The Weirdest Stories in Car Collecting - Part I

[pwd72s]

That was fun...thanks, Wayne

[notfarnow]

Incensed that comedian Bill Cosby had an affinity for European sports cars, Carroll Shelby vowed to build him a twin-supercharged custom Cobra that would go over 200 mph - faster than any car Steve McQueen owned.

The car Shelby built for Cosby, with a reputed 900 bhp was downright scary. In his comedy routine, “200 MPH” Cosby described it this way: “The car was idling, I was in neutral, I hadn’t put my foot and the gas pedal, and already, the car was killing people.”

Ha! I have a Cosby album with that "200mph" bit... I didn't know it was about an actual car.

[Hawktel]

I knew about the Cosby car, but not about the dude dying who got it after him.

[Zeke]

I guess only stories that made the news will be reported. How about this one: My ex-wife came home from work one day and told me the rental house next door to her work was going to be razed and the lot graded in 2 days. She said there was a '48 or '9 MG TC in the back covered with weeds growing all around and up thru the car. She thought I ought to come get it becasue the demo contactor had come next door to ask for some parking on demo day. He said he was going to throw the car up in the dump trauck and haul it with the rest of the debris. I got a trailer and went up to Hollywood, backed in and loaded it up. It took a while to free it from the weeds.

What now that I have it home? I cleaned it up of spiders and such to evaluate the thing. It actually wasn't too bad and I'd restored 2 MG's before, so I had s a little insight. I put it in the garage. Three or four days later a Hollywood division detective was on the phone wanting to know where the car was. I told him I had it. He told me I stole it and needed to return it.

To where, I wanted to know. He didn't know, but the owners would contact me and he would follow up or file charges if I didn't cooperate. I wondered how the owners who abandoned the MG years ago suddenly wanted it. They called and I asked if I could buy it. No, they wanted it back. I told them it was one day from the dump when I got it and I had actually saved the thing. They didn't care about that. So, they came down with a trailer and took it somewhere, who knows?

I have pics of this episode somewhere, I'll look.

But wait, there's more: I had a '36 MG Saloon, only 6 cyl model ever made. I bought this one wrecked sitting behind a frat house at USC. The owner's name was Gail Ben-Susan. I never figured that one out, but at least there was paperwork with this one. I paid $125 for it. After reconstructing this monster, I sold it to the president of the Long Beach MG Club.

Pics of that one too, but a lot of my stuff is on slides.


Why are these stories of any significance? Well, the type of money we are talking about was mere pennies compared to today. I ran into deals like this all the time when I was 20 something. Nowadays, it's an event.

[Laneco]

Regarding the "first take" on the MGB commercial...

Evidently it was a Lucas parachute.

Steve and angela

[red-beard]

I once bought a "famous" car. I think it's near seattle now...