- I bet there's, I bet there's 20,
oh, there's more.
Oh my goodness.
Oh, look at this, an El Camino,
a Studebaker, a Packard, a Packard,
looks like a pickup truck.
I'm Tom Cotter, the first car I found I was 12 years old.
I'm 61 year old now and I'm still finding cars.
And in this series, you'll see that there are still
plenty of cars left.
I've been dreaming since I'm probably 12 years old
about finding a car like this.
(mellow bluesy music)
I used to stay at a hotel just a half mile from here
when I was out on business in Northern California
and in the morning I like to run.
So I would run down this road called Pope Street
in Saint Helena, California and I'd see these old cars
lying around and I'd see other stuff in the background.
I said there's got to be old stuff here.
I've got to meet this guy.
So you got a Ranchero here.
- [Man In Brown Jacket] I chopped the top on it once.
(laughing)
- [Tom] Did you really?
- And when I chopped it, I chopped it two and a half inches
and it was too much so I raised it back up again.
- How'd you do, did you save the pieces?
- To an inch and a half.
Yeah.
- [Tom] Now, would you sell something like this?
- Oh yeah.
- Would ya?
- [Man In Brown Jacket] I'd have to.
I don't think I'll get around to fixing it.
- This is a 1954 Ford and it's a four door wagon
called a Country Sedan.
It's got a 312 V8, overhead valve V8,
which was Ford's first overhead valve V8
after the Flathead era.
It's got a three speed with overdrive.
And this car's so complete down to the hubcaps,
the trim, the spare tire, the jack,
the air cleaner still has the decal on it.
You don't find cars that are complete like this anymore.
It doesn't happen anymore.
I'd say this car's, you know, it's worth probably $2,000,
$2,500 the way it sits.
And restored, these can go for 20, $25,000 these days.
So if you were handy at home, you could buy
something like this, fix it up and come out cash ahead
if you had to sell it.
All pretty cool stuff here.
(upbeat music)
- Carload of fellas rolled into there
and they'd blown the engine up in it.
It was a $75 purchase.
- [Tom] That's Russ when he was just a young guy.
That's a lot of stuff going on in there.
- [Russ] That's all fuel injectors.
- This is a 1972 Jaguar
and the four door version of this would've been an XJ6.
This is known as an XJ12 because instead of a six cylinder
is a 12 cylinder and this is an XJ12C.
And the XJ12C is called that because it's a coupe.
So this car, interestingly, is a four door roof line
with two doors.
So they took the doors and stretched them
and then closed them off in the back.
So it's basically a four door roof with two doors.
So lots of room.
Big door, lots of room to get in and out of,
but a real rare car.
This is a '65 Chevy El Camino 327.
Neat, solid car
that is a daily driver.
Great stuff.
(upbeat music)
- And on the bottom of the block
has got die cast in there.
The casting number's number one
on the block that I got.
- The first Chevy V8?
- Yeah, uh huh, well, it's the first casting.
- It turns out that Russ Aves is one of the original
California hot rodders.
He's lived here for, oh, since '65.
He's got a Jaguar 12 cylinder.
He's got a '57 Ford Ranchero with a 500 cubic inch Cadillac.
This stuff is all for sale.
Russ said, "I'm not gonna get around to it.
"I might as well let somebody else have the fun."
There's a 1954 Ford Country Sedan station wagon
back there that's so complete, you don't find them
like that anymore.
You don't find cars with four hub caps,
with a jack in the back, with a spare tire.
It's a three speed with overdrive transmission.
A 312 cubic inch V8, which was Ford's first
overhead valve engine in 1954.
And you know what?
He said, "Look, I'd take 500 bucks for it,
"but I'd really like to get $3,000 for it."
That thing's worth restoring, very rare car
and wagons are very desirable these days.
(upbeat music)
When we got into Northern California yesterday,
we really didn't know who to talk to
and we just talked to a car guy,
who turned us onto a car guy,
who turned us onto a car guy
and they said, "Have you talked to Ricky Hall?"
No, we don't know Ricky.
So we called Ricky and he said come on over.
So here we are in American Canyon, California
and Ricky is an old Ford guy, likes '32s
and he's gonna show us what he's got in his yard.
This looks too cool.
Is it a four cylinder?
- Four cylinder.
It's a real early '32 pickup.
- Man.
- Serial number's show it was made, I think, early February.
- Of '32, really?
- It's got the no rib in the roof cap,
the roof right here.
- Oh, okay.
Single pull handles, it's got the early style gas gauge.
- It's a Model B.
Now look at that, wow.
Well, that's cool.
Now this is a '32 as well.
'32 four door.
- [Ricky] Yeah, I got this pick up last weekend.
It was in Lincoln, California.
- [Tom] Last weekend.
So you found this a week ago?
- [Ricky] It was complete.
I started tearing it apart this week.
- There are obviously still cars like this out there.
How rare is that to find a '32 in this day and age, 2016?
- [Ricky] It's getting pretty hard.
Especially one that's untouched.
- So Ricky just found this car
and he didn't have to search through farms or ask people.
This car was on Craigslist and he got it a week ago.
The fact that a car like this can still be found,
I mean, anybody could've bought it
and this guy lucked into buying a '32 Ford sedan
that's basically never been touched.
It's not a hot rod.
It's not a restored car.
It's just an old car.
Just amazing, I mean, guys would give their eye teeth
for this thing, all over the country, every day.
So this is a Lincoln Zephyr and it's a 12 cylinder.
So if you look some of the other cars
that Ricky has, they're Flathead Ford V8s.
Well this is a Flathead Ford V12.
So basically the eight cylinder
stretched to 12 cylinders.
And they were smooth and quiet.
An old man told me once that you could take a nickel
and balance it on the air cleaner and it would stay there.
That's how smooth those engines were.
Now I didn't plan on seeing motorcycles here,
but I've never seen a Sunbeam motorcycle.
Is that British?
- [Ricky] It's made by BSA.
- [Tom] Wow, what year is that?
- [Ricky] 1947.
I got that in an estate sale in Berkeley.
- [Tom] As it is?
- [Ricky] As is.
Actually I had to replace the fuel tank.
It was rotten.
I bought it just to resell.
- Man.
- [Ricky] So now it's just something that's waiting
to go down the line.
- Oh man.
So this is a '32 Ford, three window coupe.
If you look at this condition.
I've been dreaming since I'm probably 12 years old
about finding a car like this, in this condition.
I used to read Rod and Custom magazine
and there was a section in there called Vintage Tin.
And they would show these guys in California
and find this stuff out in the desert and drag it in.
And I was an East Coast guy
and I dreamed about coming out to California
because the women were beautiful,
there was surfing, there was Coors beer and old cars.
And it only took me 50 years to get out here.
Wow.
(upbeat bluesy music)
Napa Valley probably is some of the most expensive,
desirable real estate in the United States
if not the world.
And you wouldn't imagine large collections of old cars
to be hidden around Napa Valley.
Real Estate's just too expensive.
But we talked to a guy who turned us on to Rod
who lives in Napa and we just drove up the driveway here.
Well, there's something going on here
because I see a Trabant, which is an East German car.
I see an old Cadillac under a lean-to.
A Javelin on a trailer, an old Cadillac
up on a ramp truck, a Cadillac ambulance.
I can't believe I'm in Napa Valley.
This looks like Kansas.
(upbeat music)
Now, Trabant was an Eastern German car,
tell me about how the body was made on it.
- [Rod] It's a composition of recycled cotton
and paper.
(laughing)
- [Tom] So these cars have a story?
- [Rod] Oh, every car has a story.
- [Tom] And you know them?
- [Rod] Yeah, I do.
- [Tom] Oh man.
(upbeat music)
- This was bought new by the Department of Justice,
Washington DC and assigned to Southern California
during the Reagan administration.
It's a bulletproof Cadillac limousine.
- No kidding.
- Well, you see what happens when they do
the bullet proofing, they have reinforced concrete
they pour in the doors and of course it causes
the rust to happen from the inside out.
See what the windows--
- Look at this.
One, two, like three panes of glass,
or one piece of plexiglass,
two panes of glass glued together.
And these windows can't go down
because the doors are filled with concrete.
So what does this car weigh?
- [Rod] About 9,000 pounds, extremely heavy.
(upbeat bluesy music)
- I'm gonna identify what this car is,
don't tell me.
- I'll give you 20 guesses,
you'd probably still get it wrong.
- Alright.
I'm pretty good at this, now.
I'd say an Italian.
- [Rod] It's Italian.
- It's an Italia, Intermeccanica Italia.
- [Rod] I'll be doggone!
- I'm good at this.
- You're good, you're good.
- So this had a Ford V8 in it?
Some had Chevy's, but it had Ford V8?
- Yeah.
- Look at that.
(bluesy music)
- I was after this Mark II
just because I thought it was nice enough to pick it up.
Lincoln white with red interior.
Air conditioned car, there weren't too many
with the air conditioned options
so this is the fully optioned Mark II.
I'm handing the money, he's handing me the title,
95 year old guy selling his cars
and he's retiring, he's a pharmacist
and he tells his son, that's 70 plus years old,
"Go get the picture back there
"because Rod's gonna wanna see this picture."
Brings out the picture of him, Elvis Presley
and the Lincoln and it says, "Have fun with the car, Elvis."
Okay, now, we know that Elvis had
a white Mark II with red interior, air conditioned car.
But we also know that there's one
in the Elvis Presley museum that they say was his car.
- [Tom] Maybe not.
- Maybe not.
- This is uh, this might be the Holy Grail here.
Holy mackerel.
Look at that.
See there's a photo here and a photo here
that are no longer there.
- [Rod] The notes on the back.
- It says "1956 Continental,"
1977 I guess it was on display.
Wow, huh, there ya go.
We spent a morning at Rod's house here in Napa Valley
where some of the most expensive and desirable real estate
in the United States happens to be.
There's wineries that sell bottles of Cabernet
for hundreds of dollars just five miles from here.
But tucked away in little corners like this,
in even a place like Napa Valley, are great cars.
Happy hunting.