 Welcome to SRQ, I'm Patrick Lottin and along with Christopher Brantley. And today we're going to take you into a time machine, back to an era over 100 years ago where your horsepower was determined by, well, the number of horses hitched to your wagon. The dirt roads of the towns were lit at night by kerosene lanterns and people communicated by the telegraph wire. Along our journey we'll take a look at some of the landmarks of the Industrial Revolution, the icons of 20th century technology and some of the hottest wheels to ever hit the road. We're at the second oldest continuously operating car museum in the country and it's right here in Sarasota. So join us for a trip throughout the Sarasota Classic Car Museum. The year was 1953, Ike was in the White House, Americans were fighting in Korea and two brothers from Iowa decided that Sarasota would be a great place to display their collections of over 70 classic cars. Herbert and Bob Horn opened Horn's Cars of Yesterday in March of 1953 and while the name has changed a couple of times, the cars have been on display here ever since. Today it's the Sarasota Classic Car Museum and you can stop in for a visit every day of the year except Christmas. They have Rolls Royce, a Model T, the Lorian, Ferraris, a Drag Racer, Muscle Cars, Classic Rides and my favorite, John Lennon's Mercedes. So Chris let's put this in drive and when we return we'll take these guys down memory lane in style. Alright, let's go. G-Morning sunshine, wakey wakey, text me back. Hey, did you tell your parents about us? Let's skip first period together. Did you get all my texts? Is practice over yet? Where are you at? Are you with your friends? That's L-A-A-A-M-M-E-E. Capital X, lower queso, capital X, lower queso. I love you, JK, I hate you, JK. Are you ignoring me? We're in a huge fight right now. Is it something I did? I can see your lights on. I'm coming over. What do you dream about? Me? I'm lonely. Holla back. Holla back. Let's try something new, nude pics, send me some. Text me. Abandoned and lost. On the dark, cold streets of the city. To a cage in the local shelter. To heaven, your lap. Welcome back to SRQ. We're here at the Sarasota Class A car museum with one of the museum docents, Jim Lynch, who is a living encyclopedia of classic cars and is going to be our tour guide through this highway of history. Thank you, Christopher. It's very nice being here with you and your group. Thank you. I'd like to tell you about a 1912, two-thirds scale Model T Ford that we have here that was built by the original owners of this museum. And this cementure car was used to transport children around the museum outside to give them something to do and to stimulate their interest in old cars. Next we have Chris, a car here that we're continuing on our tour that is made in 1904 by the Shock Motor Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. And they built this car from 1904 through 1913, building approximately 9,000 of the cars that you see behind us here. All right, so it's peculiar. One half of the car is looking really nice and the other half is looking a little bit roughed up. Chris, this car was found some 65 years ago in a barn laying on its side. The museum chose to leave one side of the car as it was originally found and then they restored the other side of the car, making it look the way it was brand new. All right, so let's move on to what we've got here. Good. Thank you. Well, Chris, we have a car here that's a chassis of a car that was made by the Carter Car Company of Hyatt'sville, Maryland. They built this car from 1906 through 1970, now this car is minus the body as you can see and the reason for that is we're trying to show you exactly the drive system that this car was manufactured with. In this car you have an engine and you have a drive chain going to a large flywheel here and then you have a secondary flywheel that's covered with rubber and what you do is if we're going to take the car forward, we take the flywheel over there and put the secondary flywheel up against the large flywheel and as we move the secondary flywheel off to the left, it makes the car go faster. Of course, you do have a throttle on the car at that time. So we're going to back this automobile up now. We're going to just slide the secondary flywheel to this side and of course the engine continues turning counterclockwise so now we're backing the car up. We have a blacksmith shop and in it you'll see the blacksmith sitting in his chair up there because with the advent of the car this blacksmith was becoming unemployed. He had to find a new occupation or otherwise he couldn't make a living because his primary job in those times was putting four shoes on a horse or fixing the wagons which were towed by the horses. Now moving over here, in 1912 they considered this one of the biggest layoffs in history with the advent of the automobile because the blacksmith was going out of business. In 1912 there were 25 million horses being used in our country to transport people and goods. If you had to put four iron shoes on each one of those horses, Chris, you would have enough iron to build 60,000 motor vehicles. So this horse that we see here was quickly going to pasture with the advent of the automobile. So what do we have here? Chris, we have a 1913 Model T Ford. Henry Ford developed the Model T car in 1908 and built the car through 1928 and he built over 16 million Model T's. Now the one we have here is not quite a correct representative of a Model T although it is a 1913, the body that was originally on this car had been removed by its owner and made into what you'd call a torpedo roadster whereby they painted it white because usually you could buy a Model T in any color along as it was black and that was what Henry Ford sold at that time. So this is a 1913 Model and Henry Ford learned to mass produce the Model T car at approximately 1913 because he dropped his price from $550 per car to $350 so his own employees could buy their own car. And they did buy it because in 1913 they produced 100 and some thousand cars that year. That was his first large benchmark for the Model T car. Now Chris, the next generation of Ford cars was the Model A which Ford built from 1928 through 1931. What you see here is a beautiful Ford roadster. This car did very very well and they sold again probably somewhere in the range of 15 million Model A Ford. Wow, this is an age looking vehicle. Yes Chris, this is a 1910 Buick Model 10 touring car. This car is now 100 years old when you say age it, it is age it. Wow. And this car sold for $1,000. Whether or not in 1910 people paid $1,000 for this car because they preferred the name of a Buick over a Ford automobile or anything else that sold for much less. Now they did sell 10,000 of these touring cars in 1910. Ah, finally something I'm kind of familiar with. This looks to be a Mini Cooper, is that correct? Yes. This is a Paul McCartney's car of the Beatles, it's a 1965 Mini Cooper and both him and John Lennon bought cars that year. But this was a neat little car whereby the factory painted his special C-foam green and they even put a sunroof in this car so they could stand on the seats and say hello to some of his fans when he was driving this car around England which he did do for some five years. What a beautiful, what a beautiful Mercedes. This is a beautiful car and this was owned by his partner in music, John Lennon. John Lennon also chose to buy a new car in 1965 buying this Mercedes-Benz 230 SL convertible and it was his car, we had the documentation to prove that these cars were actually owned by the Beatles. This car sold for approximately $7,000 new in 1965, we would probably sell today for probably close to $200,000 with his name on it. Now it wouldn't bring that much without his name on it, probably in the range of $40,000 to $50,000 today without his name on it. But with his name on it, you can count on that kind of price. Wow, this is something people in Sarasota might be interested in isn't it? Oh absolutely. This is definitely a local story. This car here is a 1922 Rolls-Royce owned by John Ringling of the Ringling Circus family and this car by the way sold for approximately $13,000 in 1922 was one of the most expensive automobiles in the world at that time. Funny to think of $13,000 as extremely expensive in 1922. Now the story behind this car is very interesting. Now Rolls-Royce was traditionally an English built automobile. When John Ringling went out of the country, which he did travel out of the country a lot, he not only took his luggage, he took his car and his chauffeur in the bowels of the ship. So when he got to the UK or Great Britain or any of those countries, he had the car that was driving on the right side of the road. This car belongs to Mrs. Ringling and so I'm told she had a little problem. She was claustrophobic. So she didn't like to ride in these closed in cars, but she did like big automobiles. So I'm under the impression that she obviously got John to buy her this 1923 Piercero touring car, which was also built extra long to accommodate seven people. And this car sold probably in the range of $8,000 to $9,000. Of course she had a chauffeur drive her around Sarasota at that time. Tell me about this one. It's definitely an odd style for a car. Yes, it's not much of a road car, but it's a very good car on a racetrack. This car is on loan to us by Don Garwood's Museum of Calif, Florida. And it's called a dragster. This car has approximately a 600 horsepower Chrysler engine. And that has been known to propel this car well over 200 miles per hour in a 5.8 seconds in a quarter mile. Now of course this car, the front end goes up in the air when this car takes off from the starting line and eventually it comes down because it does have a special spoiler on the front that will bring the front end of this car down so that they can steer it. But up until that time it's being steered by the rear wheels of this automobile. I recognize this, it looks like a Mustang, but it looks a little bit different than a regular Mustang. Chris, this is a very special Mustang. This car has been modified by Carol Shelby, who has been cooperating with the Ford Motor Company for probably 45 or 50 years and he's 85 years old as we speak today where he takes a standard Mustang car and modifies the engine and the suspension system and the interior seating and the safety system to equate for the horsepower, additional horsepower that this car is designed to produce. This is a very beautiful automobile that has been restored back to new and would probably sell for somewhere in the area of $6,000 in 1965 and today it would probably bring somewhere in the range of about $135,000 this year at the Barrett Jackson auction. Beautiful, beautiful. I love the color too. Very, very nice. Yeah, especially with the way that the engine is here, the hood, that would be beautiful. All right, wow, what a beautiful Ferrari, seriously beautiful Ferrari. But how is it that the museum comes about getting one of these? Well we have two sources of our cars. Some of our cars are on loan to the museum by individuals who live here in Sarasota and others are purchased by the museum at the auction. Also from individuals who may want to sell one of these cars where they've got a little older and they're not into sports cars. This is a 1997 Ferrari sports coupe. It has a V10 engine in it of approximately 450 horsepower. It's a beautiful original automobile with a gorgeous red leather interior in it and this beautiful silver paint, second to none all the way through this car. Okay, so I'm used to seeing this car, very beautiful Mustang, right? This is your kind of car without a doubt. That's even my kind of car. This car is a 1966 Ford Mustang and this car was developed by Ford Motor Company in 1963 and started production in 1964 and a half with a small six-owner engine in it and a manual transmission selling for approximately $2,000. Now this is a 66 model by that time they've got into building convertibles. But the story behind this car is Lee Iacocca was then president of the Ford Motor Company and he tried to sell Henry Ford and the board of directors for two years on building this automobile but Henry Ford had a little sour taste in his mouth from the Yetzel experience. But Mr. Iacocca and his cohort by the name of House Spurlich did finally convince them to build this car using a lot of the Ford Falcon componentry. So it wasn't an absolutely totally new car but it is probably one of the best kudos that the Ford Motor Company has ever done other than the Model T Ford. Definitely a wise decision on their part to go ahead and go to run with this car. Very much so. Next we have on our tour here a very beautiful 1959 Chevrolet Corvette. This car is absolutely a picture perfect automobile every place you look and it is a fiberglass body which Corvette has used. One of the few manufacturers to build a car with fiberglass in our country were used to building cars out of steel. But this is a fiberglass body and this car being a 1959 doesn't have some of the attributes that some of the later Corvettes have. But overall this is a very very beautiful original car. There is not a mark on it any place. Chris what do you think would you like to own this car. I'd love to how much. Well today probably in the range of over a hundred thousand dollars for this beautiful white Corvette. Even though it's a 1959 being a thousand point automobile. You know I'll get back to you on that as soon as I conjure up that hundred thousand dollars leave me I'd be here to take this one off your hands. You know what I'm very enjoyable car. Yes. We have another one across the street here that I'd like to show you. All righty. Well G. Jim I've never seen a car like this before. Well the reason you haven't seen a car like this before is this car is one of one. It was built in Los Angeles California in 1947 by a gentleman a former race car driver by the name of Frank Curtis. He built this car on a 1947 Ford chassis using a 1947 Ford Flathead V8 engine with manual transmission. He even in order to get spoke wheels had to go back to 1934 Ford spoke wheels. It doesn't look good though. But it's a beautiful car being only one in the country it's on loan to our museum by another museum from the West Coast. Very very nice. Now what do you have your eye on up there. Wow. A DeLorean. I cannot believe I am looking at an actual DeLorean. It's a beautiful car was designed by John DeLorean a former executive of General Motors who headed up the Pontiac division for many years and then the Chevrolet division and after retiring from General Motors he had a desire to build his own sports car. And how he got connected to Margaret Thatcher and the government of Great Britain I'm not sure but anyway Margaret Thatcher and the government agreed to loan him the money to design this car and to build him a factory in Donaway, Ireland where she had a 50% unemployment problem. This car has been in a special movie is that correct. Not this car but one like it was used in the movie Back to the Future and that was got a lot of important press while it was being used in that movie back at that time. Now this car is unique it's stainless steel so this is the only color you can get this car in and they built this car from 1981 and 1982 but every car that came off the semi-line during that period was red ink for the government of Great Britain. So in 1982 Margaret Thatcher turned the key and locked the door in the factory and of course she didn't win and the people in Donaway, Ireland didn't win and John DeLorean certainly didn't win. Now let's take a look at another car that we have over here. This car is out of this world. Christopher here is a very unique automobile here in this country. This is a 1965 Isetta 300. This has quite a story behind it and some of it is kind of local. But anyway this car was built by BMW but they didn't design this car. A family in Milan, Italy by the name of Revolta designed this car. The father and the son chose to build a car using motorcycle chassis and motorcycle engine that would give you good mileage and also very good transportation and the family during this period of time was coming to Sarasota, Florida to vacation at times and later in life they settled here and one son lives in our city yet today. All right cool, serves up on this one. Isn't that a beautiful automobile? Yeah it really is. That's a 1940 Buick Woody station wagon and of course if you lived in California you'd have to have one of those with a surfboard on the roof when you went to the beach. Anyway they built about 495 of these beautiful cars and they sold for about $1242 at that time. It has absolutely been restored. It's a thousand point automobile and it's valued today as well which seems like $100,000 if you wanted to buy that automobile. There are so many other cars here. Really wish we could go through all of them but unfortunately we don't have enough time. Wish you could too anyway. Thank you. It's been very nice having you here to show you our wonderful museum and our wonderful cars. This is a magnificent museum. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Been awesome being here really, really amazing. I'm here with the event coordinator of the Sarasota Classic Car Museum Robin Kane. Thank you for allowing us to be here at this magnificent museum. Thank you for coming. So tell us something about this museum. What's your mission? Basically we're here to acquire, preserve and exhibit classic and vintage cars for future generations to enjoy. Sounds great. So am I correct that this is open every day of the year? Yeah, we're open from 9 to 6 every day of the year except Christmas. The prices are very affordable. We've been here a long time since 1953 and we try to keep here for another 50 years or so. We keep the prices, adults are only 850 to come in and see up to 100 cars so it's a good deal. So I'm curious, what is this room that we're in? It's much different from the cars. This is our banquet room, our event center. We rent out the whole museum actually including this room for different functions, weddings, plummets, fuzz, you name it. We also have our own events that we do here like Elvis impersonator and different musical acts and comedy acts. We have a regular standing show, our Houdini magic show and they're a very well known Las Vegas magic show, they're very good so we have a lot of stuff going on here. Well thanks for telling me about the museum, it was great to meet you and allowing us to be here. Thank you very much. For more information on the Sarasota Classic Car Museum, go to their website at www.sarasotacarmuseum.org. That's it for this episode of SRQ. Be sure to join us next time as we go to the always magical Sidewalk Chalk at Strava Gansa. Until then I'm Christopher Brantley. And I'm Patrick Lawson and thanks for watching.