The American Ferrari: Apollo GT | Jay Leno's Garage

dude josh is really wonderful yeah my dad spent his entire time rebuilding mechanical whatever needed help he fixed it but i kept saying dad we gotta paint it we gotta paint it and he'd say no sun mechanics first have you rebuilt this motor to stock specifications stock specifications well in that episode of jay leno's garage the car we're featuring today a 1964 apollo gt now if that name is not familiar to you it's not surprising this is a car i've been chasing well almost since i was 13 when i first heard about it a guy named milt brown had an idea and this was back in the day when a guy only 10 years older than me young man in his early 20s decided to start a car company and build his own car i mean today that would be just about impossible but in the 60s it was still pretty wide open he wanted to build an american sports car using a buick v8 it was the aluminum 215 cubic inch this is the car he designed i think it's just a beautiful car he'd actually designed it but he was and a couple of his friends we'll find out the story in just a minute we're going to meet the owner of the car and a gentleman who's written a book about the car but you know when you're 13 years old you're sitting in a math class reading hot rod magazine you're reading about a guy just 10 years 12 years older than you oh i started his own car company and it looked as cool as this i mean it was just the most exciting thing and in the course over the years occasionally once i came to california i would see an apollo gt every once in a while i saw one down the street uh about 35 years ago the guy wanted forty thousand dollars forty get out of here that's crazy well i believe i buy them all day long right now if they were 40 000 now they're exactly what whatever you think it is that's what it costs it's exotic it's rare but it's american and you can fix it with a hammer as they say it's a v8 with a four-speed manual transmission extremely lightweight aluminum body this is not fiberglass this is aluminum so in the true italian tradition but let's find out more let's bring in the owner uh curt brock hagee and the gentleman who wrote the book rob northrup come on in gentlemen current nice job on the restoration thank you jay i'm glad it's the last time i have to say your last name i'm going to call you kurt from that you're not the first and rob you wrote the book and you you have a real history with these automobiles don't you yes in fact i started with an article uh over 30 years ago for sports cars of the world a motor trim publication met milt brown ron plescher who styled the car and started after doing that article started uh writing a history of the car and it really was a case of a couple of high school or college kids starting a car company isn't it it really is yes yeah i mean it's it's almost there's no way you could even think of doing that now but they laid out the idea for the car i mean they knew what they wanted they really did and the the whole idea was to try to build a european type gt but with american mechanicals right so they could take it anywhere to be serviced right which of course was not uncommon at the time you had the shelby cobra uh that was the perfect example of that and there were a few other hybrids people were putting 283s and austin healeys so it it kind of made sense at the time but why not do one and they designed the frame and everything from the ground up yeah were they engineering students well milt brown was brown had a degree in engineering from university of california berkeley uh he also spent six months in the united kingdom in england working for a company called emerson race cars and he was a draftsman there and also did suspension design and so on actually did some testing of race cars for them so he had a good background see i was thinking of just a couple of dopey kids like me hey let's put a big engine in the car so actually he was a real engineer okay that kind of ruined the dream for me because i wasn't an engineer but anyway it's amazing how far they got how many cars wound up being produced well they did two prototypes one was an aluminum bodied uh the first two-seater and then they did a two plus two right and then they had uh 76 uh coupes that they made and 11 convertibles and what was the problem it seemed like a good idea what was the price at the time do you remember well the price at the time the base price was about 6 500 for the coupe and about 7 400 for the convertible uh they had uh funding issues right they started the company with 21 000 dollars right from fence friends and family uh that'd be about uh 190 000 today right right uh wasn't really enough to get a car company going but they said hey this is our chance let's do it yeah i i mean it's amazing they got as far as they did and 6 500 doesn't sound like much now but back then that was top of the line cadillac money right i mean my parents house in 59 was 19 000. so it was a lot of money yeah in today's dollars that'd be about 60 thousand dollars well that stuff seemed to seems like it would be more than that it seems pretty reasonable yeah quite reasonable yeah for a handmade car 60 000 and it was a handmade especially just to to form the body if you tried to do this body now it would cost you a quarter of a million to have a couple of guys pounding out wouldn't it yeah yeah now where did you when did you get involved similar to your story my dad chased one of these cars all his life oh really he did my growing up was all about the apollo he just this was his dream car and uh in 2003 he found one he was 72 years old okay found in pasadena here bought it and it was in rough shape it had been sitting for 25 years but everything was here right it was complete okay and he he brought it back home and rebuilt all the mechanical and uh the body was in bad shape it was faded red pink right the whole time he had it so he passed in 2010 i didn't love the car i actually kind of resented the car because he every trip we would go on in our 68 chevy van would end up in someone's driveway uh to look at an apollo oh wow my wife would hit it off really good yeah yeah so uh he passed in 2010 i stored it and in 2017 i was thinking about selling it and i pulled it out got it running took it for a drive and fell in love with it yeah that was that should have called me yeah i'm thinking well you know it's so funny how different cars were for example just the tire that was a big tire back in the day but it looks so skinny now yes it does but it it makes the handling very nice doesn't it it does handle very nice yeah they're just wonderful and what does this weigh about 2400 pounds 2400 pounds wow and it's metal it's aluminum it's actually steel oh it is a steel box the prototype was aluminum all the others were steel oh i just assumed this oh well that's all right so that's pretty good wow a lot of bodywork necessary on this we stripped it clean and we had found it had been hit early 70s in the rear yeah rear-ended so a builder in denver colorado steve brunes with hair trigger customs had to reshape cut we cut off the rear end and reshaped it and he did it himself and what are the brakes they're drums all the way around them they're not buick drums oh they are they're the bjork fin drums yeah oh you know those are great those are the greatest break trump every hot rod to use those because with the big fins on them it would aid in the cooling so that's kind of cool all right four speeds what is it borg warner it's a borgwarner t10 okay t11 so it's gm stuff from the period yep okay four speed i think the corvette had that for a while too yeah and the 215 buick making what about 210 horsepower 225 we always kind of thought yeah okay can we open the hood you bet let's let's open the hood up a little bit see what we got here yeah fits in there nicely i always like these nail heads i used to call them because the valves are so small the buick engines or the periods now did it come with an alternator back in the day or did you put the alternator on it i believe it came with an alternator 1964 by 64 results in your car okay yeah i'm still learning about the car um i learned something new every day uh so that's why i defer to rob quite often i'm pretty trouble-free i imagine right it's been very trouble-free it's never left me stranded so far well that was sort of the idea and you know to a kid in andover massachusetts is freezing in the winter you're in math class just reading about these dreamers in california that were just 10 years older than i was maybe a year or two more than that they were building their own sports car i mean it was so exciting and and uh what's the word inspiring to make you you realize whatever goal you had you could achieve it if these guys could build a car i mean yeah just unbelievable and where did most of the money come from family and friends family and friends they had 21 000 from friends uh a little youth investment group friends of theirs and then family right i don't imagine anybody anybody got their money back uh no they're still waiting yeah they're still waiting still waiting for the final product yeah yeah yeah but but you have the cars and that's really the cool part how many have been destroyed you know we're we're thinking there may be about 50 55 total cars left out of the total of 88 cars rob show us the book you bet yeah just hold up there okay apollo gt the american ferrari and i guess that's fair to say because it certainly looks like it well it actually the title comes from two sources one was uh when milt brown went on an extended honeymoon in europe in 1960 61 uh they were looking to build maybe a commuter car at least one of the investors wanted that right and uh after milt toured different uh factories you've been to ferrari been to maserati been to porsche the english companies like lotus uh he sent a telegram back to ned davis who was supplying money for the prototype he said forget about the commuter car we're going to build the american ferrari right and then later on in the september 1963 issue of car and driver magazine they essentially uh said in the subhead of the road test article uh if a buick special ever wanted to become a ferrari and tried hard enough it would probably end up just like this yeah so that inspired me to title the book the american ferrari oh very cool yeah and imagine people do ask you if it's a ferrari don't they yeah i get that a lot yeah yeah it's it's funny and you know what i find fascinating just the wheels i love how far out the spinner cap is uh i don't even think that's legal today that was like something of a james bond movie without the guy's tire you know but uh i i think it looks great i just love the tall town are these 15 or 16 20 60 they're actually 400 millimeter ramps it's a european size that's about 15 and three-quarter inches okay so it's almost a 16. that's close enough that's pretty close well it's such it's just a beautiful car is this the original seats has this been redone that's the original seats that we know of how many miles on it when you got it uh it was turned over and it was about 8 000 on there okay that's all huh yeah yeah my dad drove this all week long and he he wanted to make it a driver yeah and he did so well that's what i love just beautiful it's this almost has an xke look to it almost from the back here just so many elements and it has an actual trunk can i open this of course okay if you play miniature golf you might get a set of clubs in there yeah yeah okay but you got a full spare tire and everything else very nice but so funny back in the day you got a basic car no heated rear window none of that correct outside marrow was two dollars extra you know all those little things like that but very cool very nice and these these pop out electric windows or roll-up windows yeah so pretty straightforward and the bodies are all built in italy all built and then shipped here yeah what they would do is um the the contractor for that was a company called intermechanica yeah and they subcontracted out to a coach builder who then subcontracted out to individuals who in a lean to behind their house would hammer out part of a fender and so on they'd bring them in to the coach builder match them up to the buck and then weld it together to build a one-piece body and then ship with the united states put it on and still manage to sell it for 6 500 how you made any money at all i mean the tin smith got what fifty dollars or cards i mean it's pretty amazing milt milt has told me that he said if they were selling for ten thousand dollars they'd still be in business yeah was that right that's it was his downfall is it he just he sold every one the demand was was steady uh i just ran out of funds yeah and where can people get your book well they can go to my website it's www.apollogtbook.com okay and they can order it there that's right and that's the only that's the only book ever written on it so there you go that's weird it's amazing because there were so many just fabulous articles in the 60s about it it really was an american dream everybody's really up on it and excited about it i'm surprised they couldn't make it last just just a little bit longer because by this point it would have disc brakes and yeah maybe a bigger motor but 215 seem about right that seems a nice size well this has been a dream come true for me because this is a car it's always been in the back of my mind just for the last 40 years i always wondered what happened to it they'd turn up occasionally in the back of road and track the little tiny ad apollo you know you see it one for sale so very cool can we drive it i'd love to that's right all right cool so rob i'm sorry i'm sorry you can't fit in the car but it's not a two plus two but that's okay okay i'll i'll sit on the back sit in the back there we go kurt let's give it a shot all right door opens nice and wide got really easy to get into it's not some cramped little italian sports car that's why my dad loved these cars and i love the gauges and the dash got a nice sound to it you're about the only person i would allow to drive this you are the only person that actually that's kind of that's driven it since i finished it you know the thing is still true all the fun is between 40 and 120. if the amount of sports car it's what's going to go on 120 130 amp but you just screwed up right yeah and so there's no reason to have them so low and scraping and all the other stuff you know i like these they sit normal i have a normal ride height if you hit a speed bump you don't rip off a front you know very true i've said this a million times my favorite thing is on my mclaren it has a little splitter it's about 18 inches long yep if you cracked a splitter you can get you can either get a new splitter or a z06 corvette they're the same price yeah you know it feels quite modern really it drives great bill brown uh owned this car for a few years and he remembers it yeah as the best driving car he had wow every car came over differently because they were no car was the same right and he didn't know what he was going to get to land it on his dock and then he went to work doesn't get more italian than that yeah and i love the thin steering wheel yes i love a thin wheel you know i have a very very early lamborghini mirror and it came with a thin wooden wheel like this it's just so delicate i hate these big fat wheels i agree i'm lucky i didn't have to source anything the gauges everything was there your dad bought this back in 2003 you said yes sir now what would he have paid then about 80 uh no no not that not that much 45 50 that much no no 25 uh close wow yeah so under 25 000 yeah 2003 yes i know 2003 seems like it but it's 20 years ago i know i know uh i think he wore this owner down over the years of he knew every apollo owner in the country right and he would go visit them and i think they felt sorry for him but you know that's the kind of person you want to have your car yeah i agree you know someone who's gone you know i hear from a lot of guys who want to sell me cars and it's not even the price they just wanted to go to go to you know it's not the worst thing sell a car to somebody else and butcher and then two weeks later you see it on bring a trailer for twice the money or yep or some crazy claim you know this was ferrari's personal or whatever you know whatever it is did your mom get it or not get it they they separated early so john maybe she didn't get it okay like that story like does she have memories of being in the car no she's um no because they came afterwards it came afterward much much afterwards um i drove up and down carmel valley road with mill brown one afternoon up and down up and down yeah and he was just saying more more these are high revving motors right take it to six if you want uh i wasn't that comfortable with it but that was a fun day it is funny i mean i remember i just bought the hot rod magazine this was featured in it i was just so taken that a guy is just a few years older than me you know it just it just struck me it's so amazing that they could go to italy build a sports car that's pretty cool you know because he was a real engineer and everything else but yeah and he is still alive today yeah yeah yeah i talked to him almost weekly you know there were so many guys from that era there was a guy named griffin who produced the the tvr with the 289 cobra motor and compared to what was coming out of italy and europe this is a huge motor yeah it's always funny when to me i pick up an english magazine and they'll say it has the big block 289 ford motor well that's not the big block right but to them it's a big block because then he's doing two later yeah yeah jaw is really wonderful yeah my dad spent his entire uh time rebuilding mechanical whatever needed help he fixed it what do you do for a living your dad he was a parking lot striper oh oh okay yeah did that by hand was that machine that's machine yeah yeah so he must have been awful careful not to park on the white line but he i think he got this car between the lines yes but i kept saying dad we got to paint it we got to paint it and uh not knowing what a paint job costs he did i didn't yeah and he'd say no son mechanics first yeah and then he did we just didn't get around to painting it what was the original color uh red what was it it had faded to pink the whole time he had it so he never got to experience the off factor that people give this car now that it has a paint job right right uh i wish i could help them before that but you got nice torque in every gear but other engines were available correct yes they uh started toying around with the five liter but apparently the it set off the weight distribution too much and uh they really struggled with getting the car to drive the way that the 2.5 liter did well this feels nicely balanced it yeah is that this is this 2.5 liter yeah i guess that's 250. i'm sorry it's 2.5 liter 3.5 it's the 215 3.5 liters i'm sorry yeah yeah okay that's i thought yeah not good with my leader too and apparently i'm not even my metric to american did this ever have a radio i believe it did back in the day it's got an antenna it must have gone oh it does it must have gone underneath here somewhere possibly it's funny for an american car to have aqua benzene now leo have you rebuilt this motor to stock specifications stock specifications all right my dad did all that and this was kind of the time when i didn't care so much for the car right so i wasn't deeply involved and i have a lot of questions for him now that unfortunately he can't answer but he did leave me all the information to the detail it's so funny because when i was a kid i would have given anything my dad to be a car guy yeah like my dad knew cars and he worked at it because you had to and you grew up in that area yeah my dad would go instead once you've got an automatic it shifts for you why would you want to shift that makes noise it made no sense to him to him the sign of a rich man well you had a car with an automatic and an air conditioner right oh my god that was unbelievable yeah i just couldn't appreciate it early on and i loved cars but this car reduced him to childlike as a parent yeah yeah and now i'm a parent and it's i'm struggling not to have it reduce me to child like with it and i suppose you felt that dad was spending more time on the car than he was with you right well just all our conversations around the table or were always focused on the apollo was he married again nope never married again so my mom didn't get the apollo thing they they divorced early yeah that's a car guy yeah yeah this is the only sports car he ever owned chassis seems rigid now it doesn't i don't see the hood you know sometimes if these quote specials although this is not as best you know they do tend to flex and all that kind of nuts i mean it's a real car yeah there's so many silly cars built you know excaliburs and climates and all that nonsense yeah the this brainchild of milt has been so unfortunate that they couldn't make it make a longer run of it well you know it's hard to make a living selling two-seater sports cars i mean porsche almost went under were not for the you know the suv and all those others that's where they made their money yeah i mean ford did not make a lot of money at thunderbird until they made it a four-seater yeah and then suddenly oh you know would you put on an auxiliary fan yes sir yeah not thermostatic you know you ever walk away and leave it on and then no uh i think it shuts off oh it does yeah it fits up by itself i imagine it gets pretty reasonable fuel mileage it actually gets great fuel yeah it's light i want to i haven't checked it in a while but i think it's over 20. well a big engine working slowly uses less fuel in a small engine working hard yeah i always love these bullet mirrors he used to love them and they were way out on the fender yes some of the apollos had them out there yeah yeah i'd imagine it has a heater box correct it does yeah i mean it's amazing he built a real car so many people yeah forget heater radio you know just the things that make it it's amazing how many guys who build a car come here and go where's the horn oh i i didn't put a horn in yeah they just for whatever reason they seem to lose interest you think that's the one thing that's going to save you you know yes i use the horn quite often actually in this car people tend to just drive right at you well the worst is when you ride motors in the old days i could always make contact now people come to light the head goes down to the phone yeah but it rides wonderfully drives nice yeah i'm pretty lucky jay yeah you know when they build these things they set them up that way for a reason like a lot of people don't like the tall skinny tires but it that's what makes it handle so nicely yeah so how long has it been finished uh we finished in 2018. oh oh it's been quite a while yeah i took it to concorso italiano the first year was finished i guess that would qualify would you throw it out there yeah or i didn't drive it i or a friend of mine hauled it out there you got a nice reception i did i got i got a third place prize oh that's great yeah sometimes they get a little snobby of those things yeah now however the next year i was at the quail that was that was fun and then uh i just won best in show at the auto metsy all italian show in colorado oh that's great yeah sponsored by ferrari wow i didn't expect that yeah yeah how do you like the seats seats are good i mean seats are sort of what i remember nice lifting feel to it so that's my dilemma j do i do i do the interior do i leave it the way it is i think you leave the way yeah you know at some point it's just nice to enjoy it keep throwing money at it and you'll always have i like the original i'll look better with new so you're gonna lose half the people i agree so to me i would just drive it and use it and enjoy it yes sir and it's your car and the nice thing about being original is you have a reason to do it yes well it's original oh a reason not to do it yeah reason yeah that's a good reason not to do it yes i'd like to say it's only original once and yeah you know you could redo it and keep redoing it 50 times right but you can never make it original again well thank you very much this is a childhood dream of mine i've been thinking about this car since i was 14 years old so it is my pleasure and it's the exact car it's the prototype it's the one i saw in the magazine so so you wait long enough and good things come to you that's right well thanks a lot i appreciate it my friend it is my pleasure and thank rob he did a great job okay rob i'm sorry would have been on the scene we would have taken it along but uh pick up the book folks it's a good read i really enjoyed it pretty easy read but if you have a dream of building a car it'll inspire you we'll see you next week thanks [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 338,188

Keywords: Apollo GT, Milt Brown, Robb Northrup, Kurt Brakhage, aluminum-bodied car, Buick V8, 215, rare car, car porn, gearhead, car enthusiast, 3500, Ferrari, American car, sports car, luxury car

Id: NddjMLU5894

Length: 28min 42sec (1722 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 27 2022