Bortzcars's Blog

On September 2, 2011, at Auctions America at Auburn, IN Joe Bortz will be joining Bo Huff, Darryl Starbird, John D’Agostino and Chuck Miller for a seminar about custom cars.  These gentlemen are all power houses in the Custom and Hot Rod Car world and they will be sharing their knowledge and experience in the seminar.  In addition to the seminar, they will be available for the audience to talk to them in person after the seminar.  In addition to this wonderful opportunity to meet these legends, Auctions America will have several significant custom and hot rods going through the auction on Saturday, September 3, 2011.

Auburn, IN has been the place to go on Labor Day since 1971.  Joe Bortz has been making the yearly journey to Auburn since the first auction was held at the Auburn High School.  Joe Bortz was just a young guy of 20 years old when he became involved with chasing down antique and classic cars and started what would become the Bortz Auto Collection.  It is always interesting to be at auctions and car shows with Joe Bortz because there are usually several cars that Joe points out that he has owned.   Of course with Joe there is usually an interesting story to go along with the memories of the car.  For example, check out Joe’s article ‘Star Power’ in Old Cars Weekly about the Wells Fargo Buick formerly owned by Dale Robertson that was actually at the Auburn auction about 15 years ago where Dale Robertson and Joe met each other and Dale reminisced about the days when he owned the Buick Wells Fargo car.

Joe added a custom car division to his collection about six years ago.  Among the customs that he has acquired is the 1950 Fitzpatrick Packard Custom that was designed by Phil Lacy.  Phil Lacy was reunited with the Fitzpatrick in a TV show after Phil’s son tracked Joe down and Joe setup the reunion after 50 years.

Joe invited his friend George Barris to come and see his 1955 Chevy “Jim Seaton” Barris Kustom, and to make comparison’s to his 1957 Ford “John North” custom that was done on the East coast in 1957.  (Interesting note, the 1957 John North Ford was owned by singer Gene Pitney at one time).  These two cars were also featured in an article called ‘East Coast Meets West Coast” that detailed the differences in customizing trends of the east versus west coast.

Of course Joe loves the styling and details of cars but Joe also is a true historian and delves into the history of each of his cars and the 1937 ‘Glenn Johnson’ epitomizes the mind set of guys in the 1950′s who felt compelled to chop, channel and section their family drivers.  Glenn Johnson did just that with his 1937 Ford, and the car was featured at the first Pasadena Car Show in the 1950′s and the car’s history has been well documented ever since.  There are several articles on the BortzAutoCollection.com website about this car.  The 1937 Glenn Johnson Ford had a triathlon early this year being shown at the Grand National Roadster Show Jan. 2011, Detroit Autorama Feb. 2011 and Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance March 2011.  Joe had such a good time at each of these events and met new friends who are big into customs and hot rods.

This is going to be a very exciting weekend for custom and hot rod enthusiasts to have a chance to meet their heroes; Bo, Chuck, John & Darryl at Auctions America, Auburn, IN and to see some amazing custom and hot rod cars.  To meet one of these guys would be great but to meet them all is a very unique opportunity!

Joe will see you in Auburn this weekend!

Debbie

When I was 15 years old  I was very proud of the fact that people took me for 18, I felt that it had its advantages and allowed me to do things that required you to be 18 years old — like impressing the girls with my maturity. When you are younger you want to be older and of course when the years are creeping up you want to be younger.

Larry Klairmont is 84 now. He’s a legend in Chicago real estate, a former marine and now one of Chicago’s biggest car collectors. Klairmont has not only developed a collection of 350 cars in less then three years, he is now managing to put this collection into a 125,000-square foot building and turn it into what soon will be Chicago’s most significant car museum. The museum will open in September, with well over 300 cars will be on display, along with airplanes hanging from the ceiling, motor scooters, motorbikes and a fantastic train layout that came from the New York’s World Fair in 1964.

Klairmont gets up at 6 a.m. and works until noon in his real estate office and then heads back to his “museum in progress” at 3111 N. Knox, Chicago (just east of Cicero & Belmont). During the annual Lake Forest car show in Lake Forest, Larry showed up on his motorcycle with his girlfriend riding in tow. His greeting to me was, “Hey kid, what you up to?” That is when I realized that 84 years old is very young, and 70 ain’t so bad either.

Starting around September 1, the museum will be open every Sunday it will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and serve as a meeting place for anyone who rides on wheels: Classics, antiques, sports cars, motorcycles and motor scooters. There will be free coffee and donuts every Sunday morning and Klairmont hopes that his museum becomes a regular meeting and hang out place. There is even a dining room that holds 100 people and Klairmont is now working on a separate unit in the building of 40,000 square feet to act as a antique classic and motorcycle sales room.

Larry Klairmont at museum