- Oh, look at this (laughs).
(twangy electric guitar music)
Oh, boy, I love 'em both, man.
So, this air is so dry that it's delicate on metal.
So, I guess this is a good place to find cars.
I'm Tom Cotter.
The first car I found, I was 12 years old.
I'm 61 years old, now, and I'm still finding cars
and in this series,
you'll see that there are still plenty of cars left.
That's a really good buy.
I wish I had X-ray glasses, to look inside garages, man.
I can't wait to see what's in here.
We met a gentleman at dinner last night named William Taylor
and he's a sports car enthusiast in Denver and he told us
about somebody who has a bunch of old sports cars
about two hours west of Denver.
So, we're heading up there now to see what we might find.
(bluegrass music)
So, here we are at an antique mall in Leadville, Colorado
and I'm told the man that owns this place,
Bruce McAllister's got some cool old sports cars.
So, he owns this mall and we're gonna meet him
and he's gonna show us his sports cars.
(bluegrass music)
Oh, I bet this garage is how old, a hundred years old?
- Oh, 1800s, late 1800s, - Really?
- [Bruce] '80s or '90s.
- [Tom] Oh, look at this.
Oh, look at this (laughs).
Oh, boy, man, I love 'em both.
So, that's a C? - Yeah, '64 C.
- [Tom] So, when was the last time you drove this?
- [Bruce] Oh, probably like 1979, '78, '79.
- [Tom] Man, what did it cost when you bought it?
- 600 bucks, you know. - Man.
And, you bought it in Florida?
- [Bruce] Yeah.
- [Tom] So, it's got a little cancer up here.
- [Bruce] Yeah, a little bit on the front.
That fender was the common thing on 356s.
They just lap welded 'em on.
- [Tom] Oh, yeah.
So, is there a, there's no motor in it now?
- [Bruce] Oh, yeah, it runs.
- Oh, it runs? - Oh, yeah.
- [Tom] So, it's got the proper C motor?
- Yeah. - Solex?
- Yep, no, Zeniths, NDIX. - Zeniths, okay.
- I bought both of these when I was in high school.
This is a '57 Karmann Ghia.
I bought it from the original owner.
- [Tom] '57, man.
- [Bruce] This little old lady, she said she ordered it
and had to wait a year and a half to get it.
That's an original tire off of it, right there.
- [Tom] No kidding.
- [Bruce] Yeah, it's the German writing on it.
- [Tom] Metzler or something?
- [Bruce] Oh, no, it's a Continental, I think.
- [Tom] Veef, ah, B.F. Goodrich.
- Is it B.F. Goodrich? - Wow.
- [Bruce] But, if you look on the,
the little writing is all in German.
- So, this, this you're gonna restore.
Is this one for sale? - You know--
- This, would you sell this one?
- [Bruce] Well, you know, everything.
I can't keep everything.
I'm not gonna get to everything,
'cause you're just getting started with what I've got, so--
(laughing)
- [Tom] I like this, too.
You know, old Ghias are wonderful cars.
- [Bruce] But this one, just,
this one's be the least one I would like to sell,
just because of the personal attachment to it.
I drove this thing all over the place.
- [Tom] Wow.
- [Bruce] 36 miles per gallon, 40, maybe 40 if I was easy.
- All right, I can't wait to see what's next.
(bluegrass music)
So these buildings all have old cars in them,
that's pretty amazing.
(lock rattling)
Here we go again.
- It's a little dark in here.
I don't have any power.
- [Tom] Two Porsches, in one day.
Is that another C?
- [Bruce] That's a C.
(hollow knocking)
- Got a little Bondo on that baby.
- [Bruce] Yeah, but this has a funny story.
- This has a story, tell me the story.
- Well, it was, Leo, the guy who bought it new,
was a Air Force pilot or something in Germany
and he bought it and drove it around
in Germany for a couple years and then brought it over.
And then, he smashed the front
and started to do his own body work.
Looks like he put the Bondo on with the back of a shovel.
- Geez. - But, and then lots of--
- And so, you bought it just like this?
- [Bruce] Just like this, yeah,
and, but I didn't buy it from him;
I bought it from another guy.
I'm the third owner.
- Third owner from new? - Mm-hmm.
- And a '60? - It's got 67,000 miles on it.
- [Tom] '64, '65?
- Its title is '65, but it's actually a 60, well,
it was a '63 manufactured.
It's a really low number.
It's got the smooth hubcaps with no emblem on it.
- Yeah, yeah, I see that.
And, this one was what color?
Is is British Racing Green?
- Dolphin, Dolphin Gray.
- Dolphin, oh, that's a great color, with a red interior?
- And then the blue, - Oh, blue interior?
- They made a blue interior. - Wow.
- [Bruce] You can see the original color on the dash.
- [Tom] This has, like, a Blaupunkt radio in there.
- Yeah, it's untouched.
It's been, the guy I bought it, he bought it in 1982
and then it sat - Yeah.
- until I bought it, well, maybe five years ago.
- [Tom] Did you get it locally?
- [Bruce] Yeah, UPS guy told me about it.
- Ha, it was, like, in this town?
- Yeah, well, no, I bought it nearby.
- Isn't that something? - But the U, you know,
everybody knows that I collect cars.
"Oh, there's this old Porsche sitting out in the field.
"You might want to buy it."
I said, "Well, ask the guy if he wants to sell it."
- [Tom] That's great.
- [Bruce] And this, it's all complete, though.
It's the engine, but I haven't started it.
I've turned it over, but I couldn't get it to fire.
- [Tom] Same Zenith carburetors
but, I mean, it's so complete,
right down to the air cleaners.
- [Bruce] Yeah, and see these things, right here?
That blows hot air up onto the carburetors.
Those are always gone.
- Really? - Yeah, at least in--
- [Tom] It keeps them from popping.
- [Bruce] Well, yeah, or just like a carburetor pre-heater.
- Yeah, wow, 67,000 miles.
So, what's the shape of this car in, besides that fender?
- [Bruce] It's got some rust
and it's got a grafted fender, just like all of 'em.
- [Tom] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is this the original paint?
- Ah, I don't know.
I know the dash is, if you can look,
actually, it's kind of a--
- [Tom] Okay, so it's much lighter.
So, it looks like if was painted silver at one point.
- [Bruce] Yeah, it was silver.
- [Tom] Wow.
- The Dolphin Gray is kind of a, it's almost like
a light, light blue. - Yeah.
(door slamming)
Oh, that's great, and so, would you sell this one?
- I'd sell this one.
I don't, I'm not in any urgent hurry for it.
- I understand, yeah.
Great car, great story, wow, great stuff.
Well, that's pretty darned cool.
I mean, here we are in like rural Colorado
and we've seen, this morning, two Porsche 356s
which are, like, right now,
in such high demand by collectors, restorers,
because, you know, 40 years ago,
people were throwing those cars away.
"That's rusty," and they'd junk it.
Well, there's not many left anymore
and, so, to find cars that have been kind of,
I don't want to say maintained,
but somehow they're not as bad
as you would imagine them to be.
That car we just saw sat outside for 30 years or so
before he bought it and the body looked pretty good.
So, this air is so dry that it's delicate on metal.
So, I guess this is a good place to find cars.
I hope we find some more.
Well, the stuff you're showing is exactly
what we hope to see - Yeah.
- and give people encouragement
that they're still out there.
I wish I had X-ray glasses
to look inside garages, man, geez.
(twangy electric guitar music)
(dogs barking)
I can't wait to see what's in here.
Ha, great shop.
You've had this how long?
- Ah, 10 years.
This is original paint. - Wow.
- It's been a race car since day one.
This, he traded in a '63 Jaguar E Type
on this car, from the dealer.
- See, the original Mini Cooper S was
the hot rod Mini Cooper.
A guy named John Cooper said,
"I think this Mini's got some potential."
So, he came out with a 1,275 cc version of it
and it had disc brakes and it had more power.
It also had two gas tanks and they would balance out,
side-to-side, for better weight distribution.
- And, it's supposedly the only Mini left,
that races in this country with the Hydrolastic,
according to the Mini Club.
- [Tom] Yeah, it it a 1340 or something?
- 1312. - 1312?
(exhaust rumbling)
So, this is a barn find Formula Ford?
- [Bruce] Yes.
- [Tom] It's an Elden?
- A Merlyn. - A Merlyn, okay.
And, where'd you find this?
- [Bruce] Right in the next town down, it was a farm.
It was down a dirt road. - This, indoors, indoors?
- [Bruce] I think it was indoors.
It was indoors there.
- So, this is called a Formula Ford.
It was a spec series, racing series back in, well,
it started in the '60s, and this is a Ford Cortina engine.
So, every car was limited to this engine
and so, it really separated the driver,
driving talent from driver to driver, as opposed car to car
because every car, regardless of the brand,
had to have this same pushrod motor.
So, what's interesting, here, is
that you think about barn finds being
like old Fords and old Chevies.
You don't think about barn finds being Porsches
and, now, we're finding barn find race cars.
This is unusual, but it's not one of one.
There are plenty of old race cars
sitting in people's back yards and in garages.
Somebody races, they retire the car, they retire themselves
and if they are not inclined to sell the car,
they just push it in the back of the garage.
And, as Bruce said, this was laying around
for 10 or 12 years, just a few miles from here
and he's got a great project.
This car is so solid.
It's, ah, you've got a wonderful discovery, here.
(engine revving) (exhaust rumbling)
(twangy electric guitar music)
We had an appointment this morning in Leadville, Colorado
to see a yard full of cars.
But as we woke up, we looked at the weather forecast
and a snowstorm is approaching.
It started to fall in the parking lot
as we were loading up our cars.
We decided to leave Leadville and drive towards Denver
and get away from the storm.
Well, it's followed us.
So, this snow is gonna hit us here in a few minutes.
We're driving down I-70 towards Denver.
At exit 226, I saw this place
and saw a couple old cars out in front.
So, we pulled over, went inside
and talked to the owner, Stormy, who's got cars inside,
cars in the yard over there
and a yard full of cars up the road.
So, we're gonna try to see as many as we can
before this storm hits.
Diamond Rio truck, 1934.
1960 Chrysler, now, I'm gonna show you something,
this is a 1960 Chrysler four-door.
All right, no big deal, nice car,
but I'm going to show you a 1961 sister to this car.
This is a 1961 Chrysler, two-door.
Now, I don't know if I've ever seen one like this.
'61 Chrysler, it's got a four-tier 413 cubic inch V8,
pushbutton TorqueFlite transmission.
This was the one year where Chrysler tried to bring back
some early styling to their cars.
So, if you look at these headlights,
these headlights are separate from the body,
like a '34 Ford would have or something like that.
These are not built into the body.
You could unbolt these headlights.
If you look back here at the taillights,
these are called sparrow strainer taillights
and the reason the call them sparrow strainer is
if a bird got caught in here,
it would just strain it right through.
They were popular with customizers back in the '60s;
they put them on custom cars.
So, a very unique car.
If you look at the steering wheel, inside the car,
the steering wheel is square.
A very solid car, 1961, and it's for sale.
In fact, everything that Stormy has here,
except for one or two cars, is for sale.
This one, he wants 14,000 for.
The body is solid, I mean, you could just clean this car up
and drive it as is.
I think 14 grand is probably a fair price
for a car that probably runs pretty well.
It was last registered in 1979.
Here's a '51 Chevy Coupe, over here.
He doesn't know if it runs, but, you know,
this has got a stove-bolt six-cylinder motor in 'em;
not much can go wrong with them.
It's got an automatic transmission
and he wants 2500 bucks for this car.
Well, I'd say, you know, not a bad deal.
A little bit of rust over here, but all in all,
we've found that Colorado cars are in much better shape
than cars maybe up North or cars that we saw in California.
A '39 Plymouth sedan and a '39 Plymouth Coupe
which is in front of the building,
we'll take picture of that in a moment,
it doesn't have such a good front end,
but he wants 20, I'm sorry, $4,000 for the pair.
That's, that's a really good buy, if somebody was handy
and wanted to swap around some sheet metal
and have probably a pretty darned good running car
for not a lot of money invested.
This is a Nash tow truck, made by Nash Cars.
If a Nash vehicle broke down
and had to be towed to a dealership,
Nash didn't want Ford and Chevrolet and GMC Trucks towing
Nash vehicles to a Nash dealership.
So, Nash came out with a very limited number of trucks
that could just be sold to dealerships.
So, this Nash truck was owned by a Nash dealership, new.
It was owned by a shop and then Stormy got it,
so Stormy's the third owner of this.
It's only got 24,000 miles from new.
If you look at this thing, it's amazing.
Take a look at the gauges in here.
But, look at the shape of this thing, 1949.
Look at the gauges, the knobs, the dashboard, the trim.
The last time this was lubricated was 25,000 miles,
25,529, let's see what it's got now.
It's got 26,630, pretty amazing.
So, this truck is for sale.
He has a number of people interested in it,
but they haven't come to terms on a price yet,
but about 18,500 bucks, you could own
one of the rarest trucks, probably, in the United States.
There's only a handful of these left in the world
because customers couldn't buy these things.
Nash only built these for their own dealerships.
Nash was not interested in getting in the truck business
for retail purposes, only for hauling purposes.
So, there's only a few trucks in the world
that have this cab, these doors.
And, because this is so solid and clean and original,
you wouldn't have a problem restoring this thing.
(twangy electric guitar music)
This is 1953 GMC Cab-over.
You see a lot of these trucks these days being converted
to flatbeds or even campers.
(twangy electric guitar music)
We're in the Colorado mountains.
A hundred years ago, people were hunting for gold here
and I'm looking at a gold mine, right over there.
Well, we're hunting for gold, today,
only it's rust color.
We saw these cars, simply driving down the highway
and looking at them.
Sometimes, it's that easy
and sometimes, you have to talk to somebody
who knows somebody who knows somebody
and that's what took us to Leadville
to find a couple of garages with old Porsches.
So, as we're seeing, there's still plenty of cars out there.
Just go out and find 'em, happy hunting.
(twangy electric guitar music)
Wow. - And, in this crick building,
there's a Model T.
- [Tom] Is that Judge McAllister, no, Judge,
- Reynolds? - Reynolds.
- [Bruce] Oh yeah, you know them, yeah.
- [Tom] Well, we met a lady up at the,
I just bought a bulb at the auto parts store up the road
and she stopped and said,
"Oh, you gotta meet Judge Reynolds."