- Wow, a Buick wildcat convertible.
Oh man.
Of the 700 cars that he owns, he's got 66 AMC Eagles.
Of the 66 this is the rarest one.
Only two are known to exist in the world,
this one and another one.
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.
Look at the size of this joint.
(rock music)
We were invited to come and tour
Terry Gale's Rambler Ranch today, in Elizabeth Colorado.
It's an amazing facility,
I've been doing this old car stuff for a long time
and I've never seen anything like you're about to see.
Take a look.
(rock music)
I think these Eagles are still in pretty much demand,
I've seen them in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest,
New England, but they're probably hard to get parts for,
do you sell parts for these?
You don't?
Really?
Are they a pretty good vehicle?
Amazing.
This is a 1960 Edsel Wagon,
and how many did you say they made?
59, and you know this is one of probably just a couple left.
Very rare car.
This is when Edsel really started to realize
they probably were not the right car for the market,
they were priced too high.
So this is more Ford than Edsel it's just a re-badged Ford
to an Edsel Villager is what it was called.
This has an automatic,
well it's got a manual gear with no clutch,
you still had to shift it but you didn't need a clutch.
Interesting.
This is a 1956 Rambler Classic Cross Country,
and it's a very rare car.
It was just explained to me that well,
this was originally a wood grain in the middle here,
so this would have all been wood grain
and then this coral color here and here.
This car has an emblem right here that says air conditioned,
so a 56 car with air conditioning that's very rare.
There's an air conditioning flap right here so
if your wife says it's getting a little bit too cold honey,
well she could just flip that down on the other side.
Or you could regulate it like that.
The rare part about this car is it's a two door hard top,
there's no post,
so when these windows are down this is all open.
You got a vent window in the front and a
vent window in the back, I wish we had vent windows today.
But you can see there's different years.
This is a 56 this is a 59 Cross Country,
the same model but three years newer.
But this has a post here.
So this would have been a more traditional wagon.
That would have been the sportier wagon.
This is a 1950 Nash Ambassador,
and of all the cars we've seen here,
this is the only two door on the property.
They only built this style for three years, 49, 50, 51.
This is a 50.
I can tell that because it's got an enclosed gas cap.
I have to say of all the cars we've seen here,
personally this is my favorite.
It has such Art Deco style, it's dripping with beauty.
The hood is so long,
it's got a huge six cylinder overhead valve engine.
The hood is almost disproportionately long
to the rest of the body.
There was a version of this that had a sofa
and armrests as a backseat, almost like a living room.
Plenty of leg room.
And if you look back here it's got this beautiful drop trunk
with tail lights that are built into the body here.
It's just a fabulous work of art.
So if you're asking me which favorite AMC product
in this whole place,
this is the one I would like to tow home.
(rock music)
Of the 700 cars that he owns, he's got 66 AMC Eagles,
of the 66 this is the rarest one.
They were available in 1980 with a four cylinder motor,
a six cylinder motor,
and seven were made with a turbo diesel motor.
This is one of those seven.
Only two are known to exist in the world,
this one and another one.
AMC had a partnership with Renault at the time
so there was a European connection.
This motor was built in Italy, a turbo diesel engine,
Terry's not quite sure of it's lineage
but it's an Italian motor,
it could have been an industrial motor I'm not sure
but he said the gas mileage was amazing.
But at a very expensive option,
a $14,000 Eagle
was raised up by $9000
to roughly $23,000 in 1980, that's a lot of money in 1980.
The car's very much in demand, even today,
because they're four wheel drive, they're comfortable,
it's not a truck it's a wagon,
you could put multiple people in here.
So of all these 700 cars,
he said this is one of the most special cars he owns.
(rock music)
We visited a place called the Rambler Ranch,
owned by a guy named Terry Gale,
and he had a wonderful collection of AMC and Rambler cars.
Well he's been driving down this road for years
and there's always been a gate up
but he saw behind the gate lots of garages
and old gas pumps like that one over there.
He said a car guy's gotta live here.
So nobody was ever home, nobody was ever home,
one day he went by, the gate was open
and there was a man going out to get his mail.
Terry stopped the car, introduced himself
and they've been friends ever since.
So Terry got permission for us to come here
and take look at Louis' collection.
Garage starting right here,
garage, garage, garage, garage, garage.
Garages all over the place.
I can't wait to see what's inside of them.
This is a very desirable car.
This is a Lincoln Mark 3, I don't know what year it is,
it's probably 68, 70, something like that.
Now this is a Jeep Scrambler, it looks like 40,000 miles.
This is a Corvair 95, it's a pick up truck,
it's loaded with stuff right now.
So it has a rear engine,
six cylinder flat six air cooled motor,
made by General Motors.
It has a manual gearbox,
I'm not sure if these are four speeds or three speeds.
But the seat's a nice shape, the headliner's good,
the door panels are good.
If that's original paint this is a pretty amazing vehicle.
Pontiac Lamar, wow, it's a convertible.
Now did you buy this one new?
No. Okay.
But you've had it a long time?
Thirty years.
So this I would imagine is a 68, 69 Pontiac Lamar,
I'm not a Pontiac expert.
This has got, well it's convertible, rare car.
Automatic, on the floor, bucket seats, console,
it's a 350 engine.
It looks to be complete and very pretty,
the hubcaps are on it, very nice car.
62 Merc, oh boy look at that.
A Monterey.
Do you remember what you paid for it?
Oh my goodness.
Wow.
So here we have,
well it looks like we have a few new unique vehicles here.
Starting with a 59 Buick,
it looks like this has a three speed manual on the column,
and it's got worn out seats,
it's got a bullet hole in the glass.
So this has been,
it's been to the track and back as they say.
So that looks like a homemade body on a Model A frame,
but it's got a Model A front end.
A 1930 grill, Model A engine,
so this is all up to this point here this is Model A.
This is two 1944 hoods mated together
and made into a boat tail speedster.
What a cool little deal this is.
So they made like a little run about.
I mean this is like a catacomb,
it's like this place has been hidden for decades.
A 250S Mercedes, four door sedan,
I wonder if he bought this new.
Convertible? Oh man.
You like those wheels
I've seen those wheels all over the place.
Oh man look at that.
Alright what do we have here.
A pink Thunderbird, wow.
Isn't that sharp.
So it's a hard top.
Pink T-Bird, so that's probably what a 65, 66.
Wow, wow, wow, look at that interior.
That is a sweetheart, this is the car I like so far.
Yeah so far, this is the car I would own.
I mean if this is originally a pink Cadillac,
or not a pink Cadillac, a pink T-Bird.
You could see Marilyn Monroe riding around
in a car like this.
$400!
And you got it for $400, wow.
Louis do you think, is that original paint?
It sure is sweet.
Did you ever drive this car around?
Wow, it's so undervalued it's unbelievable.
So the Hagerty price value on this averages about $12,200,
and a concourse condition is only $26,000.
It seems so unfair to have a car this grand,
that it would cost you $125,000 to restore it,
but it's only worth $25,000 in concourse condition.
I think the thing to do would be just use it, enjoy it,
certainly don't touch it.
Wash it, wax it, put air in the tyres, change the oil
and just drive it the way it is.
Very nice.
It's a convertible so I know it's a two door most likely.
Okay well now I can see, wow.
A Buick Wildcat Convertible, oh man.
It's got 79,000 miles, do you remember what year this is?
68 Wildcat Convertible.
Big old V8, styled wheels, does it have dual exhaust?
It probably sounds sweet if it does.
No?
It's a 1902 Oldsmobile.
So in my Barn Find adventures in my whole life,
this is the oldest car I've ever seen.
It's got a Tiller steering wheel, a wooden body, wow.
I gotta check out the back.
So Louis' mom was born in 1902
and that's the same year that this Oldsmobile was born.
It's a 1902 Oldsmobile.
It's got a Tiller steering wheel,
that's the steer right there.
It's got a wooden body
and you can see the old pin stripes in the body,
probably brush painted.
This is a substantial car, this is, wow.
You do have a variety of cars, I have to say that.
Buick Wildcats to 02 Oldsmobiles.
Very nice.
Here's a crushed up Oval GT.
Check out how big these headlights are,
now this is just the door to the headlight,
there's a manual lever inside next to the shifter.
It's manual, you flip it and these headlights go whoooop!
And they just turn like that all the way
and the headlights up there.
But then for a good styling, better air dynamics,
better fuel economy,
during the day you'd have them like this.
And these are pretty darn neat cars.
They're under-appreciated.
There's a couple of guys that race them
at sports car racing, but they were baby Corvette.
These were made in Germany,
about the same time that the Corvette's
that looked like this were made in America.
They're both owned by GM, so there's some family lineage.
You know I gotta say,
this is one of the most special discoveries
I've seen in my life.
Our new friend has collected these cars
not because they were valuable,
he collected them because he loved them.
And he saw cars that needed to be saved
and brought them here and covered them up
and in some cases repaired them,
in some cases he just let them sit,
but they didn't get worse.
Look at the variation, from an Alpha Romeo
to a Lincoln Continental to a seven liter Ford Galaxy
to a Peugeot.
That's a car enthusiast
and guys like this man right here are few and far between.
They save these cars,
not because it makes sense in their head financially,
but from their heart.
I'm really glad to have met you,
this has been a really amazing day.
Thank you so much.
Wow.