“As hobbies go, buying, restoring and driving old cars is a harmless-though often expensive-indulgence, far removed from the worlds of global politics and terrorist plots.”That was the lead sentence for an article I wrote last month for New York Times, exploring the reactions of the collector car community to the […]
Author: Keith Martin
Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than 30 years. As a writer, publisher, television commentator and enthusiast, he is constantly on the go, meeting collectors and getting involved in their activities throughout the world. He is the founder and publisher of the monthly Sports Car Market, now in its 33rd year. Keith has written for the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications, is an emcee for numerous concours, and had his own show, “What’s My Car Worth,” shown on Velocity.
He has received many honors, including the Lee Iacocca Award, the Edward Herrman Award, was inducted into the Concorso Italiano Hall of Fame and more.
He is on the boards of directors of The LeMay Museum and Oregon Ballet Theater, and was formerly the chair of the board of the Meguiar's Award.
A Done Car
For the past month, I’ve been enjoying the company of an old friend. It came into our life in 1988, just after I had left my position as artistic director of Ballet Oregon and become a sales manager for Ron Tonkin Gran Turismo, hawking Ferraris, Alfas, Maseratis and Lotuses. Cindy […]
Lancias ‘R’ Us
Both nature and car collectors abhor a vacuum.In July we bid farewell to our 1972 240Z and our 1967 Alfa Duetto race car. The Z went to an SCM subscriber in Lorton, Virginia, and the Duetto to good friends and SCM’ers Doug Zaitz and Portland’s Veloce Motors owner Dan Sommers, […]
Going, Going, Gone Forever
Monterey is a bellwether weekend, as RM, Christie’s and Bonhams & Brooks duke it out. Each is offering a delectable array of first-tier collectible automobiles, and the automotive investment world watches and holds its breath as four-hundred special cars cross the block.Will collectible autos get caught up in the widespread […]
It’s All About the Hunt
I venture to hypothesize that SCM readers are always searching for the flimsiest posibble excuse to justify buying another car. “I don’t have one in that color.” “It’s cheaper to buy this one than restore the one I have.” “I always wanted one when I was in high school.” And […]
Do You Know the Way to… Auburn?
We confess. As sports car fanatics, Auburn, Indiana has never been at the center of our radar screen. But as SCM continues to expand its coverage of America’s grand luxury marques, including Duesenberg, Cord and Auburn, a trip to their home city seemed appropriate. Additionally, Auburn is the location of […]
The General Meets the Snake
Brand heritage has been the rage with new car makers for some time now. “Bentley Returns to Le Mans” trumpets one ad agency, as the now-VW-owned, once-English company attempts to regain some of the glory it covered itself with sixty years ago. The PT Cruiser is a gangster car for […]
Skinned-Knuckle Diagnostics
We of the Boomer generation grew up sneaking J.C. Whitney and Warshawsky catalogs onto our desks during biology lectures. Figuring out how to afford those trick, high-compression, .040-inch oversize pistons and rings for our Bug Eye Sprites was a daily topic of discussion. Tinkering with cars was our lifestyle. There […]
Our Own Fakey-Doo
This is all Martin Swig’s fault. The iconoclastic, San Francisco-based collector and enthusiast has been trying to lay us away in a Ford for some time. Not just any Ford, mind you, but a 1954 Mainline Six Business Coupe. “It’s the model Piero Taruffi drove in the ’54 Carrera,” Swig […]
Just A Car
I have long argued that cars are machinery first, and art second. With the very rare exception of pure show cars, they were designed to be driven, not to be displayed for gawking passersby. It is only through the use of a car that its underlying magnificent strengths and disappointing […]