classic cars in trouble in Salt Lake City UT.

[motorheadkev]

Mr. Leno
First of all, thank you for your efforts to keep alive the golden age of automobiles. Also I graciously appreciate your efforts to educate other people of this activity. Like you, I’m a motor head who appreciates automobiles on a complex level that is difficult for others to understand. I believe it’s the fact that I am an also Taurus like yourself, being born on April 27, 1960. It took me until I hit my thirties to realize that my birth date had automotive significance, ”4/27/60” “427”. You see what I mean.
I digress again, each time I watch one of your TV shows, I say to myself “Mr. Leno understands the complex connection that some people have with machines”.
This letter is to notify you of an interesting classic car museum located in Salt Lake City Utah. And also a letter of humanitarian request since all of these cars are rusting away in a warehouse in SLC. I just wanted to bring these collection to your attention. In case you may be interested and have not noticed it already.
I was in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago with another motor head. Since we had this same aspect in common we decided to find a car show somewhere in SLC. A difficult task in the middle of January. I googled “car show in SLC”. Wonderful thing Google. The hit that I came back with were a few indoor shows, but not close to the downtown area. But one that we were really interested in, was a classic car museum just down the block from the Homewood Suites where we were staying in downtown SLC. I read the comments section and saw mixed reviews, most of them bad. Comments included; “never open” “no one answers the phone”, “hard to get in” and for the few that were able to get through the doors, “very dirty place with filthy cars”.
The next day I called the number expecting no answer. I was surprised that someone picked up the phone. I asked if they would be open after 3PM the next day. The gentleman on the phone stated he closed at 3, and would not be open after 10 AM on Friday. Since we were very interested in the cars, I asked if he could stay open a little past 3. He agreed to the request.
We drove there the next day at 2:45 and meet the owner and curator Stacy Williams. During our introductions this gentleman realized that we were older serious baby boomer motor heads. So he let us self-tour the warehouses.
I was completely taken back by what I saw in these buildings. 1930’s Cords, 1930-40-50’s’Cadillac’s, about 8 1959 Cadillac’s, Auburn boattail, Dewitt, Edsel’s, Franklin air cooled, T-Birds about “20” -50’s and 60’ models, Rolls, Stutz, Nash, Moss over 200 cars all classics.
What bothered me, and it really bothered me was the fact that all these cars were full of dust and all crammed together with bumpers touching in really dirty warehouses with the warehouse roof leaking on the cars in some areas. It kind of made me mad to think this gentleman was sitting on all this beautiful cars and not maintaining them. He seemed to be in way over his head and completely overwhelmed by the logistics of owning theses classics.
From viewing all of this and seeing some old trophies we came to the realization that Stacy’s father (Dick Williams) had started this collection 50-60 years ago and turn it into a classic car used car lot. Every car had a dusty used car warranty laying on the floor (from falling off the window because the tape wore out) I asked Stacy about this and he said “yes” It was a used car lot but the insurance was too high for him to continue. Stacy was another baby-boomer and it looks like he inherited all this from his father. Hench, my thoughts that he is in over his head.
To be honest it did not seem like he was interested in selling anything. Even though when you look at the web-site (http://www.classiccarsintl.net/index.php) each car is listed and has a price. All of the prices were way too high so I believe he was not in any hurry to sell anything. Talking to him I could see he had an emotional attachment to all the cars. And it may have been hard to wrench any of these away.
What a disgrace, what an atrocity, and the pain of viewing this was heart felt. I felt like I had to rescue some of these classic’s and give them a good home. I might be able to rescue one $20,000 car. Maybe the Nash Statesman or the Kaiser Dragon. But the big dollar items might be left to rot, gasp! I kept thinking Jay Leno, Jay Leno, this is his class of auto’s.
I guess I’m writing this letter to commiserate with you,(I hope this reaches you) since I’m sure you have come across, dirty rotting car collections like this before and can understand my displeasure.
I guess my humanitarian request was just a wild idea or a knee jerk reaction to a condition I had no correction for. Thanks for listening anyway, or whoever receives this thanks for listening.
Kevin J Gallagher
1491 Carroll Street
Wantagh, NY 11793
516-455-5462

[tara]

I'm assuming you mean Jay Leno. He will not read this. You need to send it to this address.
Jay Leno
Big Dog Productions, Inc.
P.O. Box 7885
Burbank CA 91510
USA

And I would probably take your home address and phone number off your post.