[Brandenberg Concerto No. 4 in G playing]
Carl: [Narrative] Cars, we love 'em. They're sleek and stylish and just fun to look at.
European cars have a look all their own and one of the best European car shows
is held right here, in Shelby, North Carolina.
Hey, Tom.
Hi, Carl.
How you doing?
Fine, how are you doing?
Well, I'm doing great. Well, you certainly got a lot of nice cars here.
We do.
Tell me -- tell me about your event. Tom: Okay, it's the Broad River European Classic.
It's sponsored by the Broad River European Motor Club,
rather than a British Car Club,
which they're pretty common in this area. We wanted to be a European car club
to include cars other than British cars, German and Italian, etcetera.
Carl: Now, these are some amazing cars. I notice --
I notice a little bit of the difference here with the European cars
that are on display here and some of our American car shows,
that they're much larger. Tom: Yes.
Why are the cars -- why are the European cars smaller?
Well, because they're sports cars
and they were designed like that, for road handling, primarily.
There's a few of the cars, European cars that are larger, Rolls-Royce, Bentley.
We have some of those here, but basically the sports cars are on the smaller scale.
Okay. Alright, what's the most valuable car here?
I know that might be a little subjective, but I'm sure there are monetary amounts
placed on these vintage cars.
Probably the most valuable car in our show today is the 1929 Bugatti racecar.
It was built as a racecar, but was never raced and it's valued at about $3 million.
Wow, that's incredible.
This is a type 35A.
In 1929, this was a spare backup pre-Grand Prix racer.
That they used to race back in the old days. It was never raced.
Carl: Never?
Simply because, they didn't have a reason for it.
If they crashed a car, they would just jump in another car and go racing again.
And that's what this car was for?
That's what this car -- purposely built. Now, this particular one takes two people to drive
and I'm going to show you why.
Now racing, you have to keep up your oil pressure. Carl: Right.
This is your oil pressure. This is what the co-pilot does. They were called pilots and co-pilots.
Carl: Okay.
And the co-pilot would operate all of the fuel,
like keep the fuel pressure on. The co-pilot was also responsible for advancing
and retarding the timing to give you more speed going uphill or downhill,
or street lining. That gives you more speed.
But if you look down here, and see all the web work of chains,
and how all the chains, and brakes, and the valves, and everything,
are done in such a way, the co-pilot's job was to get more oil pressure or less oil pressure,
depending on what the gauge said.
Carl: Wow.
And that was his job. But one thing people don't realize,
is at the turn of the century there was over 90 car manufacturers in Europe
that were racing before Henry Ford ever decided to build a car.
Carl: [Narative] There's so many different types of cars on display,
each one with a distinctive engineering style and a fascinating story.
What is this here? That's a good looking car.
Tom: That is a 1946 MGTC, the sports car that really
brought sports cars to the United States, from Europe.
Of course, the first sports car built in this country was a 1954 Chevrolet corvette.
Okay and they were inspired by -
Tom: Inspired by this particular car.
Carl: Alright, so that's got a lot of, not only European history,
but also American history.
Tom: It has, yes.
Wait a minute. Is that the Rolls there?
The first one is a Bentley.
So the Bentley is here.
Tom: The second is a Rolls.
Probably that Rolls is one of my favorite cars.
Carl: The Rolls is?
Yes.
Well, let's go take a look at that.
Well, Tom, so Richard owns this car. You think he'll mind if we look inside?
Oh, no. Not at all.
Okay let's -- wow, look at that. So now, the year of this car --
1934.
Carl: So this is a 1934. Is this pretty much original?
Tom: Oh, yes.
Carl: So this is the original car as it would've been. Wow.
You also need to see the toolkit in the trunk that came with the Rolls-Royce.
So that's a nice, organized toolset?
It certainly is.
Mines not that organized, Tom.
It's amazing that in 1934, they went through the effort to produce something like that.
Carl: They were really built to last, weren't they?
Tom: They were, yes.
But this one seems to be in especially good condition.
It is.
Yea, it's a beautiful car. So this is a Roll's Royce?
A beautiful automobile and worth, I'm guessing probably $250,000 or there
There about, yes.
Wow, that's great. I'd like to see more of these on the Carolina roads.
That'd be good.
Tom: Yes.
Carl: Now, tell me about this. This is the Bentley?
Tom: The Bentley, uh-huh. This particular car has been restored.
Okay, okay so this was a restoration?
Yes.
Carl: I imagine there are a lot of restorations compared to completely original cars.
Oh, yes. There are.
Tom: [Narrative] Well, it's official. European cars are cool.
And, we've got a couple of places in the Carolinas
that we can actually come and see some of these great, European cars.
I didn't really know about all the history of European cars and their influence on American cars,
but as it turns out, there is some.
Well, look at this. This is a DeLorean. It says the last of the DeLoreans.
Well, this is a good car for time travel,
so I kind of feel like we're time traveling, a little bit,
when we come to some of these car shows.
All kinds of car shows in the Carolinas
from our American vintage cars, and of course these great European cars.
[Brandenberg Concerto No. 4 in G playing]