- One day I asked him about it and said,
that's a pretty straight 61 Lincoln, he says,
Yeah would you believe it,
that used to belong to Ella Fitzgerald.
- 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.
(electric upbeat music)
This is a good deal.
(lively music)
So we're leaving today to go to a place called Boomers.
It's a lead we got.
Boomers is apparently some kind of tow yard or junkyard.
He's got old cars,
and I hear that he has all the old tow trucks
from the Unser Junkyard,
so that'll be kinda interesting to see as well.
(lively music)
Do you have other old cars here as well?
- Yeah, I got a bunch of stuff in the back.
- [Tom] Cool.
(lively music)
Tell us what we're looking at, the Plymouths now.
- Okay.
- That's a pretty nice looking car.
- That's a '59 Fury
- [Tom] 80,000 miles?
- Had 87 when I got it, it's got 88 now.
- [Tom] This is, wasn't there a movie?
- Christine. Christine's one off from this.
Christine's a '58, this is a '59.
- [Tom] I see.
- It's actually why I wanted this car.
I've wanted one of these since I was a kid.
- [Tom] So you drive this occasionally?
- [Man In Green Jacket] Yeah.
- [Tom] Would it have a wedge in it?
- It's got a poly 318.
- [Tom] And push button transmission-
- Push button torque flights.
Third year of push button torque flights.
- So a big ol' four barrel.
This is a good morning, whenever you can start the morning
with like a dozen old cars
before nine o'clock, it's a good morning.
- All right you guys come in here.
- [Tom] All right.
(lively music)
- This is the other opening.
- [Tom] Ahh okay.
And the George Barris type of guy built this.
- He built that and he built that.
- [Tom] Wow.
- That's all lead.
The two El Caminos were done in bondos, they were race cars.
- [Tom] This was a race car?
- Yeah. This car won its first 20 races in like 1963.
- Drag racing.
- Yeah.
- [Tom] Sort of heavy, huh.
- Yeah.
The car actually ran and drove on a cooler in here
when we closed my dad's shop.
- So this is a '56?
- '55 Ford.
- [Tom] '55 Victoria.
- And it's got a '56 312 in it,
make it a little bigger motor.
- [Tom] Is that a runner driver.
- It runs and drives.
- So when you move in your new place you'll just
flap these babies out of here and,
- Most of them will fire up and actually run.
- And wash them and
- Yeah.
- Put them in the showroom.
That'll be great.
These cars will be forever grateful.
(lively music)
It's a 36 4t door Sedan?
- Two door fast pack Sedan.
It's got a built-to-the-hilt 350 in it.
We never actually ever ran the car at the track
but we took it street racing one night
and it beat a 12 second car
so we think it's at least a 12 second car ride.
(lively music)
(lively electric music)
- Were here earlier.
Steve had an appointment in Albuquerque
so we said we would come back this afternoon,
and he's got two yards, this one and that one,
and we peeked over the fence and said,
there's cool stuff but I don't want to see it.
I'll come back later.
Well here we are.
(lively music)
You sell these cars?
- Occasionally, you know,
my wife says get rid of them, let's go on vacation.
(lively music)
One day, I asked them about it and said
that's a pretty straight '61 Lincoln.
He says, yeah would you believe it,
that used to belong to Ella Fitzgerald.
And I went no I don't believe it.
- [Tom] (laughing) Whatever.
- And he had the original registration,
two of them from the '60s,
- No kidding.
- A registration from a next guy that owned it,
the next guy, and himself.
- Jeez.
- And of course that the original black plate.
- [Tom] Yep, yep, yep.
- So it's cool, you know.
- [Tom] So you have the registration for this that says
Ella Fitzgerald's name on it.
- Oh yeah.
- Isn't that something.
And it drove onto the trailer, a year ago.
- He had a can of gas sitting here siphoning it.
And it's still off.
It's just there.
- Wow.
- But that guy could make anything happen.
He's amazing with cars.
(electric guitar music)
- We stayed at a great hotel,
a very historic hotel last night,
called the El Rancho,
and we ate in the bar as we usually do,
and met a couple of motorcycle gang members
from the Bandidos motorcycle club.
They told us about a scrapyard that was in town,
and we should take the road between Walmart
and Home Depot so we're on that road right now.
They said go out of town on the gravel
and there will be a scrapyard so,
here we go.
(energetic music)
So what we're doing is we're driving this old car
down Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles
looking for old cars,
and so last night we met some Bandidos,
the motorcycle gang,
at the El Rancho,
and they said, Oh, go to this place.
They have some old cars here.
Do you have any old cars here?
- Yeah but not as nice as yours.
- I don't want nice, I want ugly, I want ugly.
(lively music)
This is a fair 1940 Chevy Coupe with a can opener
that got into the roof.
1987 I guess was the last time this was on the road.
These cars, most of the time, came with
390s, some had 406s, and some had 427 cubic inch engines.
So it's a 289 two barrel.
So this is FJ Toyota which
was like a poor man's land rover.
You're an amazing vehicle.
This not only has a collective value,
it's got a hot rod value.
You could buy this and insure it.
One of these could go for $35,000 or more.
What would you take for this thing.
I know you want it, so you don't want to sell it.
- I want to sell it, but like I told you
they're changing the offer.
- So would you take 3,000 for this one?
- Probably around five grand for it.
- Five grand.
- I really like it.
- So you see,
he has a selfish motive for not selling it, but
solid car, I'd say it's worth $3,000 every day of the week.
You know like when you buy an old house, you talk about,
it has good bones, well I think the same way about cars,
and this car has got good bones.
It's got a strong chassis,
it's got a good body,
the floor just needs to be sanded and painted.
This is a good restoration candidate.
(lively music)
Now all the rat-rod guys
are trying to put patina lettering on their trucks like this
even though they're not really old.
This is real.
So I bet our rat-rod guy would love to get this
and put a modern drive train in.
(lively music)
All right, David, so we have two
wagoneers here, do people
come this this yard to buy wagoneer parts?
Just the whole car?
- We can sell the whole car but on this one
we don't sell parts either.
- [Tom] Okay, yeah these are pretty hot collectibles now.
Do you know what you would charge for something like that?
- We'll let it go to, probably around 2,500.
- [Tom] 2,500 bucks.
- Yeah.
- I'd say that's a deal
because these cars in restored condition can go for
45, $50,000.
And you're starting with one that's got a solid base.
You'd need to put new wood siding or
plastic siding on there.
Does this run?
Probably not.
- I don't know.
- Yeah, but it's a nice vehicle.
It's got a V8.
The only thing you can pass up on
with vehicles like this are the gas stations,
they don't give very good gas mileage.
Air conditioning, power steering, power brakes,
so fully loaded a a grand wagoneer should be.
The alloy wheels on there, that's a pretty cool vehicle.
(energetic music)
So this Volkswagen, now the real desirable
Volkswagens are called Splits
and it's got a split windshield,
And it's got a flat windshield here and here.
- We had one of those.
- [Tom] Did you really?
- Yes, but we sold it already.
I think they give us ten grand for it.
- How much?
- Ten grand.
- [Tom] Ten grand?
- Yeah.
- Man, so this is a less desirable one but still,
any Volkswagen bus is desirable these days,
and you can fix this up to be a really cool,
kind of a hippy hauler.
The body looks really good.
Look at the interior over here.
There's a transmission in here,
I'm not sure if that's the transmission from this or not.
Yeah it is.
But this is solid, I would buy this vehicle as well.
What would this go for.
- Probably 2,500 as well.
- You know what guys are putting in here is Subaru motors.
- Subarus?
- Yeah. And it gives it horsepower,
you can get parts,
you can drive up hills.
This is a neat vehicle, it's got two roof racks.
I've not seen that before, plus a
sunroof in the middle.
So the money they're asking is a good buy
because with a little bit of elbow grease,
put an engine, put the transmission back in,
even with just a stock Volkswagen motor.
You could even keep the pain the way it is,
just buff it out a little bit,
doesn't matter with a little bit of rust.
I bet this could go for 10 or $12,000
without even thinking twice, especially since it's a solid
western car, this is a good deal.
(upbeat music)
Car enthusiasts say to me all the time,
all the good cars have been discovered.
They haven't been discovered.
You can jump in your car on a Saturday morning,
cruise around the neighborhood,
cruise around town, through your county, around the state.
You'll find that there are plenty of good cars left.
Happy hunting.
(upbeat music)