COUNTING NOSES

COUNTING NOSES
KL Nichols

Saturdays in my neck of the woods is the day that the homeowners all get out the lawn mower, hedge clippers and the leaf blower and do the weekly maintenance that home ownership requires!

And while this ritual is going on, I get out my 57 Chevy and go for a snoop, looking for what antiques & classic vehicles my neighbors have tucked away in their garages! I have been doing this for years! In fact I actually got started on this in the early ‘80’s when I lived in a small college town of about 5000 permanent residents. I had just restored a beautiful 49 Ford Convertible and I was out to show it off with out bragging. As I drove around I started seeing Model-T’s and Model-A’s hiding in local garages. The amount was so large, I started counting and the inaccurate total was in the 50’s and in such a small town too!?”So what”, you say? I was so amazed at the booty I saw in those garages, I started investing in any stock I could find, related to the collector vehicles and their aftermarket. And the market exploded, my collector cars gained in value nicely every year until 1991 when the bottom fell out of the collector vehicle market, just after the First Gulf War.

Did I mention that I went back to that small town last month and I went for my “Snooping Drive”, I only counted 4 Model A’s? But I did see an amazing amount of other classics including 18 pre-70’s Mustangs and a couple of GTOs, not to mention several other potential keepers!

My advice to you is to take a ride whenever you get the chance, it’s likely to be profitable.