they are still popular with the people in the fast lane.



5) 1920 Rolls-Royce Armoured Car

I threw this one in for fun. Normally when you hear the name Rolls-Royce you think ultimate luxury with price to match. Well, this Rolls won't pamper you but it will cause traffic in front of you to move over fast. In 1914, with World War I in progress, The Royal Naval Air Service raised a squadron of armoured cars by requisitioning all Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost chassis with their engines and had them fitted with armoured bodywork and a turret for a .303 Vickers machine gun. The 80 hp motor gave it a cruising speed of 45 mph. The 1920 pattern was a more modernized version. A good number of these cars actually saw service in World War II also.

FERRARI 250 GTO

The Ferrari 250 GTO, the words just melt in my mouth, was produced in the early 1960's. When I was a kid, many moons ago, I had a slot car set made by Strombecker. I don't remember the exact scale but the cars were huge, about 5 or 6 inches long and the tracks, which had 2 slots in them, were a bear to put together. One of my favorite cars which I bought for it was a bright red Ferrari 250 GTO Daytona coupe. I think this is one of the best looking cars ever, and, for its time, is one of the best performers.

The "250" was the displacement of each engine cylinder in cubic centimeters and the GTO was for "Gran Turismo Omologato", which translated, is "Grand Touring Homologated". The 250 GTO was based on the 250 GT SWB and Giotto Bizzarrini, chief engineer, had the 3.0 L V12 engine from the Testa Rossa installed in this car. A 5 speed gearbox was introduced, and, coupled with the fantastic balance and 185 mph top speed, it dominated the competition on the racing circuit. Between 1962-64, 39 of these beauties were made and now they command an unbelievable price at auction, well into the millions of dollars. Just looking at this car makes my heart pound. Can you imagine pulling up to Wal-mart in one on these? No, me either, but I can see myself taking a few laps at Le Mans.

How to Buy a Car for Under $500

How do you buy a decent car for under $500? That has been a challenging quest for many people for years. It's not easy, but, it can be done. Over the years, including over seven of them in the car selling business, I have seen many people looking for this car, including myself. If you can take a little time and seriously dedicate yourself to the task, you can succeed.

When you are looking, keep in mind that one of the most important things you need to know about any car is its history. More important than mileage is how many owners the car has had and how they have maintained the car. This is much easier if you are dealing with a one owner car than 2 owners or more. An older car can have over 200,000 miles on it, but, that car can be in much better shape than one with 30,000 miles. Usually this is reflected in the condition of the car. This usually necessitates actually seeing the car. If everything works, inspection is up to date, body is clean, etc., you can be pretty sure that this car still has life in it.

If you find a car like this, regardless of the mileage, test drive it and check everything you can: windows, doors, trunk, hood, oil, etc.. If you don't feel comfortable with your own judgement, take along a friend who does work on his own car and see what they think. Also, if you want to spend the extra money, you can then have a mechanic give it a once over. Also, if you need more reinforcement, you can check the cars history at CARFAX. Many times this will tell you if the car has been in an accident, odometer check, etc.. A Carfax does not necessarily have all the information but often it can give you an idea of the cars history (sometimes reported service checks are listed on these also).

The hard part is finding these cars. I hope the list below can provide some insight into the process.

1) Newspapers (metropolitan and local), Trading Post type sales papers

This has been tried over and over through the years with not much success. Most of the cars listed in these sources are either dead or on life support. If you do call any of these, don't even bother if the car is being sold by a dealership because they probably paid $100 or less for it and it has probably not even been inspected.


2) Internet - eBay, Craigslist

Unless the car is local, where you can go and see it, I don't really recommend looking for one here that is less than $500. Ebay sells more cars than anybody but many of the cars listed are being sold by dealers. In any case, the same rules as to qualifying a potential buy apply.

3) Relatives and Other Senior Citizens

This can be your salvation if you do a little digging. Senior citizens do not usually do much driving and most of them make sure their cars are well maintained. If they have had the car a long time, the car may have high mileage but its the condition you are looking at. Check with your older relatives or ask your mother or father if they know of any senior members of the family who might have a car they might part with or are not really using. If any of your older relatives are thinking of purchasing a new car they are more likely to sell their car to you before trading it in. Typically, even if a car is 15 years old but immaculate with only 20,000 miles, it will still not get much in a trade because of age. Also, check with friends, people at work, at church to see if anybody might have a senior relative in such a position. These cars are out there, I have seen them traded in for next to nothing and then marked up a couple of thousand dollars because they are in such good shape.

4) Inside Contacts

Another very fertile area, but you have to know somebody or know somebody who knows sombody. Most dealerships have a section of their used cars that is their "bargain basement". Many times these cars are still priced from $2000 on up. Usually these cars are "as is" which means they may not be inspected or even checked out. Some of these cars were traded in for $500 or less. Also dealerships may have posted some of these type cars on eBay. Your task is to find someone who either works in sales or is a service technician for a likely dealership. Many times these are the folks who scarf up these cars for their friends or relatives or themselves. Some dealerships will let them buy these cars for their cost or $100 over their cost (if you work for them). If you or a friend of yours can find a person like this, you can tell them what you are looking for and they can keep an eye out. You might persuade them there is a case of beer in it for them if they find something that works out. The sales people are involved when these cars are traded in and many times these cars usually go through the service department before they hit the lot. Once you have decided on a car in this situation, it may require the sales person or service tech to purchase the car and then sell it to you. Of course, these are cash transactions. A car found this way can be the best of both worlds. The sales person usually gets the history of their trades and the service tech that checks out the car will spot most problems.

I hope this helps in your quest and GOOD LUCK!

The 1966 Pontiac GTO

One my "dream cars" is a 1966 GTO convertible in the "reef turquoise" with the 389 Tri-Power package. One of the best looking cars to come out of Detroit, was a fact reflected in its sales of 96,000 for that year. Only 19,000 had the Tri-Power option (3 2-barrel carbs). Also availble that year was an XS Ram Air package for the Tri-Power that boosted the horsepower from 360 to around 380. Can you say "VAROOOM!"? Less than 50 XS Ram Air cars were produced. No longer part of the Le Mans Line, 1966 was the first year the GTO had its own line. These cars were cruisin' main and smokin' their red lines all over the country.