The Hurricane & The Fiat

I grew up in Connecticut and lived for 5 years in Brooklyn, NY.  Recently, as I watched Hurricane Sandy wreak havoc with the Eastern Seaboard my thoughts were of my family and friends in her wake. As the winds died down and the rain stopped I talked to my parents, who had the foresight to install a permanent generator after Hurricane Irene last year, and they were fine. My siblings and their families were getting by without power. My thoughts then turned to one of the regions that was hardest hit, Long Island, NY. This past summer we finished hand building a 1977 Fiat 128 sedan that we lovingly called little Jack. That little Fiat still feels like an old friend, and it's new home was on the coast of Long Island,  right in the cross hairs of the storm. With no word from the owner, due to the wide spread power outage, I feared the worst. Images of the 128 under water or in a collapsed garage haunted my thoughts.

Thankfully, last weekend I received an email with the words I was hoping to hear. We are all okay… and the Fiat is tucked safely away in the garage. Thank god! That little car would be very hard to build a second time. I fear we may have exhausted the remaining stock of spare parts out there to do it once!

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Jerry Seinfeld is well known for being very funny, he is less known for his interest in and depth of knowledge about vintage European cars.

Seinfeld's new web show “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” has quickly become one of my all time favorite shows. I appreciate it because Seinfeld so articulately summarizes the experience of driving a particular vintage car at the beginning of each episode. His take on riding around in the old cars that I love and take care of is really unique. First off he’s Jerry Seinfeld. He’s not a bragger, and he’s probably not a boater either. With his characteristic ease, he describes each vehicle in a straightforward manner while also conveying the feeling of the vehicle in a poetic and entertaining way.

I also like that the show is not about the wild world of Mercedes Benz or Porsche. I receive a few of the best automobile publications at my shop. In my opinion, too many of them feature dudes bragging about how much they spent on a caster camber plate for their racer or how little they spent on a paint job in their buddies garage.

The shows premise is refreshingly simple. Jerry picks up one of his comedian buddies in a beautiful old car and they go out for coffee. They talk on the way there, they talk in the restaurant and they talk some more on the ride home. Meanwhile Jerry tells his friend (Alec Baldwin, Super Dave, Ricky Gervais) a bit about the car they’re driving. And he can talk about the size of the engine, he can talk about the vehicles hardware, but he also talks about what makes it unique and memorable.

Check it out on you tube or crackle. It will definitely help you out of your depression.

Just a Lazy Shiftless Bastard - Alec Baldwin - Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

Alfa 1900

More than a year ago Ray Reimer and I were driving his Alfa Milano through Amish country in northern Indiana, near his home. Ray wanted to show me his friend Mary’s collection of Ferrari’s in South Bend. We parked outside a small stereo shop in downtown South Bend. There were bars covering the small windows and trash piling up along the sidewalk. Apparently this little shop closed its doors to the public long ago. We knocked on the door and I was introduced to Mary. She was a gruff, spirited little woman who wore an eye patch and swore like a sailor. She and her husband Joe owned and operated the shop until Joe passed away about 10 years ago. The shop was full of miniature Dinky toys, model airplanes, and little metal signs. As we walked toward the back of the shop I noticed that there were cars underneath the memorabilia. I spotted an MG with boxes of vintage toys stacked on its hood, an old Alfa Spider covered in tiny memorabilia, a Mercedes SL peering out from under piles of books. We made our way into a large, clean room in the back of the building. Underneath covers were three Ferrari's, a convertible E type Jaguar, and a really old MG. The cars were all low mileage and had been meticulously cared for.

We pulled the covers off, sat in the cars and chatted about where this collection had come from. It turned out that Mary and her husband had once owned BAT car number 5. They purchased the car in the early 70’s, restored it and showed it. I saw an old picture of Mary standing next to their BAT car at Pebble Beach. When they sold the BAT car they used the money they made, which was considerable, to purchase the collection that we were now admiring.

While she was talking about their BAT car Mary pointed to a collection of boxes under an old bed sheet in the corner of the room. It was a post war Alfa 1900 engine that they had wanted to put in their BAT car. The BAT cars were based on the 1900 platform but this engine was slightly larger, they thought that with this engine the BAT car would be a bit faster and potentially more valuable. The engine came from a hand built Alfa Romeo 1900 Spider owned by a friend of theirs. He sold the Alfa engine to Mary and replaced it with a Corvette engine. The Spider was destroyed when the owner attempted to overtake a train. Mary asked me, “You know what happens when you race a train? Train always wins.”

The BAT car was later sold with its original engine, and the 1900 engine was boxed up and forgotten about.

I immediately envisioned this engine restored, put back together and displayed in our shop. Mary promised to sell it to me the next time I was able to visit her. Almost a year later I was back in Mary’s strange little junk shop packing the engine into my truck. I spent many weekends polishing, cleaning, painting and reassembling until the engine looked like new. It now sits on a custom stand in our waiting room, a piece of mechanical history with a very interesting story to tell.  

Franz

What a shame. What a tragedy. How can this happen? Recently, during one of my weekend Craigslist quests to save the crumbling orphans out there behind barns and in fields, I stumbled upon a very early W113 Mercedes SL. The Mercedes Pagoda SL's began production in 1964, and this one was a very early 1965 with a manual gear box, European market gauges, and some interesting trim and headlamps not present on US models. After doing a little research I discovered that this was the 458th SL to roll out of the factory. Someone purchased this car overseas and had it shipped to the US a long time ago, back when it was much easier to do so. The gentleman selling the car had purchased it from it's original owner about 10 years ago with the intention to restore it. The car sat in his garage until a couple of years ago when he decided to take the plunge and have the car restored professionally.

Rather than finding a shop that had any type of experience working on a car like this, it was sent to a chop shop in the crumbling industrial district of Benton Harbor, Michigan. The patchwork of buildings were filled with ex-convicts spraying cars in open rooms without respirators on. They apparently specialized in putting 22 inch rims on Chevy Monte Carlos, their pallet of choice included jolly rancher green and metallic purple. When they got their hands on this unlucky SL they ripped the seats out, tore the trim off, and quickly realized they had no business working on a car like this. It was rolled out into an open field behind their shop and left there for over a year. The elements quickly reduced it to a crumbling shell. Most people know that these are very special cars, and to kick one to the curb like this is such a shame.

With difficulty and a heavy heart, I loaded SL #458 onto my trailer and brought it to a place where it can spend it's last days amongst friends. Just out of curiosity, I put a warm battery in it and turned the key. Would you believe it almost started? Perhaps this is not the end of the line for SL #458... only time will tell.

Decimo Anniversario!

In a couple months we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary. How cool is that? Who would have thought that a restoration shop could survive and prosper in Fennville, and during a recession to boot. It certainly blows my mind!

Ten years ago I started this business in a cold, dimly lit shed that barely fit two cars. I started working on old cars because I had to do something, I was young, idealistic, passionate, and I had just lost my job as a designer. I needed to work on something that inspired me, something that I loved. And I absolutely loved working on those old cars, something about it just excited me gave me energy. With a handful of tools from my college days, and some rusty ones I found on the floor of the shed, European Auto Restoration was born.

A decade later I am amazed that my original idea was actually a kernel that slowly grew into a business which now supports my passion and my family. How wonderful! Currently, we are perfecting our craft. With each project, we improve upon the past. We are doing what we set out to do and finding people who value and support us and our vision.

This winter we are rebuilding a 1750 Alfa Romeo engine, working on a couple of Mercedes-Benz SL's, completely restoring a lovely BMW 2002 and a 1961 finback Mercedes. I couldn't be more proud of the work we are doing and of this unlikely business concept that I have been nurturing for the past ten years.

For me, one of the great lessons I have learned is that a business idea that looks good on paper has no more guarantee of success than an idea that is based on intuition. As an idea, European Auto would have made absolutely no sense on paper, yet here we are. Passion alone is one of the most important ingredients to the survival and success of this business. I have deep reserves of passion and love for the work that I do here and there is nothing else I'd rather be doing. Here's to the next 10 years.

What happened to July & August?

This summer time is simply flying by and so is our vintage race car! This August at Grattan Raceway our best lap time was 1:32.8 and we came home with a nice 3^rd place finish in the Trans Am B sedan race. After Dyno tuning the newly designed race header, we are finally seeing the kind of power expected from #64. Great!

Isabella & Stella came out to visit dad at the track on Saturday

Steve, who has been painting our cars for a few years now, finally took a vacation. Steve is an intense perfectionist and a very particular craftsperson. We had so much going on in the body shop this summer I could see he needed to take a nice break to recharge his batteries. If I didn’t push him out he’d probably muscle through the work load. But, good work happens in a clear and calm state of mind, and everybody needs time off.

And in the shop... the Adenauer is undergoing extensive road testing after it’s re-awakening and we are getting close to sending ‘the Chancellor’ home. A bunch of sheet metal just showed up here from Stuttgart for Molly, our current rotisserie project. The little Fiat 128 is back on the hoist for more assembly. What a beautiful car, I can’t keep from staring at it. We are planning on hosting our 3^rd annual driving tour on Saturday, October 15th. Here’s hoping time will slow down a bit for us to enjoy all the great cars that roll through here.

The birthday present

My father is a soft-spoken man of very few words. Growing up, my mother did most of the talking in our household, while Pop taught my siblings and I by example. He worked hard, sent us all to college, built us each a beautiful kitchen, along with numerous bedroom sets, bookcases and bathroom armoires. He never asked for anything in return, and usually adamantly insisted that we give him nothing. This selfless part of his character was a hard pill to swallow, we all felt a bit guilty taking from the man over and over again.

Two years ago I spoke with my Mother about my Fathers upcoming 60th birthday and his retirement plans. They had recently talked about what he wanted to do to celebrate the end of a lifetime of working hard every day. He replied that he wanted to build and race a vintage race car, specifically he wanted a 1750 Alfa Romeo GTV and he wanted to build it at our shop here in Michigan. My mother wanted to make his dream a reality, so along with giving the whole idea her blessing she gave me a budget and told me to start looking for the perfect car to surprise him with on his 60th birthday. In the end, I didn’t find a run of the mill, tattered Alfa GTV. I found a 1971 GTV 1750, one of the most collectable GTV’s on the market. It was for sale right here in Grand Rapids, and I picked it up for a little less than we had discussed spending.

This June, we celebrated Pop’s 60th birthday with the entire Michele family, here in Michigan. We closed the shop early that day, and assembled with appetizers and birthday cheer on the patio. Everyone followed me down to the body shop, where I was supposedly headed to show off our latest restoration projects and new paint system. Pop was right at my heels, unaware of what awaited him in the shop but truly excited to spend the evening amongst old cars and family.



I swung open the large overhead door revealing the GTV sitting under a banner that read “Happy 60th Birthday!” Pop looked at the car, looked back at his entire family gathered together and then buried his face in his hands and wept. My family and I looked at each other nervously while the children excitedly chased each other around the shop. After a few long minutes Pop cleared his throat and quietly said, “It’s so beautiful”.

It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I have been looking for a way to show Pop my gratitude for a very long time.