A Tour of the Garage with Bruce Meyer - Autoline After Hours 220

auto line after hours is brought to you by bridgestone your journey our passion this is auto line after hours with john mcelroy episode 220 for november 22nd 2013 a tour of the garage with bruce meyer watch outline after hours live at autoline.tv every thursday at 6 pm eastern time or 2300 gmt you can subscribe to this podcast for free by searching for outline in itunes stitcher or by following the links on our website well all of you watching right now can tell that we're not in the studio back in the detroit area today we're out in los angeles here for the auto show but especially tonight because we're in bruce meyer's new garage he's got a phenomenal collection here we're going to be talking with him and about all the different i guess i'm going to call them artifacts that he's got in here soon enough but we're going to kick off the show with a great conversation i had yesterday with two of my colleagues right at the la auto show talking about the latest cars that we saw there and let's go to that segment right now well we're here at the the porsche display porsche lounge we might call it we're at the la auto show this is a special open for outline after hours it's actually a little bit of a preview for an auto line this week that we've got coming up because i've got two of my colleagues from the north american car of the year jury and we're starting with jack near out here from kelly blue book and matt delorenzo writing here for at the show with the rob report great having the both of you here so great to be with you it's a blast to be here isn't it and we're going to be talking about some of the cars that we've seen at the show and what we like or not and as i said this is a preview because coming up at the end of december i'm going to have these two guys back in the studios of auto line talking about the finalists for the north american car and truck of the year award but let's start with this show and since we're in the porsche display what do you all make of the makon well it's really interesting i'm wondering in a way if porsche hasn't jumped the shark here with this thing because i'm wondering at some point when you have so many four doors so many suvs in your lineup have you changed your brand so significantly that your brand isn't what it used to be i wonder if it has it hasn't hurt them yet right so you're thinking it literally hasn't hurt them yet i'm wondering if this is the one that that jumps to the chart it kind of changes things well it could be a crossover too far but certainly if you look at the lincoln mkc and the fact that jag has their first crossover as well and especially since they're teamed with the land rover they said that they weren't going to do a crossover the fact that they're doing a crossover maybe not so i haven't made that official but you know they're really hitting that there's going to be a jag crossover and again what does that say for land rover right right but i think if you look at the success of the uh the audi q5 i think that's what everybody's sort of keying off of and it shows how hot this market is and if you don't get in it you're going to lose out it that's true but i mean boy it's so interesting to your point jack to see these luxury brands going lower and lower and lower in market you know a porsche that starts at least on paper at 50 grand you know a mercedes that starts just under 30. uh yowza they're they're treading in dangerous territory potentially you can see the business case the business case is obviously there but what does it do to the brand and you know a lot of times if you're a car company executive off of the future you're not so concerned with you're concerned with selling now selling right away and here's the opportunity yeah somebody once told me and the future will all be dead well i think one thing going in porsche's favor is the fact that they're going to have the highest performing vehicle of this type and that's true to the porsche mission statement that they are a true enthusiast car so if there is somebody looking for a compact suv that's really going to be a driver's machine then porsche should be the one that brings it to you but when you look at some of the other full line manufacturers that have a luxury brand that seems to me those luxury brands can stay true to the cause true luxury because they've got these mass market brands whereas you know well porsche is part of the vw group so that's kind of interesting but when you look at say bmw mercedes and the like you know to see them going down market that's that's where i think the bigger role it just shows how closely they shave segments right i mean here's a segment compact suv a compact crossover and then they've taken it all the way up to the luxury level it's kind of a new thing you know in a lot of ways but what does it do with the brand i have to wonder how high up is right and where you're going to hit the hit sort of the the the top of how expensive these things are and it certainly could uh really affect their volume and that's what they need volume out of this vehicle and i heard horses selling 200 000 a year that's what they're shooting for walter de silva on our show three years ago said that was their target i find that astounding it's a fundamental transformation to the brand really yeah truly is so was the macan the most important intro at the la show i certainly if not the most important maybe the most newsworthy from what it's doing you know what it could do with the implications that it has but i'd say another one that's really just worthy is the colorado mid-sized pickup truck i mean who would have thought that market would come back right there domestically well especially since they dropped out of it ford doesn't seem to have any interest dodge doesn't either so yeah i think you could see a real resurgence in that in that segment and especially among uh uh youth you know young guys who are very active they don't want a full-size pickup and it's really interesting to look at the styling of it because you look at the styling of the full-size silverado and it's gotten more macho more truck-like i really like the style of the colorado it's it's a handsome looking pickup it really is a good-looking pickup i think they're going to do well with it if they can keep the separation between it and the full size and that's so critical and i'm not sure that they have the discipline or the ability to do that i i think they do the the oem but to the sales people at the dealerships you know how it is they you come in looking at a colorado and they go jack for an extra 15 bucks a month i'll put you in a real truck well and i think when push comes to shove and they need volume and the full size and you know that's the bedrock of uh general motors one of the bed bedrocks is a full-size pickup truck suddenly they're gonna go well you know we can incentivize this we can discount this some and suddenly the price is right on top of the colorado and then the colorado's got problems yeah but i gotta believe that a compact truck like this will do killer well in southern california i think it'll do well uh there but uh also among a cohort that they may be missing younger males and they have nowhere to go other than uh the tacoma really and maybe frontier right but there are a lot of places in town to get something like that especially with the ranger going away well i'm impressed because they've got several different body styles three different power trains blah blah blah blah it wasn't just a little pickup they put out there they put out a family of compact trucks right and coming with the diesel is really interesting we'll see if they can justify that premium because it's going to be a premium but it also gets great great fuel economy so there's a big plus there okay what else says that the show that comes with i thought that am amg gt was pretty interesting um they're going to replace the sls obviously they want it mercedes wants to go after the 911 with this vehicle i thought it was one of the most overwrought concepts in a while i i it's terrific it's horrifically bad i'm sorry i just hope that the the production car looks a lot better than that thing i mean it was just amazing that they put that out there to me it looks like you know uh some cartoonist sketch that made it into the flesh so to speak i don't know i i i didn't like any aspect of it at all well when they turn these things sometimes they reverse engineer into a concept car you know they have the final production vehicle already designed and then they go way out because it has to be conceptized and they get weird and i think maybe that's part of the case i think it got weird hey the other thing i found interesting at the show two fuel cell cars you know uh hyundai showing their fuel cell santa fe which looks like any other santa fe and then honda pulling the wraps off its concept for a fuel cell car which doesn't look like any santa fe tell you that i mean it hardly looks like a car right i mean what's your take on that well yeah the fcev there's several things that you can see it's an evolution of the clarity i mean there's still that roof line and then it has sort of the skirted rear wheels that you would see at the original insight so it's kind of a mishmash kind of you know the more i looked at it it's funky but i kind of liked it actually those rear fender things remind me of if you recall the gm hyper light or ultra light ev-1 and even some of the ford probe aerodynamic studies that they did back in the 80s well i think there's still this feeling that these alternative fuel electric cars have to be different looking in a big way they have to be futuristic and it's like 50s futuristic it's kind of like the batmobile futuristic and you kind of scratch your head and i think what we see with tesla model s is if you just make a good looking car but make it all electric it's going to sell like hot that's right but it's got to be beautiful yeah yeah well that's that's the other thing uh yesterday we had an opportunity to drive the i3 and uh it's a it's kind of a fun car to drive it's really different looking from a driving perspective it's a great view out of it but i'm wondering from a practicality standpoint it really does have a high step in it's got these weird rear hinge doors in the back to make the back seat hard to get into very hard to get in the back seat i you know i think they're gonna sell some but i don't know if it's a breakthrough car that they really need to to build some ev volume that they need no look none of the evs have sold in the kind of volume that these oems need to make a return on that investment but i love the i3 i thought it was a blast to drive what i especially liked is they have a very aggressive regenerative braking did i say that right regenerative braking i could never say that anything reject there you go so that i i had a miracle happen to me yesterday i got on mulholland driving there was no traffic for 10 minutes and this was at five o'clock in the evening not two in the morning not no right so one blasting down mulholland and it was a lot of fun going deep into turns backing off not having to use the brakes i love driving that thing yeah right yeah there's a lot to like about that car but in terms of looks i'm with matt i'm like i'm with matt too yeah yeah it's kind of toasterish you know from a styling standpoint the brave little toaster yeah the other interesting car here is the uh the k900 uh i was amazed at how big that car was i mean i saw some pictures of it and things like that well it's an equus right it's a necklace with a new body on it yeah it's huge and uh and it really puts the equus on the back seat styling exactly i think it's it and that's peter schreier i think part of it is that he brings sort of an understated look to everything from his audi days and it serves them well the interior was spectacular on it as well well i think that makes a real brand statement that's what they're trying for i mean they're they're not going to sell those at every kia dealership you have to qualify to sell that as a kia dealership and they're going to use that really to lever their dealers into a better experience that's exactly what i've been told from the kia fox i loved the grill on it i don't know if you looked at that but the detail in the grill is awesome it's almost like a sort of chain link thing but don't get an idea that it's like a chain link fence at all it's it's a very fabricated looking grill not like an injection molded one at all i think that's one of the big things too to look at a lot of these cars is um they're becoming very tactile you look at them and and the quality of the materials the the workmanship i mean it even in cars that aren't that expensive the bar has really been raised so again when you when you get coming back to the macon and things like that they have to make sure if they're going to be asking that kind of money interior better deliver on whatever the sticker says in the window i mean it gets harder and harder for the luxury brands because the popularly priced brands are so good with so many features you go well what more can it do for me you know it can drive itself but they're talking about that well you know i have to wonder about that too no you're right because i stopped by the foreseea booth you know foresee as a supplier not many suppliers at the show but they had this little trim piece amongst a bunch of other things that they're putting in the golf gti it's aluminum they etch it with a laser they brush the whole thing and then paint part of it so you see these very fine lines in there and if you scratch your fingernail over it you can feel it too i'm telling you for a little trim piece i was knocked out at how good it looked and it's on a golf right the other car that i had an opportunity to drive during the show and and the manufacturers are doing more of that was the elr and i was really impressed again with the build quality in terms of uh how quiet it was and how solid it was and it really drove great and it's got the torque that you get from an ev which makes it fun to drive but again the interior on that car was executed very very well so i think they're going to get you know everybody talks well you know it's 55 000 but to me it felt like a 55 000 car that's all it is i thought it was going to be 75 000 really for the elr that's what i thought oh yeah i think they're taking that up price wise and i think that's one of those again where you might start out here and then end up somewhere else somewhere else yeah so what else at the show we we touched briefly on the mkc i think this is the first auto show it's being shown at right even though we've all seen it before this right but i i think it's a pretty good car i think it's uh just looking at it i haven't driven it should help lincoln a lot i think it will help lincoln a lot i mean that's such a hot segment i mean right behind us is another example of that right i mean these compact crossovers people like the tall height you know the step in being able to see like that so i think it's going to do well for like and lincoln kind of quietly is accelerating a bit i mean they're not really heavily on the gas in terms of sales but they're getting better and better and better and i think they're they're working it you know they're working the plan pretty well right now the most interesting thing about lincoln i noticed today what was on their stand they only had two product lines there the mkc and the mkz there wasn't an mkt or an mks anywhere to be seen on the sand now whether or not it stays that way through the public days of the show i don't know but it was very telling that when i was walking through i did not see their complete lineup i think that's a smart move why remind everybody in the old stuff seriously yeah you know when they did that last year i mean they had you know classic link answers the problem is all those cars overshadow the current lincoln's right i mean they all look better than the current lincolns and they go oh that's not exactly the message we want to send they want to send they have great heritage but they really want to send it hey we've got stuff right now that you can buy and be happy about buying it jaguar introduced the f-type coupe here it's a great fanfare i can't believe the coverage that they got out of this thing going from a convertible to a hard top but it does change the look of the car and i think it makes the car look better actually well when they originally uh introduced the concept it was a coupe and i didn't find it kind of interesting because that original concept had the side hinge door opening on the back and the hatch and they went to a much more conventional lift back but i like the glass the glass roof is brilliant on that thing and you can see down inside and and again here's another one it's got a terrific interior really the the best look of that car is from above now i don't know how they're going to do that in the showroom but unless they build second stories and you look down on it because that glass roof because you have the extension of the windshield through the glass roof and then into the hatchback with the glass all the way through is gorgeous but it's not a look that people typically see right right so second story or maybe put mirrors up there something on the roof well you know it is a business that's all about smoke and marriage we're not going to go through that well hey guys this is a pretty good overview we didn't touch on every single thing but probably the most important ones and jack narratives thanks so much thank you both and i'll see you both in about a month on auto line we well welcome back to bruce meyer's garage with the man himself bruce myers and bruce thanks so much for having autoline after hours in your new garage yep well it's a pleasure believing we've been friends for a long time and you were at my home garage the last time and i enjoyed that as well john that's what we should remind the audience about six years ago when we were doing our outline in la series we visited bruce's garage literally at the garage of his house now you've got this fantastic facility what led you to do this the way that you've done it well the inspiration was i was trying to get it done for my 70th birthday we missed that by a couple years you don't look anywhere near somebody dude yeah 72. but i started my business here in 1968. so i've been here for 45 years and this has been everything from a parking garage the first one in beverly hills to a shoe warehouse to a catalog fulfillment center which is what i brought to it and i had a candle shop downstairs this is 60 as you understand anyway so and then it's become offices and manufacturing it's just right in the heart of beverly hills it makes absolutely no sense but i just decided at a certain point in time you realize that you know you're gonna leave this planet and you could leave everything for the next generation but my plan was now i'm gonna burn through it as quick as i can for my generation granny right so this was an extravagance great way to approach it and you've got phenomenal cars in here so let's get right into that sure sure and this must be the le mans series this is very much uh the le mans part of the show so to speak le mans as we all know is the world series olympic games super bowl of motorsport and and i think that so each of these cars has some nexus to le mans and the corvette was the first corvette to run them on in 1960. and there's a photo up there starting second spot here's the car itself and there it is right at the starting grid at the right yes exactly so it was one of three cars they won their class uh was briggs cunningham proud american great patriot won the america's cup brought the first three corvettes to lamoah so that was in 60 this is 61. and 61 you know phil hill was our our our champion and this was driven to a class win third overall so it was a podium finish third overall in 1961 and this is a very rare car this is what they call a 250 short wheelbase cfac which is the acronym for factory hot rod this is the penultimate gto after this car the 61 the next car out was the gto so this is this is a precursor to it the precursor the next car was the car that ran the trials at le mans but actually didn't run the race this is the first cobra built this is serial number one and it was built in pennsylvania and uh at ed hughes of shah he was bought by a thought in lucky khasner who had camaraderie racing and he wanted to run le mans so they took it to le mans ran the trials and actually did pretty well but at that time by the time they did the whole le mans thing they had already come out with the fia car which was the 289 rack and pinion car which would dramatically outperform this car so they just didn't run it instead they took this car to ford racing of europe which was in france and they upgraded this to full fia this is a rack and pinion 289 those were original you know gt you know ford daytona coupe wheels and this ran right along with the daytona coupes and in fact there's a photo in the back which shows the car with the worst looking hard top imaginable that's pretty boxy it is just almost looks like a mini in the back it is terrible but you can see it ran with the you know the gto ferrari and the ford cobra daytona coupe and it was the only cobra ever to run the tour de france and in those days the i think the main races were le mans targa florio and and tour de france those were those were the main like world competition races and so it it this is the only cobra to have have run uh the uh tour de france now did these cars just become available to you did you go after these cars why these three le mans winners or uh lamar competitors sure sure well i don't really consider myself a collector i think of myself as an enthusiast and every car i have i love as an enthusiast as a driver every single one of these cars i have driven either on the track or in rallies the corvette we had at goodwood this car two years ago we ran on the colorado grand thousand miles last year we ran this a thousand miles in colorado we've taken them out we share them we do track days um so i just picked the cars that really mean something to me or meant something to me in the period you know how that works sure but they also for me they have to are you know kind of aesthetically appeal to me so there's a car we just bought a car recently it was a bitzerini you know what a bitzerina is with a chevy engine i know of it yeah well this is a car that went its class at le mans so it's a rare car but i figured it would fit right in here because it's a chevrolet engine i've always been a very proud patriotic guy and at least it has some connection to detroit you know the engines but the car over here is another car that i think is just a stunning thing and this is a 1929 bentley four and a half four and a half liters four and a half liters and they made they made three liters four and a half four and a half blowers and then they made a six liter speed six or six and a half liter so these cars ruled le mans in the late 20s and the bentley boys the bentley boys exactly right john and this car is a very original piece it never turned a wheel in a race but it every single part every bit of it is matching numbers as it came from the factory so to find an original body original chassis original engine transmission is a very hard thing to find and so i it was an opportunity that came my way i bought it from a family that had owned it for 50 years so that's the significance of this car and my wife and i drove this car from monaco to venice italy a thousand miles over all the alpine passes and this last year we did the vintage bentley tour and this year we're going to do the same thing again up in maine in new hampshire so it's a car we love to drive we've driven it to all the shows we've headed out three times and we've won three nice prizes with it so it's been a fun car i you know what i really like what you're saying too is not only do you have beautiful cars you know in a nice garage setting you get them out and drive them you know they are cars and they're special cars and they're special for a reason and and i just love the drive i mean when i first started you know with vintage cars i was um more into the you know showing of the pebble beach and that type of thing and then i wouldn't drive and i'd put it on the trailer and even one car first duesenberg i showed at pebble we wrapped the tires so that they wouldn't get grass on them i mean give me a break i mean i don't know what i was thinking but you were cured of that eventually totally totally so we drive every car here and it doesn't good to be driven right i mean they can just rot if they just sit for a while they love to be driven and especially like gull wings which has a dry sump motor and a lot of bits that can dry out you know to drive it is is really really important and i you you said you were attracted to cars that are aesthetically pleasing to you and the gullwing's got to be one of those right at the top of the list at the very top i bought my first going in 1964. my son who is a car guy but not an extreme car guy likes cars probably likes the newer ones better this is his favorite car so i think this is transgenerational i mean i think it's one of the most perfect designs ever and it's just a beautiful thing and and really a technical tour de force for the car of its stain 100 john this is a space frame if they'd only made 100 of these this would be a 10 million dollar car but they made what 1 500 i think or something like that so they made a lot of them and and this this car um we spent a lot do this car is an original rudge wheel car um the engine was done by ed pink engineering who's an engine builder here in town steve beckman in newport beach did the bodywork we did a full rotisserie restoration on this car and john compton did the interior just a beautiful job gorgeous interior it is absolutely specked as it would be ordered from the factory including the fitted luggage yes yeah it's very spectacular which matches the interior perfectly and unlike most luggage that would be in the trunk it's in the car itself and the passenger cannot cockpit and i had this car out uh about i guess two weeks ago we went down town for a dinner and you know so we drive them and here's here's another car one of the things i lent this car to the peterson they put it up on a pedestal so i put it up on a pedestal because i think it looks so pretty but i think this is the prettiest car i have and ferrari and which model exactly yeah this is a 1957 uh testerosa and it was bought new by john von neumann and here's a i just love this picture of john this is in 1957 john's sitting in the car i don't know if that's going to work well for you but it was driven by john von neumann richie ginther ken miles um sorry about all the mess in the seat there but it's it's a wonderful car and we had this it's very easy for us to get this off the pedestal we had it out we drove it out to a you know one of those sunday morning cars and coffee events uh last month so again this car could start right up and it could drive right to new york if you had to phil reilly who has a wonderful restoration shop at midcourt in madera he did the restoration on it uh their their ivan's rim and spectacular i mean it looks like it was just finished in the factory yeah and another thing another detail of your garage is you've got this giant photo of it racing yeah in the background right so here's the car in front of us there it is on the track right behind us that's right 1958 that's paramount ranch where was that in this area yeah yeah southern california paramount ranch that's great and here as long as we're here we just got to talk about hot rods because that's my passion um this car and by the way you know it's it's easier for me to brag about these cars i had nothing to do with the build and this is one of those cars that the detail work this was uh built by a fellow named don thielen for a fellow named bob morrison in in santa barbara and it's an original 32 body chassis everything pete eastwood did the chassis and dan gurney provided the engine the fellow wanted everything ford so this is just one of those wonderful cars they call it the nickel roadster all the bright work is nickel and they're uniquely fabricated uh this was what they call a duval windshield it's the the frame is beautiful well it's a work of art in itself i'll put a pitch in for a writer's journal which is a magazine it's kind of an architectural digest of hot rodding but rotter's journal this month did a feature on the doane spencer car which is the oldest hot rod accident and this car comparing the two i think the steve coonan the publisher did the most fabulous job i don't know if it's okay to give him a picture yeah yeah i'm sure it is it's a wonderful wonderful magazine what i love is what a variety that you've got here uh le mans winners you know things from uh cars from the 20s the the 50s your own custom hot rod too well i i just you know you it's like there must be five people collecting or something in here because it's so you know eclectic but that's just me and i mean the motorcycles i grew up racing motorcycles let's take a quick look at the bikes too sure sure um this is a vincent black shadow which was you know i i put a lot of miles in this bike this was this is kind of the hot rod of motorcycles in the late 40s early 50s 1000 cc very very important bike uh john edgar uh sponsored one and it ran 150 at bonneville these are these are really really neat pieces and then the indian i had to have something for my birth year that's a 41 indian 4. and i used to ride that around town too but you know what riding bikes now is just a little risky for me at my age you know i just not my reactions aren't as good and yeah well traffic's a whole lot more than it ever used to be oh and there's people texting and you know it's just it's just a little little risky around here and then i gotta ask you you got another old indian over here right that's a 1914 indian board tracker and and we're still putting this little garage together and we brought this in from my home garage but this is a 14 indian and they ran it right here in beverly hills they had the los angeles speedway which was actually in beverly hills a mile and a half board track and this this bike ran on the boards um and we have an excel series so we're just trying to figure out where to put it but for lack of a better place we're putting it here just for the moment i really like this because don't get me wrong all these other cars are really cool but this is truly historical yeah i mean that's an early bite that is 1914 and and people didn't realize but that bike and actually in 15 the excelsior set the record lapping the track at 100 miles an hour now this bike has no brakes i mean it is just they look like bicycle tires too oh they are i mean it's just those guys must have been nuts yeah those things on these board yeah and then the ones up top there the norton is the norton banks and a matchless g45 and those were grand prix bikes out of the 50s and early 60s uh the norton's like late 50s and then the the matchless is a 55. so you know i just uh i love motorcycles and you know these just define beautiful proportions for me love looking at him well what we should tell our viewers right now is we're only halfway through so why don't we take uh a quick break and we'll move to uh the other side here right now so ben we'll take a quick break for the moment there's only one car company in america that's never made a single car and while you won't find firestone cars on any showroom floor they're out there running better faster stronger longer no we don't build cars but make no mistake firestar is a car company so whatever you drive drive a firestone okay we're on the other side of the museum i was about to call it a museum but it's a garage and now we're looking at a classic mercedes here this you've got to tell us about um the provenance to this car this is worthy of of of telling a little story this was clark gable's car and his favorite car and i'm going to run over here and get a picture for you to enjoy and and what model is this this is this is a 1956 or 57 they were the same i'll put this in the front so you can compare but um that's clark with the car and he when it was delivered and you're saying this was his favorite that's well i wouldn't have known that then but when he passed away his wife took this car wrapped it in blankets and he died in 61 i bought this in 81 so 32 years ago but the car was completely wrapped in blankets and and then what a weird way to store a car yeah well she she was pregnant with john clark gable so she was saving this for him well john is more interested in off-road and you know big trucks and that monster trucks and that type of thing and this didn't do anything for him so so she sold the car and it still has his say christopher's medal on the dash the only thing non-original on this car is the leather on the seats but the carpet is is still the original carpet boy it looks new um saint christopher everything is and and we took it to pebble beach three years ago and i said are you sure you want this this is not like a fresh restoration no no bruce we've got to bring it so we brought it and we actually you know won a nice prize i think we took second place with it but they appreciate the fact that it was so original and owned by someone of note well you know what that's interesting because this year at the barrett-jackson auction they had clark gables galway and there were a couple of young people standing by the going and they were saying who's clark gable and the other guy said well i think he's a race driver so i was saying to my friends and my family i said you know if ever we wanted to sell this this would be the time because the next generation won't even know how to me it was pretty important of course let me show you something else here too this is this is all we have never restored this this is just the way it was oh my god so we're looking at again fitted luggage oh yeah that's in actually quite good condition you can tell it's it's somewhat aged the spare tire too is that original okay i was gonna say boy that looks awfully good for an original spare we put new tires on it and uh so anyways it's a it's a fun piece and it was clark's this car here was built for le mans uh never ran le mans it was built by a fellow named hugh sutherland who was a canadian living in in ireland and we should tell everyone we're looking at an e-type jaguar right hard top exactly it's it's a removable hard top and then the lightweights they made the front end the bonnet the top which they call the hood the doors and trunk are all lumen so this has about over 300 horsepower it's a basically a racing jag they call it a semi lightweight and this is another car my wife and i have probably logged 4 000 miles in i'm just counting the thousand mile trips we've taken it but it's a great car and to me it's just this thing's just such a manly tool with the big wheels and beautiful car i love it it's amazing how long the hood is you know i mean we all know that but when you're standing next to it you really notice it love this car now the one next to it i guess if i had to be anything i would be a porsche file i bought my first porsche in 1960 and um i've had a porsche ever since so this is a 57 porsche and i bought it in a basket and it has no history but we basically made it look like a race car and they call them an outlaw but i did this i want to say 15 years ago and i shipped it to detroit and drove out route 66 and we've done i'll drive it this spring again another thousand mile rally but i look we have almost 12 000 miles in the car you know just in driving so is another car that just loves to be driven the car next to it is a 1967 275 gtb4 cam and i bought this car in 1970 it was just a couple years old so i've had it 43 years and it's another very original car i mean i've just basically i've i've never done anything is this the original paint because it's a brilliant it's the original paint when i got it and when what and it is the original color the gentleman that owned it fellaini bill doheny he had a big estate here very wealthy uh beverly hills guy he bought the car brand new drove it to palm springs and it got lightly sand pitted so what they did they gave it a very light sanding and then floated an original cup the original color over it so a little clear very basically just to give it shine so the door jambs are all original i didn't even take the glass out they just lightly fogged it with yellow to get rid of the sand pitting but other than that i've i've never touched it this color really pops though i mean amongst all the cars in here man that just pops out yeah yeah i think it's just a great color for that car i mean not every car looks perfect in yellow but that one does uh does work so the next cars is a little closer to your home this this was built for colonel mccormick and he owned the chicago tribune and it is a one-off duesenberg and it was built in pasadena because you know duesenberg was really in auburn indiana's where they were made but it was a chassis and an engine and and and then you you designed you had a custom body built for it um let me i'm going to show you a picture of why this car is so special but this is another car that had one owner for 50 years and basically if you're going to get a reflection on that but um you can see what a murphy convertible coupe looks like in the black one and then you can see the difference in this one this one is actually three and a half inches chopped and the windshield's laid way back can you see that john yeah you can huge i mean the profile of this car is spectacular and this was the car when it was brand new when it was built in pasadena they had put what they call rear mounts on it i don't know rear mounts uh twins you know spares but then somebody along the way changed it to these side mounts which i think it looks like what i like about this car is just the proportions it's a huge car massively long hood yeah a very small passenger compartment you nailed it that's exactly what appeals to me and when you see it from standing back a ways i mean it is just i mean it's all it's what i like to call a car of heroic proportions i like that and uh it boy this thing's spectacular isn't it great and the detail work in it you know just just the door handle here is yeah almost aerospace and yet almost art deco at the same time you got a great eye john yeah this is real special and you see it coming at you and it's just really chopped you know you see that that windshield i don't know in front of it and look straight down the hood i think that's just one of the neat i don't know if it's right but just the the chopped look of it yeah the word jaunty comes to my mind yeah and and the proportions of the passenger compartment the greenhouse as it were to the rest of the car is just amazing it makes the rest of the car look so much bigger because the passenger compartment is so small and then you've got these giant round headlamps on the front but just well you you just ticked every point as what appeals to me about this car and the interesting thing is i had another one that was a a twin to this car even the same color and it was a stock bodied one and it looked like my grandmother's car and the fellow that had owned this car brought it and parked it next to mine this is bruce i'm i'm going to be selling this car this car here would it looks like it would fit in your collection so make a long story short i sold my other one to switzerland and this one stays home that was a number of years ago and now we're back to le mans it looks like this we are and this is the 50th anniversary of the 911 porsche so all the magazines are featuring 911s and and just recently the you know the magazines have come out and this is arguably the most famous 911 in the world uh it's an overall winner at le mans one not a class winner not a class winner big difference and and it beat the prototypes um it's got a very colorful history with the whittingtons you know they were uh naughty boys and and but very very talented drivers and this is what they call a 935 k3 and the k stands for cremer and basically downstairs we've got a 73 rs which was the homologation car to call this a a production car so it you know you had the rs then came the rsr then the 934 the 934 and a half and then the 935. so porsha made a 935 and then the cremers they in talking to erwin cremer he said we made 100 modifications to a knot to a porsche factory 935 which gave us a one percent advantage and that's all we needed which i thought that was so cool that's correct but this thing weighs nothing you know it's you know close to a thousand horsepower um insanely fast we'll have this on the track in january so we're we're preparing it now we took it to pebble beach we won first prize and we took it to amelia island we won first prize there so now it's time to enjoy it well you know you mentioned that it beat the prototypes but this thing just about looks like a prototype itself yeah you're right and it's so tricky because with production cars you've got to have the stock window line and and the door profiles well when this went through scrutineering they wanted to stop it because they said that's not the stock rear window but kremmer said oh yes it is because it's down inside there can you see there oh my god there's another window so they beat the rules you know and um you know if you go online you can see some wonderful pictures of this um leave it to the racing guys to figure out how to reread the rule book that's right you know that it's all about the edge right right so growing up in southern california and my my parents did not approve of anything automotive they didn't like cars motorcycles wizard motorbikes none of that so you know i'm a bit of a frustrated hot rodder and i always say you're never too old to have a happy childhood so i bonneville has always been a place that intrigues me so about four years ago a friend of mine jack rogers offered me here to drive his camaro which i did do and you know you have to get licensed and so forth so uh it was an uh 1983 camaro and i went 222 miles an hour in that and then i said i got bit by selfie that wasn't fast enough that well it was fast enough but but the real bonneville guys in my opinion it's like the bull riders at the rodeo yeah you know there's there's guys that race barrels and coaches and this and that but the guys that ride the bulls they're the real deal and for me driving a roadster was the real deal so we built this car it was a actually built originally by mike brauer and gary brower and then gary passed away mike sold the car it was built by uh mike cook so i bought it a few years ago and we just completely redid it it's like a new car but it really you know uh was built originally and a bonneville by the way there's not a lot of new cars at bonneville they just recycle stuff you know they'll get an old roadster they'll refit it we put dry sump engine in it we did all the fire systems over we rebalanced the car i mean it's it's it's you know ostensibly a new car and what engine do you have we have we have a um three about a 330 cubic inch you know chevy so it it's a it's just a wonderful thing we we d we built it to to run on alcohol and nitro but the engine died on us before we got to the nitro but the bottom line is i wanted to go 200 in a roadster and we went 204. so i was i was able to go i was able to get the job done that's got to be a handful in a car like this you know what it it it really is fantastic and i guess i'm a speed freak because i just people say weren't you scared by i mean i just i love to scare myself you know that's just what we do right it's just the adrenaline rush that's all yeah yeah so at any rate and speaking of bonneville boy you got a classic here yeah this is iconic um let me cross over here and show you this this car was on the cover of hot rod magazine 1940 1949. and we should say this is one of the belly tank racers right that's right this is a belly tank off a p-38 uh fighter plane from world war ii and when the guys came back from the service they had all this new knowledge all this new aerodynamic aerodynamics and aeronautic and all the state-of-the-art you know new knowledge and they put it to work in cars like this everything's drilled everything's done to perfection this was alex exidius 1948 he and dean batchelor built this car with the help of nick edelbrock and bobby meeks did the engine and this car is another car completely original everything on this car is 100 original the interior is original we have repainted it obviously the tires are redone but it's just been refinished what a cool looking car i mean i'm just knocked out by these yeah yeah it's a really cool thing have you driven this one i have driven it i've driven everything in the room except the dragster and we'll get to that we'll get to but this is another wonderful icon of a car this is you know considered the most important coupe in hot rod history this was the pearson brothers put this together in the late 40s on the cover of hot rod in 1950 and and you know when the guys the hot rodders were running they were running mostly roadsters they had roadster clubs you know they had the you know the roadrunners and the piston burners and the rod benders and they were all roaster clubs that ran out in the dry lakes but this car was really the first coupe that just showed the roadsters and it was seriously chopped all within the rules because said ahead of it they said you had to have a six-inch windshield but it didn't say if it couldn't be laid back so the profile on this car is pretty darn spectacular yeah yeah what a look it's a great look and there are models made of this and it's just it's one of those cars that people just love let me open the door for you here too i love you know in the old days i mean safety was not an issue so they've got the battery right next oh my gosh right next to the um you know the fuel tank and it's it's pretty spartan in there but we've also run this up the hill at goodwood we've had it at the dry lakes we've you know we've we've logged miles in this in anger and look at that you know it's so open in the back oh yeah you know it's like really like driving in a tin can i mean i was just going to ask it must be super noisy inside there super noisy so the quickly on the motorcycles growing up in a family that didn't approve of all this the only thing i could do was play with motorcycles because i could hide those at friends garages so i was racing motorcycles from an early age that matchless is is the bike of choice when i was racing the other center bikes are drag race bikes the top one was the one owner bike uh built and raced by a fellow named bobby sirkigian and at age 12 bobby won the nhra championship and his father had to lift him on it here's a picture of bobby and his trophies i don't know if i'm tilting this the right way for you the next one down is a twin engine triumph i've never seen any bike like that yeah no that's that's a real famous bike rick rios it was called two timers it's completely original we really got it right from rick and he gave me his nitro measuring beaker and his helmet so they took this to europe it was the world's fastest motorcycle for a number of years and they took it to europe and and beat the brits over there too so it it turned about 160 in the corner and this is back you know when 160 was 160. you know how that is and speaking of drag racing this is another icon um this is called the greer black predom dragster and here's the the uh turn this so maybe you can see it that's the 64 racing annual but they just did the movie mongoose and mccune yeah mongoose snake and mongoose that's right yep yep sorry yeah well you you mentioned the right driver yeah right yeah and that movie just came out this year and we had uh the director in our studios earlier this year yeah with billy gibbons with billy gibbons that's exactly right so this raced in the movie and of course in the day that's right and i lent it to them uh for the movie and i i look forward to seeing the movie i haven't seen it yet no me neither i i will see it though so tom greer was a very wealthy engineering company owner keith black was a big engine builder and don perdom was the snake with the great reactions and he kind of coordinated the effort but it was a very very successful effort it raced 241 races and lost only four times man this entire world but before time runs out i've got i got to show you that one of my most favorite things is this boat and i just had this back your way i flew into bay city and doug morin who's a a vintage hydroplane builder and restorer restored this boat uh and it's called miss daytona and it's a miller marine and i ran it miller of miller indy family yes of miller anything so there's it's a very rare engine that's a big supercharger in the front what's that a paxman blower it's actually a miller it's all under my gosh so i you know if your folks would like to have see it in action if they go to youtube and they put bruce meyer m-e-y-e-r miss daytona there's a wonderful video of me running on the saginaw river oh my gosh and it was great because it was a cold day i shouldn't have been running it there were logs floating around but we i just i run it out pretty good and this is beautiful i mean all the wood in this thing oh yeah yeah so many screws holding it all together it is fantastic all these beautiful bronze screws but at the this is just iconic and that picture on the wall i think tells a great story that's wilbur shaw three-time indie winner recent year both racing my vote and winning in the front where he ought to be so that's kind of the you know the short run through it i mean i can go on if you like but let's let's just do this one alpha that you got here and then we'll get to some of the questions from the audience sure happy too this is called an alpha t z or tubalari zagato and in the ferrari world the the most important ferrari is the gto this i would equate to the gto of the alpha world they made a hundred of these this is the last one made and it is just a little giant killer it's about 1600 1700 cc's and it stays right with the ferraris and the big dogs and it must be super light actually super light it's like i want to say seventeen hundred pounds wow and and it's a beautiful engine four cylinder twin plug head you know alpha was you know they ruled for a very long time and this was one of the great cars of there that's really cool they're mark i love all this you know all different kinds of cars plus motorcycles plus a boat what what led you to the boat well a friend of mine owned that boat about 15 years ago and i saw it in his in his barn and i just thought that's the coolest thing i've ever seen and being one that loves l.a and harry miller of course you know right here in l.a he hit the genesis of the authy meyer drake and then bugatti actually bought his engines and that's the genesis of the bugatti engine wow so the miller connection is what really won me over i grew up with a fella named bill coberley uh who his sons were here yesterday and he raced hydroplanes and i just have always loved wooden boats and i love boats i really like going fast on the water and so not that i bought it because how fast i could go but it just to me it was just a nice piece of furniture to have in here and then to be able to drive it and i can get it out of here real quickly so we're ready to run it so you don't only just ride your bikes and drive your cars you run in the boat too oh yeah yeah yeah i know the the drive for me is so how fast would the boat go um well i think they estimated that i was doing somewhere between 60 and 70. so this was 1929 now so that was you know i would say you know that's that was enough to win great hey we've got a number of questions sure from the audience yeah well here's an easy one right knight says is this bruce meyer with the myers banks that is a question good question um i am not and i get confused with bruce myers myers all the time and when i was uh my senior year of college this was like in 62-63 he came up with the myers-max and and his nephew was in my fraternity house and so i went down to newport beach when he was drawing out the myers-max on his wall and he wasn't even sure what he was going to name it but people just thought i was so cool because i did the i did the myers max but anyways i'd love to take credit for it not me you know if you changed the story everybody would believe it anyway okay aah fred says is bruce's garage where you're at now totally private or can the public take a tour as well sure it is private and i appreciate that and and uh i you know there's enough pictures of it i think you can probably get the picture but thank you josh by golly says bruce how does your garage compare to jay leno's and they're you know what jay's a very good friend of mine and that's another these are great questions um and jay is a really good pal and i'm out there all the time in fact jay tried very hard to get me to buy one of the buildings near his so we could all have car fun together and boy he likes to have fun and by the way he is a real car guy yes he is but his he he i don't think he is this is like hung up on the history and as i am you know i've whatever i have here has got to be absolutely real um and um historic and have done something you know remarkable jay is an enthusiast if he puts a turbocharger on a six liter bentley all the better it's very cool jay is way more mechanical and knowledgeable than i am he gets in and he works on it himself he has a great crew over there he is he is a real car guy uh and he drives them he drives him to work he lives in beverly hills he goes over the canyons to work so i guess and jay has hundreds of cars hundreds of cars and great cars he has a going and a to he just got a a wonderful split window corvette with 900 original models but everybody seems to want to have jay own their car you know they said oh i'll see somebody at a car show i want jay to buy this car well jay has bought a lot of cars and had a lot of cars given to him and he's got a lot of cool stuff but it's mine is just wood sounds more personal it's more personal to me maybe the cars are a little more historic and it would fit in one little corner of his because he is his is massive okay uh inspect in fact talking about all these cars uh larry king says do you have all your vintage vehicles here or do you have more sure um i still have them at home i keep them at the peterson the hot rods are at the peterson for the most part there's a wonderful museum here the nether cut collection i've got a wonderful chopped balon merc out there from the 50s just a cool thing and i love chopped mercs i mean i i just every car i have my family kids me with it because i say between wheels tires and stance i could make a dump truck look good so i love to sit low in the car and i like to see the car low on the ground and so i've got this chop mark that my son drove to high school and uh i will probably bring that here but that's out of the nether cut collection that's great okay bill from l.a says is there one particular vehicle that's your holy grail that you want to find but have not yet caught up with very good question um for a very long time i was looking for stu hilborn's uh streamliner and i ran ads in magazines one fellow said he that he has it and you know he's keeping it forever but best i can tell is that it's maybe not around anymore but to me stu hillborn was a real pioneer it's one of the first cars to do 150 so i think that would just fit nicely right there okay well maybe we'll help you track that car down too bruce meyer thanks so much for letting us into your garage this is awesome man you got a great collection i love your narration of the stories behind it and what went on and why you've got it really good it's fun to share it with enthusiasts because i feel like when you have something special there's a bit of a responsibility to share it you know and i love sharing it and it's a privilege to have you here because you're a real enthusiast i remember that from a lot of years ago and i hope you'll come back thank you bruce really appreciate it i want to thank all of you for having tuned in oh we got one more question okay i have refreshed it let me try one more time because we do want to get uh questions in uh yes it did uh goggles pesana wants to know how many vintage racing events did you get to participate in this year so i friends of mine kidding me because i'm everywhere um this year uh we've probably done a half a dozen earnings oh my gosh that's pretty good we did the copper state and the colorado grant mostly rallies now and you know some races but really i'm just you know bonneville i just a friend of mine sent me you probably saw that crash of that uh honda just oh yeah you know and he was just going about 200 and i i my family's i just keep threatening to take that red car out and give it one last shot but um i'm i'm retiring from bonneville which was a really tough thing for me to do but you know you get to a certain age you don't want to get your head shaken too badly you know so if i'd have been in that little honda i wouldn't be here today so i've i've been in a bunch and i'm and and a lot of hot rod things i do all the roadster runs and you know as many hot rod events as i can because by the way i think hot roddy is it's the all-american part of our hobby and our culture and it's the hot riders that are that ran detroit and still running detroit it's the guys with the passion and to me it's as american as apple pie and baseball and everything else and so i love the aggressive hot rod so i'm i'm out there at every hot rod thing i can get to okay i've tried to end the show but another question just come in okay this is aah guest 593 he says if god forbid a fire breaks out and you can only save three of them which ones there's three kids yeah that's right you just let it burn down oh yeah i would say you know for historical reasons that short wheelbase should go probably first i think that the testarossa is the prettiest car and let me see it's tough you know i don't know and probably because of the porsche maybe the le mans winner but it's really really tough and they're all so different but um and and and i don't have the dome spencer car here but that would have to be one of the first ones out too that's the oldest hot rod yeah yeah and like you said that's what i love about seeing your car collection it's it's not just one make or one genre it's a whole bunch of stuff that's your passion that's what's so awesome about it well thank you and and and and i i might also mention that if you go on to youtube again you can put bruce meyer miss daytona or you can go bruce meyer never lift that's the way i always sign my letters never ever left and if you could bruce meyer never left they showed me running the the road the roadster there so you know it's a couple little videos cool well with this we will sign off okay bruce thanks a million and i want to thank all of you for having tuned in thanks so much auto line after hours is brought to you by bridgestone your journey our passion visit our website autoline.tv where you can watch us live thursday nights at 6 00 pm eastern get your daily news fixed with autoline daily and in-depth analysis and interviews with autoline this week there's all that and much more at autoline.tv with you

Channel: Autoline Network

Views: 36,631

Keywords: autos, cars, vehicles, automotive, automobiles, auto, car, automobile, vehicle, Automotive Industry (Industry), Bruce Meyer, LA, LA Auto Show (Recurring Event), Porsche Macan, Porsche, Crossover SUV (Body Style), Chevrolet (Brand), Chevrolet Colorado (Automobile Model), truck, Pickup Truck (Body Style), Mercedes-Benz (Organization), Concept Car (Automotive Class), Jaguar F-Type, Jaguar (Organization), Kia K900, Kia Motors (Organization), Duesenberg (Organization)

Id: Ep9aesKT_Iw

Length: 64min 29sec (3869 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2013