But bids were not high enough   to tempt the majority of sellers. Of the more than 150 vehicles for sale during the two-day event, 50 changed hands.

Top sellers included a 1965 Dodge Coronet 500 Hemi convertible for $41,580, including the  8 percent buyer’s premium; a 1940 Ford V-8 Deluxe convertible for $37,800, and a 1949 Triumph 2000 Roadster for $36,720.

Classic Motorcars of Canton, Oh., did round up an interesting and varied inventory. There were Jaguars, Mercedes and Porsches, a couple of Model Ts, handsome members of the American Motors family, hot rods, Corvettes and older luxury sedans.

The seller of a signal orange 1973 Porsche 914 2.0-liter outlined its history on the car’s windshield. The two-seater, with plaid inserts in black vinyl, had had one ground-up restoration and was described as a  “complete blast to drive.” Close inspection was not only not a problem, it was encouraged.

But the “original luggage rack” car did not sell.

John Jacques was disappointed when his gleaming dark blue metallic 1965 Chevrolet Impala SS 396 Turbo Jet also failed to change hands as it crossed the auction block at Novi the first day of the weekend sale.

The high bid was $29,000, said the Clay, Mich. resident. Not enough, said Jacques, an experienced enthusiast who spent four years bringing the Impala SS to perfection.

Jacques said the Impala, which he bought locally five years earlier, had earlier had a body-off restoration. He added a dry cell battery and new air conditioning. The car features Eaton Positraction, a new interior and an aftermarket AM/FM radio with no modifications to the dash, he said.

“This was not my first project of this kind,” said Jacques, who appeared anxious to begin another.

“I also put in an oversize aluminum radiator and three-inch dual exhausts in the Impala,” he said. “It does not purr like a kitten.”

Neither did a head-turning 1934 Plymouth, with side pipes and terrific tobacco-and-blue color scheme. Bidding on the street rod did not meet the seller’s expectations and it went unsold.

Among the successful sales was a 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster Deluxe coupe. Black with a gray-and-burgundy interior and powered by a 216-inch six with three-speed manual, the Fleetmaster underwent a complete body restoration and repaint on bare metal in 2011. Its seller reported to have spent close to $16,000 on the Chevrolet in that year alone. It sold at the Novi auction for $14,040.

A Bill Blass edition 1982 Lincoln Continental Mark VI, in the Blass signature tailored two-color scheme (black and red in this instance), sold for under $3,000 — a lot of car for the money. Its background said this was one of 11 built.

An unusual restored Firecracker red and white 1979 Jeep Cherokee Chief 4X4, with many new components and valued at up to $14,000, did not sell at auction. Equipped with a small-diameter steering wheel and Edelbrock carburetor, the Cherokee Chief’s rugged “western” interior completed the package. Valued at up to $14,000, it did not sell at auction.

Rust bucket or fabulous find? A beat-up 1927 Ford Model T dirt track racer, advertised as a “barn find,” boasted of its original paint and patina, hand-made bucket seats and racing windscreen. Its provenance indicated the T had raced on dirt tracks in Iowa and Nebraska close to 70 years ago, but likely had not run since then.

Offered with a bill of sale only and valued at up to $30,000 prior to the April auction, the ’27 T did not sell in Novi.

The post Few buyers excited by spring classic car auction appeared first on Joyrides.

Current President Dusty Pearse says the show draws over 300 cars.  The club hosts the show on the first Sunday in May.  YASR also hosts an annual cider run in early October.

The May show is held in Ypsilanti’s Riverside Park which provides a pleasant and comfortable setting for viewing classic cars and street rods.  Along with YASR members cars, several other Detroit area car clubs were present including, America’s Most Wanted Car Club, Eastern Michigan Camaro Club, and Memories in Motion Car Club.

With the shows draw of a huge collection of classic cars and hot rods, it is one of the largest shows in Michigan and is worth attending.rods

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And the pastoral Shelton Vineyards here, with the early greening of grape vines and a cunning brook with bridges feeding a quiet pond, provided a movie-like setting for the popular April 19-21 meet.

Vic and Judy Euliss of Burlington, N.C. were keeping out of the chilling spring wind in their 1959 TR-3A, a car Vic has owned since 2002.

“I had a TR-3 as an undergraduate student and wanted to have something like it once, again,” said the former mayor of Graham, N.C. “I bought this TR-3 online and drove it home from Houston, Tex.”

But not all on the same trip. Euliss’s TR-3 developed mechanical problems in Selma, Ala. and he returned to North Carolina without his prize. He later learned that only a wire had come loose. “If I had thought of that, I could have fixed it myself,” he said.

The information posted on the windscreen of Peter Cosmides’ 1974 MGB-GT with small-block Rover V-8 suggested there may be between 15 and 25 of these limited-production cars in the U.S.

Cosmides, of Moorestown, N.J. wrote, “The V-8 motor makes the MGB the car it should have been. . .it provided a very capable and comfortable road car that is quite at home on the highways eating up mile after mile.”

A string of Triumph V-8s had one visitor comment: “I’ve never seen so many 8s in one place.”

“And they all drove here,” responded Helen Van Cott, who with her husband Ray had made the trip from their home in Williamsburg, Va. to northern North Carolina in their TR 8 for the British car show.

“We’ve had our TR-8 a couple of years,” she said. “It has a Land Rover engine and air conditioning but no cruise control.”

Cat fancier Robert Reavis of Greensboro, N.C., set up a small display,  the gothic Cat Cult, on the ground ahead of the 1994 Jaguar XJS he was showing.

“I also own a 1985 Jaguar SJ6,” said Reavis, who has taken it upon himself to protect the reputation of all cats. His own at home is named Little Dio.

He shared his site at the vineyard with Alex Scott, a young Jaguar fan who brought copies of older publications devoted to the car but not the 1982 XJ6 he owns in Greensboro.

The father-son team of Ronald and Robert Childress of Yadkinville, N.C. were showing off their first Jaguar — a subtly curvy 1959 XK 150 which they found about a year ago.

To their delight, there wasn’t a scratch on the car, Ronald said.

“It had been restored earlier but most of it is original,” he said. “About all we did was carburetors.”

The XK 150 has a 220-horsepower 3.4-liter engine mated to a four-speed with electric overdrive, he said. It has a rated top speed of 132 miles per hour, he added.

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Car guys (and gals) may be interested to discover that the same production and writing team behind “The Naked City” also was responsible for the “Route 66″ television series that aired from 1960-64.

We share such television nostalgia and TV trivia because we want to share the line that ended each episode of those “Naked City” telecasts — an anonymous voice telling us, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them.”

We use that line, and the tie between “The Naked City” and “Route 66,” to inform you that a record 94 cars participated in the Copperstate 1000 vintage sports car rally this year, the 23rd annual mille miglia tour of Arizona highways and byways, and that each of those cars — and its driver and co-driver — came home with a story.

We share one of them (well, actually, as it turns out, two of them) below:

John and Peg Leshinski of Scottsdale are Copperstate regulars who this year decided to do the drive in a 1951 Allard K-2, one of only 35 such open-cockpit roadsters built by British racing driver and sports car constructor Sydney Allard still known to exist. This particular Allard was purchased new by Al Unser Sr., who raced it up Pikes Peak (and who later would win the Indianapolis 500 four times).

Because the Allard not only has on open cockpit but only a pair of very small wind deflectors instead of true windshield, John Leshinski wanted Peg to be both as comfortable and as protected as possible, so he decided they should wear period-correct helmets on the rally.

He found a French company that makes just such helmets, and with clear and full-face wind visors. “They looked like what Phil Hill wore,” John Leshinski said in reference to the only native-born American ever to win the world Grand Prix driving championship, in 1961.

This year, the Copperstate route included not only Arizona roads, but a stretch of northbound pavement across the Mohave Desert in California. It was on that stretch that a big, southbound semi and its trailer created turbulence so strong it dislodged the Allard’s hood, which broke the leather strap across the bonnet (the British term for a car hood), and the loose hood slammed back over the passenger compartment, smacking John and Peg Leshinski in their heads, or, more accurately, in their helmets.

Peg compared the impact to be “hit by a railroad tie.”

Somehow, John got the car stopped safely, neither of them was injured, so, with help from others who stopped, they removed what remained of the hood and continued on along the route.

Remember the earlier mention in this article of Phil Hill? Well, his son, Derek, was part of the Copperstate contingent this year.

Chris Andrews of Fort Worth, Texas, brought two cars to the event. He and Jennifer Moore drove Andrews’ 1962 Shelby Cobra 289 while his 1962 Aston Martin DB4 was assigned to Wayne Carini and Hill. Carini is a car restoration specialist and host of the “Chasing Classic Cars” television show. Hill is an auto racer and was the driver in those Cadillac commercials that sent a ATS to challenge some of the world’s most spectacular stretches of pavement, for which Hill and the Cadillac film crew traveled from Monaco to Morocco and from China to Patagonia.

Oh, we also must mention that Derek Hill is the son of Phil Hill.

We also must mention that the first car Phil Hill drove and raced in Europe was a 1953 Ferrari 340 MM Le Mans Spyder.

And guess what? The very 1953Ferrari 340 MM Le Mans Spyder that Phil Hill drove and raced in Europe is now owned by Michael and Katharina Leventhal of Chicago. Not only are the Leventhals regulars on the Copperstate, but they regularly drive the route in the 340 MM. On the second day of the Copperstate this year, they asked Derek Hill if he’d like to drive his Dad’s car.

“That was very special,” Derek Hill said after the drive, “driving the very same car that my was the first car my Dad drove and raced in Europe.”

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Several vehicles were still under wraps at mid-day; others were nowhere in sight. Onlookers were few and hardy. The early spring weather was serving up wind and rain, with temperatures on the wrong side of 40 degrees.

Aisles leading out to the grandstands had become wind tunnels, high-speed entrances for the bone-chilling air.

“It’s always cold for the spring AutoFest,” the woman behind the ticket booth window commented.

Bidding over the weekend — and the return of the sun — heated things up.

Greg Sullins’ three Hertz Shelby Mustangs had headlined the Dealer Auctions sale at the 2013 spring AutoFest.

The collector and classics dealer’s 1966 Shelby Mustang Hertz rent-a-racer sold (including dealer commission) for $167,400. It was one of 1,000 Shelby Mustangs built that year for the Hertz rental car operation, said Sullins, who owns Classic Auto Rides in Monroe, N.C.

“This particular car is one that was used in New York in its rental fleet back in the day,” Sullins said in a Dealer Auctions release. “I’ve got the history of the car. It has had seven owners since 1966. It is an all-original car, no rust in it and no damage to it. It is iconic in terms of when you think of performance cars.”

Forty years later Ford re-visited the rent-a-racer idea, producing just 500 Shelby Mustang 350s for 2006. The following year Ford built 500 Shelby Mustang 350 convertibles. Sullins collected one of each. They were auctioned as a pair and brought $135,000, he said.

Mike Calmeri wasn’t as lucky in his efforts to sell his modified 1968 Mustang. While its window information said the 600-inch engine was rated at 1,100 horsepower, Calmeri said added two-stage equipment could boost horsepower to 2,000.

The Charlotte-area resident said he had owned the ’68 Mustang for 25 years and over time had done some work on it. He put a $40,000 reserve on the car.

“I would have accepted a little less, but the best bid was only $25,000 and that wasn’t enough,” Calmeri said.

Dealer Auctions, based in Denver, N.C., did not release sales information.
Prior to the long weekend, the company touted several special vehicles including a 1956 Ford Thunderbird. The national show winner, with frame-off restoration “to concours standards,” had the original owner’s manual and brochure.

Other classics set to cross the auction block: a 2004 Dodge SRT Viper truck with 1,200 miles, original paperwork and perfect interior; a 1990 Ferrari Testarossa with 8,000 miles on it, and a 2005 American Tradition Motor Home, which is known as Vinnie’s Blue Bus and owned by Dealer Auctions Inc. President Vincent Maffucci.

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And your reading glasses.

The auction house provides a sale catalog for each event which is jam-packed with interesting information on and color photos of all vehicles set to cross the auction block. A quick synopsis of powertrain specifications, of designers and coachworks, of awards won and the car’s place in history is followed by a narrative detailing ownerships, restorations and some gossip.

The 70-plus vehicles offered at Gooding’s sale here in March comprised rare, unique, powerful, perfect, elegant cars built between 1928 — a Bentley — and 2006 — a Bugatti.

Sales exceeded $28.1 million and included a 10 percent buyer fee.

The ’28 Bentley, a 4 1/2 Litre $2,750,000 Semi-LeMans Tourer, was the top seller in the Gooding sale here on chilly-but-beautiful Amelia Island. Valued at up to $2.5 million prior to the auction, the athletic Semi-Le Mans Sports Tourer merited 12 pages of text and tempting photos in the sale catalog.

A 1934 American Austin Coupe represented the low end: it sold at no reserve for $17,600, below its pre-sale potential of $25,000 to $40,000.

Offering his cherry-red 1959 Alfa Giulietta at no reserve was making owner Ed Koch of Flemington, N.J. a little nervous. Koch, who describes himself as an “eclectic car collector,” said he bought the roadster in 2009 and invested two years in its restoration. With a unique three-piece bumper, Pinin Farina coachwork and with its original engine block, the Giulietta changed hands for $140,250.

Koch need not have worried. It’s pre-sale estimated value from the experts was $90,000 to $120,000.

Like Koch, Martin Stickley of Winter Park, Fla. was staying close to his car: a race-ready 1951 Allard J2, a vehicle he had owned since 2008. Stickley wasted little time in having the Allard restored: “Eighty-hour weeks over a period of six months,” Stickley said.

“It needed lots of work,” he explained. Its restoration won awards.

The topless Allard J2 was powered by a 289 Shelby Cobra engine. Stickley had the racing lap belts carefully crossed on the seats and period goggles hanging from a knob on the dash.

Barbara Hutton’s 1969 Ferrari 365 GTC, with custom Lipstick Coral exterior, tan suede interior and coral carpeting and likely the only of its 1969 peers to be the most original and carrying the lowest mileage, sold for $1,072,500. The heiress of Woolworth and Hutton fortunes, Ms. Hutton bought this Ferrari in 1969 for delivery to her palatial residence in Tangier, Morocco. She brought it, with only a few thousand kilometers on its 320-horsepower V-12, to the U.S. in 1974 and sold it to a dealership specializing in exotics in Connecticut.

One could be happy to escape the chore of washing the 21 windows on the 1965 Volkswagen Type 2 Bus, with its spotless interior and 1,600-cc 40-horsepower four with four-speed transaxle transmission. It had a pre-sale estimated value of $60,000 to $80,000 and sold, at no reserve, for $99,000. It attracted many admiring and smiling visitors at the sale preview.

And what irony. Parked near the VW nine-passenger buy was a handsome 1949 white Cadillac Series II convertible with buttery leather upholstery. This nostalgic soft-top went for less than two-thirds of the VW: $60,500.

Another brand anomaly: a 1968 Lamborghini Islero with Marazzi coachwork valued at up to $150,000 sold for $137,500; a 1973 Firebird Trans Am SD 455 went for $165,000.

Perfectly preserved in original, unrestored condition with just 11,000 miles, a 1960 Chrysler 300 F GT Special with 400-horsepower 413 and rare Pont-A-Mousson four-speed manual, sold for $236,500. It was one of only six in the Chrysler Gran Turismo Project, modified to compete on the sands of Daytona Beach.

In spite of its body-builder physique, the 300 F GT featured creature comforts including four contoured seats with the famous swivel-out front seats, dashboard lighting that glowed and a console that extended from the instrument panel into the rear seating area. There is at least one Chrysler story about an executive’s wife who on exiting a car slipped from her swivel seat — and negatively impacted its future.

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In anticipation of a heightened interest in beautiful collectibles, RM Auctions staked out the pristine grounds of the local Ritz-Carlton to display 88 vehicles for sale March 9.

Among them was a 1935 Duesenberg SJ Convertible with supercharged V-8, a 1970 Porsche 908/3 and a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing that had been owned by the same family throughout its history.

The Duesenberg brought a hammer price of $4,510,000, making it the top seller of the 81 that changed hands. Total selling price for vehicles sold was $26,854,600, according to Ontario-based RM Auctions.

Duesenbergs shared the weekend limelight with a number of Italian exotics, Stutzes, Mercedes Gullwings, Porsches and Cords.

A 1966 Shelby Cobra brought $836,000; a 1911 Lozier Model 51 seven-passenger Touring went for $1.1 million, doubling its pre-sale estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It had been offered at no reserve.

A plain-looking but important Marmon — a rare and historically significant 1932 HCM V-12 two-door prototype with overhead-valve aluminum V-12 — sold at auction for $407,000.

A 1970 Porsche 908/3 race car, restored in 2005 and authenticated by the Porsche factory, raised the bidding to $1.3 million but did not sell. A 1955 Mercedes-Benz SL Gullwing suffered the same fate, its owner eschewing a final bid of $910,000. This Gullwing had been in the same family since purchased new close to 60 years ago.

Another no-sale was a 1939 Alfa Romeo with a pre-auction estimated value of $1.5 to $1.75 million. The high reached $900,000 before bidder lost interest — or courage. This sleek 1930s-styled Superleggera coupe, one of only 13 built and featuring a 95-horsepower inline six, had right-hand drive. aluminum coachwork and a 118-inch wheelbase. The Alfa had a complete restoration commencing in 1994. Co-owner Malcolm Harris reportedly was involved in the project, investing some 1,500 hours in the dismantling and re-assembling of the fender-skirted Alfa, which won an award at the 1998 Pebble Beach Concours.

Looking somewhat out of place, the ’32 Ford-based hot rod known as Chromezilla shared a display room inside the Ritz-Carlton with vehicles like the $4.5-million 1935 Duesenberg SJ cabrio. Its backgrounder said that Steve and Sheri Tracy of Advance Plating in Tennessee commissioned Greening Automotive of Coleman, Ala. to handle the project. Raising the bar more than a little, Greening added custom-fabricated tubular cross-members to the boxed and reinforced Deuce-style frame, had over 900 bolts and fasteners hand-fabricated and supervised the chrome plating of 2,500 components. When completed, Chromezilla began winning major awards, starting with the 2005 Autorama in Detroit. It sold in March on Amelia Island for $176,000.

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Among the array of vehicles on display at this year’s Autorama, a number will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ridler Award, which many consider the hot-rod culture’s top honor for those who design and execute custom vehicles.

It’s named after Don Ridler, the Hot Rod Association’s first professional promoter, who began producing the Autorama shows in the 1950s.

To commemorate the 50-year milestone, a number of prior-year winners are making their way “home” to Cobo Center and to “Ridler’s Row” to relive the glory of being crowned No. 1.

With names like “More Aggravation,” “Cranberry Delivery” and “Devilfish,” they’ll represent some of the most acclaimed custom jobs of hot-rod history. Among them will be Venturian, the ’56 Chevy that in 1965 took the second-ever Ridler Award for the custom job that transformed an ordinary black sedan into a candy-gold, one-of-a-kind roadster at the hands of owner Bob Massaron and the storied Alexander brothers, Mike and Larry, whose Detroit shop turned out so many hot-rodding champions.

Massaron, a self-taught mechanic who started fixing cars for pay as a teenager, picked up the Chevy in 1958 for $1,000. He connected with the Alexander shop, ended up working there, and over several years the team transformed the convertible with new quarter panels, a lift-off top, a custom dashboard, four bucket seats and several coats of translucent paint.

“A lot of it was ahead of its time,” said Massaron, who recalls the glow when the car took the Ridler honor in 1965. He’s especially proud of the hands-on craftsmanship he put into the Venturian customization; something that’s not always true for today’s hot-rod owners. “We did the work; we didn’t just write a check,” he said.

The award-winning Chevy went on the show circuit for about 10 years — he hooked up with a promoter who would book the Venturian as a featured vehicle all over the United States.

Then real life intervened and Massaron, who took up real estate sales as an occupation but kept a customizing business growing out of his Northville home, sold the car to finance the needs of a growing family. He never forgot his hot rod, however, and in 1999 managed to track it down.

Once again, he took title to the vehicle — it cost him $25,000 the second time around — and refurbished it in time for Autorama’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2002. And this year, it will be back at Cobo to join other past winners.

“It’s still a show car … but I can go out to the garage, start it up and drive it around a bit,” said Massaron. Another iconic Ridler Award winner nearly slipped away from the United States altogether.

The famous Dodge Deora cab-over pickup was a 1960s project, also by the Alexander Brothers, that transformed an ordinary truck into a futuristic hot rod with the driver’s seat right over the front wheels and the engine tucked down and behind the cab.

The sleek little truck’s design, credited to Harry Bentley Bradley, features a station-wagon style lift gate that gives driver and passenger access right through the front of the vehicle; the steering wheel lifts up and out of the way as riders crawl in.

“I always thought the car was neat,” said Tom Abrams, a Canton businessman who owned a die-cast model of the Deora many years ago. “It looks like a Jetsons’ car.”

Indeed, the Deora snared the 1967 Ridler Award, and according to lore was the basis for one of the original Hot Wheels models; the toy cars came with detachable surfboards as befitting a 1960s hot rod.

The model is traded briskly to this day on sites like eBay and featured in several YouTube videos. Abrams, a car collector, saw the Deora on the auction block in Las Vegas in 2007.

“I didn’t go there planning to purchase this car that day,” he said.

But Abrams nevertheless found himself in a bidding war with a European buyer and couldn’t abide the notion that one of Detroit’s most memorable designs (Chrysler even leased it to show it off as a sort of concept vehicle at shows) would leave U.S. soil, perhaps for good. So Abrams kept bidding, won (he won’t say how much the truck cost him) and eventually trailered Deora back to its Michigan birthplace. It’ll take its place among former Ridler winners at Cobo this weekend.

And Deora has a long life ahead of it as an attraction for auto enthusiasts, at shows and eventually on perpetual display. When the time is right, Abrams said, he’ll donate it to a museum so auto lovers will always know where to go to enjoy it. “This is one hot rod that is never going up for auction again,” he said.

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The post-World War II gems, plus memorabilia, pedal cars and toy models, were offered with no reserve at the two-day sale run by RM Auctions, which reported sales of more than $9.1 million.

Collector Bruce Weiner was fascinated by the make-do, highly inventive vehicles built in Europe in the lean years following the war. Many of his acquisitions were restored by museum staff. Some were left in as-is condition.

Today the fragile looking three- and four-wheelers are not well known save by enthusiasts and collectors.

But they were there, bidding and buying in person as well as by phone and online. The top-selling car was a 1958 F.M.R. Tg 500 “Tiger,” which went for $322,000. RM said this was a world record price for a microcar sold at auction.
A 1951 Reyonnah sold for a high bid of $184,000 and a 1955 Inter 175A Berline, with an estimated pre-sale value of up to $50,000 brought $161,000.

The tiny cars, often riding on what look like bicycle tires, proved surprisingly complex. RM Auction’s amusing and colorful 5″ X 5″ sale catalog related their stories in detail to auction guests and bidders, who represented more than 20 countries.

Instead of crossing the traditional block, an image of each vehicle was displayed on a large screen as the persuasive, good-natured auctioneer prompted and cajoled his buyers. It was a feeding frenzy for those interested in small road-worthy cars, toy models and automobilia like the coin-operated alarm clock, a Vendo milk vending machine, an Indian Motorcycle coin-operated kiddie ride and a coin-operated electric shaver.

Names of many of the designers, engineers and builders of microcars would no longer be easily recognized. Others, like auto makers BMW, Subaru and Mazda, have survived.

Among the more spacious microcars in the collection was the 1958 Azure Blue four-passenger BMW 600 — a kind of big brother to the Isetta. The restored 600 with distinctive knife-edge bumpers was valued at up to $50,000; it sold at auction for $92,000.

A front-opening, largely original, versatile 1957 Iso Isettacarro commercial vehicle built in Spain sold at auction for $97,750.

Various commercial vehicles shared floor space and buyer attention with the descendants of pedal cars, with two-person cabrios without doors and with vehicles with very close ties to motorcycles like the Czechoslovakian 1959 Velorex Oskar, which featured a removable leatherette material “body.” The ’59 Velorex Oskar sold for $12,650, somewhat less than its pre-sale estimate of $15,000 to $20,000.

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Except for the tires, the pieces in the kits were made of plastic. Those parts included the body shell, dashboard, seats, steering wheel, the various components that formed the engine and transmission, and dozens and dozens more.

Most everything was white in color, though windows and headlights were clear plastic, tail lamps were tinted red, and bumpers had a chrome-like finish.

Also included was a fold-out sheet of instructions, and a sheet of decals so you could customize your car with flames or pinstripes or race car sponsor badges.

The kits were sold in hardware stores or at the local “5-and-Dime” store, where you also could buy small spray cans of paint to make your car and its components look even more realistic.

Provided, of course, you had both patience and skill. I had neither.

It was hard enough just to separate the various plastic pieces from the frames in which they were molded, let along go back with an Exacto knife and try to smooth off the little bumps that remained from the connection points.

Then there was the matter of trying not to drip or smear or spill any of the Testors glue onto your car’s finish during assembly — a challenge made more difficult because all the while you were inhaling the intoxicating fumes the glue emitted as soon as you removed the cap from the tube.

Painting presented more frustrations — in part because you were supposed to paint components before they were glued together but always were in such a hurry to assemble your model that there was no way to avoid horrible overspray.

And I don’t think I ever applied a set of decals without bumps and lumps.

Memories of my inability to assemble supposedly easy-to-use model car kits rushed back into mind while I was looking with awe at model cars boys of my generation had created not from a kit but completely on their own, from doing the original design to the construction from wood, plaster, metal and paint. Their cars were designed so creatively and built so skillfully that these boys won college scholarships and many went on to careers creating not just model cars but the vehicle we’ve been driving on the roads and highways for several decades.

Those boys and a few girls built their cars as part of the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild scholarship competition, which General Motors sponsored from 1930-1968. Several dozen guild alumni and their model cars were here recently for a reunion they held in conjunction with the annual Arizona classic car auctions.

For two days, the model makers shared their stories and showed their cars in the lobby of the Arizona Biltmore, the resort where the RM Auctions company was selling full-size classic vehicles at prices ranging well into seven figures.

Several of the guild alumni told of spending considerable amounts — not in dollars but in time, typically 700-800 hours building each model. But their efforts paid off in scholarships that enabled them to attend college and then enter and enjoy careers as car designers or in other fields, from teaching to engineering.

Many of those stories have been captured two books — “The Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild: An Illustrated History” and “Inside the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild: Contestants Recall the Great General Motors Talent Search,” both written by John Jacobus, a guild alumni and long-time U.S. Dept. of Transportation auto safety engineer.

In his “Inside” book, Jacobus notes that the late Chuck Jordan won the Guild’s first-place national award in 1947, went to work in the GM Design studios after his college graduation and later became the company’s vice president for design, leading studios that employed more than two dozen other guild alumni.

Many of the guildsmen at the recent reunion said the contest was a life-changing event, especially for those who won scholarships that allowed them to go to college.

Anthony Joslin said his parents had saved enough money for him to attend college, but that when he won a GM scholarship, his parents used the money they’d saved to buy the only house they ever owned.

Even though he didn’t win a scholarship, Jeff Jones said participating in the model-building contest “was a seminal point in my life.”

Building his cars led him to study mechanical engineering and then to a career as an oil-field engineer.

The reunion was another such event, Jones said.

“I had never met any of the guys or seen any of these cars before,” he said at the reunion, where he was making new friends and offering to help with planning their next gathering.

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