LEGENDARY MARTYN SCHORR! CARS and 'VETTE Magazine

Transcript

Jeff Sterns 0:13
04:08 '61 to '73 Marty was editor of cars magazine and Magnum Automotive Group.

6:03 Magnum Automotive Group that made a half a dozen specialty magazines and some one offs

7:43 Marty started 'vette magazine in 1976. Then high performance Pontiac magazine

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Jeff Sterns 8:39

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12:31 travelling Europe with the Swiss Corvette club.

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25:57 Jay Leno random phone calls

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26:39 About Ford GTs and emission test tricks

who bought it. So even after maintenance and insurance you did all right.

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. And and I was able to buy a Ford GT and then plenty of money left over. And the Ford GT has appreciated another 100 grand since I bought it, but it's a it's just a wonderful, nice car. I've reached the point where I may have to think about not only get because the car is way too fast for my reflexes anymore, and it's a kind of car that can truly scare you and get you in trouble because it has no traction control. It has no stability control, it has nothing. Just antilock brakes and lots of power so you can get in trouble really easy with that car. But it's I love it. It's wonderful.

I'm thinking of investing in you like the Marty shore invest you know, the the Midas touch investment portfolio on cars that he buys what they're worth later.

Well, it's not really because it's just a matter of luck and timing that you keep something 40 years, and it's worth something because nobody ever figures out what the insurance what the maintenance what everything else cause on a car. In my case, having a Chevrolet power train, the maintenance was never that high. So I never spent very much and but I didn't buy it as an investment. And when I went to sell it I sold it purely because I wanted to buy another car it wasn't to make money and flip cars

right now the LT one motor I mean you it's got a complete history was done Tom, etc. But Did that hurt the car or helped the car? Did it not matter that it was swapped engine? Well,

it's it's a interesting question to ask. Because when I did it, nobody cared. And you know that back in the 60s and 70s nobody cared if you didn't have the original motor didn't matter,

right. But when it was just a used car, just a used

car, but my case, Zora gameserver was a friend. He said I saw you bought a Grifo. I think you need to know T one. I'm sending you one. I had the conversion done as a Baldwin motion conversion because what I had done was I had seen the car in New Jersey, at the dealership, but when I bought the car, I went back to that dealership and said, I'm taking the car but I'm not going to give you any money. It's going to be a dealer exchange. Baldwin Chevrolet in Long Island was going to buy the car from you. So Bolton called them up said give them the keys. So when I got home, I got a bill of sale from Baldwin Chevrolet, then I went to motion performance, which I was involved with and had Joe Rosen do the conversion. So I own the only Baldwin motion so Grifo when I sold it was sold as a premium car, not as a car that didn't have the original engine. So thinking back, I probably shouldn't have done that. It might have been worth more with the original engine, but I didn't care didn't matter.

And I didn't think that at the time you're thinking of it. I was just curious now because we didn't have the story behind it. And I mean, I think that just makes it more interesting. You have to admit how many people well obviously what you paid for it at the time. That was kind of a weird guy car and he so Grifo.

Yes. Very much so

am I right or wrong? I mean, no insult.

Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a funny story. Okay, when I bought the car, nobody knew what it was. And everywhere I went with the car fuel said What is that? I never heard of that. Now you got to understand between 1965 and 1974 they built 412 so they only built 412. So

USA or for the world

for the world, for the world.

Okay, and nothing product. Orange

familiar with the car. So what I did was, I bought a license plate holder from Ron Tonkin Ferrari out in Northwest, and his rich red Ferrari lettering on the license plate. I had that license plate holder for years and years and years on the car. And I'd let people think it was a Ferrari and I didn't care. Well, one time we had PR o rivolta. And his wife lovely, has dinner guests in our house in New Jersey. They Came to Dinner because they were in New York City on a trip. He said, Let me see your Grifo. I said after dinner, we'll take a look in the garage. He looked at the car and soda licensed by all the same Ferrari. I thought he was going to kill me. He took it. And so I said, Don't worry, I'll change it. And it changed.

So I heard that you got thrown out or banned by a couple manufacturers because of what was going on with some of their cars.

Well, though, it's it's not me. And it really wasn't the publication. It was Joe Oldham, who was caught one time too many doing burnouts at General Motors proving ground. The guy who ran the Proving Ground was like a state trooper. And he banned Joe from The Proving Grounds, threw him out. And then we had an incident with American Motors. Because the car he was testing kind of fell apart.

this is what if I recall in the book, The rear axle or something?

Yeah. And so I published all the information then suddenly, we were on a shortlist for doing that. But we told it like it was if the car broke the car broke

the AMC guy who banned you kind of didn't matter, because if I recall in your book, they were out of business within a couple of years of that anyway.

Well, he banned this but you forgot about the ban pretty quickly. And actually, we became friendly. And I did a project with them when the javelin came out. I did a javelin project car that I had for a couple of years and and it was it happened to be a really good car if I did the work on but so we had a lot of friends at AMC at that point. You know, their cars would definitely cheaper feeling and then General Motors cars or Chrysler cars or Ford cars. After a while this Javelin of mine really was a very, very nice car.

Was it? Was it a 340 car?

The 393 90 Okay, the 390 and I had I did a cam and headers and we took the heads off and did the heads with Chevrolet, lt one valves. I think they'll 160 202 valves fit right in. And then I did a four barrel Holley on it and beefed up the automatic transmission. The car was was very quick. It was really nice. It was black. I did an A MX hood and grille on it so it looked like the to see that it was neat car.

In your book you talked about Don't be so impressed with a Hemi straight off the showroom.

It's kind of a an urban legend that the homies were that good. The street homies I'm talking about, because unless you increase the breathing with headers tuning and some induction changes, the heavy wasn't that fast. The cars that were quicker off the showroom floor. We usually Chevrolet's, a good shovel, a big block was pretty damn quick off the floor without headers. Most of the heavies, we're running headers and modifications on the street. So the heavies were fast, and they were running fast at the track. But stock heavies are not running that fast.

So in a restoration, if somebody is going for full bone stock and leaving a stock manifold on there, unless he's doing some tuning tricks or some spark the car if it's authentic, probably shouldn't run that perfect in between idle and wide open.

Well, the thing is, if someone's restoring a Hemi it depends what he's looking for. If he's looking to get the car to be a matching number showroom stock car because the value that he restores it the way he bought the car with factory manifolds and intake and stuff like that, if he's restoring it to be like it was when he drove it, then putting headers on the car would be a normal thing. But as far as value is concerned, my guess is that a totally stock matching number Hemi car is worth more than a modified one.

Probably. But nowadays, I mean, if you do a period correct modification, if that's what was going on, then it could be acceptable. But you said that the 446 pack cars were doing better on the show for Chrysler.

I enjoyed the 446 back cause much more, much more. They would nicer cars.

burnt out guy don't you know going back to the guy that was like a state trooper Who is your staffer that was doing this that you say you're still friends with

Joe Oldham, Joe older, the ATM, he was a freelancer working for me. And we were close friends. And he used the excellent writer, excellent journalist. And he passed away about two years ago. But he spent most of his career as the editor in chief of Popular Mechanics magazine. He retired from that position a number of years ago. But everywhere Joe went he did a burnout. That was the signature. And it didn't matter where he was. But the Proving Grounds proved not to be the place to do it.

Well, if I recall, you said that the guy who was having a conniption over it said, you know look at my look at my concrete or look at my surface or something like that. Yeah.

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Well, you damaged my asphalt.

Jeff Sterns 51:44
It there's a lot of blacktop. And whenever they had their annual media days, in the summer, The Proving Grounds was brought up to snuff. And it was really nice. So everything was fresh. And Joe would get out there and do these horrendous burnouts with leaving rubber everywhere. So lots of smoke, and the guy ran the proven interesting chain of command, the guy that manages the Proving Ground, he runs the place. You don't talk back to him, it doesn't matter who you are. And he's he threw dunk off The Proving Grounds many times, because don't have didn't like regulations and wanted to drive as fast as he could. So he got talked to, because this guy, regardless of who the other person was, he ran the place. It was his proving ground.

That right, that was his domain. That's for sure. So now I'm thinking back to these muscle cars. And you mentioned duntov. Did you meet john DeLorean? Oh, sure.

Sure. I probably met him when he was at both Pontiac and Chevrolet. He was a really good engineer, a good marketing guy. But he, he had his own way of doing business, his own way of dressing, his own lifestyle. It didn't match that of General Motors. And he eventually didn't last and left the company. But he was a great guy to interview a great guy to talk to him because he really loved performance and wanted the division to make money selling performance cars. And you must have learned not too far from royal Pontiac. Right?

Yeah, might we? Yeah, well, in my dad's lot was in Royal Oak. And his first lot was Oliver Noy.

When did you leave? Detroit or Royal Oak or

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78?

Jeff Sterns 53:53
Okay, so that was long after the Royal Pontiac had its glory days.

But he started in Oliver Noy in Detroit in 65.

Okay, that was a tough neighborhood, wasn't we?

Yes. And but he you know, my dad's from the neighborhood, you know, and it's funny because when he went to Royal Oak, and he went through after the riots, but he was from the neighborhood, my dad was a real handshake guy, no deposit guy. If but if you broke your deal, you just had no credit and like the bookie or the orthodontist or the bar. You know, your name was mud. But it's interesting, because in the race riots in Detroit, so my dad's on Liberty life, and of course, every building was burned and Windows broken and property broken. And my dad had, you know, cars cars, and he doesn't know for sure anything, but the facts are that he had an apartment over his mechanical garage in the back that he had two African American prostitutes, that were his tenants. Up there over the garage. And he doesn't know anything to be factual. But one thing is factual that everything was burned and broken all the way up to the two borders of each side of his lot. And he didn't he didn't have a broken windshield. He'd have nothing during all of that. That's an interesting story. But then of course, he went to,

you know, my,

my upstairs neighbor is Dennis Archer, the former mayor of Detroit, which wasn't mayor, but yeah, Dennis Archer ran Detroit for a number of years. And he lives above me in my building

as interest here. So Oh, God, you lost. Oh, so the reason I asked you about DeLorean when you were talking about this proving ground cop the Proving Ground, you know, Michigan, I was thinking that if you're dealing with DeLorean a factory guy who would probably be the opposite, because he was really into the modified cars in the street racing in Detroit in that movement and putting the large motor in the lawn, you know, etc.

You're right, except that when DeLorean set foot on the Proving Grounds, he no longer had the power to do much. It just was it worked out that way. And and nobody really complained. But Chevrolet and Pontiac often brought modified cars to the press previews. So we love to go to the previews, because there was always something special that Pontiac would send, in fact, all the car makers except Cadillac would do that. So we always had modified cars. And we would often try and get off the driving course and just go around the buildings to see what they were building, because that's where all the stuff was going on at The Proving Grounds. And they were testing all kinds of cars. So you often see race cars sticking out of building doors that will be worked on. But we had a lot of fun those days. You know, Marty,

just to sidebar a little when I did my conversation with Malcolm Bricklin, he talked about that john DeLorean had made himself available to be president or some executive, the Brooklyn automobile. And he jumped at Malcolm jumped at that opportunity. And I'm trying to recollect the story. So I could be missing some facts. But the gist of it is, that DeLorean wanted a million dollars to come on. Malcolm didn't flinch said I'll go sell some Subaru stock or borrow against some super stock to pay him instantly. Like just a quick Yes, then DeLorean today, I was talking to my attorney or accountant. And what I'm giving up at GM is it should really be a million take home. net. And Malcolm backed up a little and said, You know, one thing I'm thinking about, john is, I think that we might have a little bit of a wrestling match about whose name will go on the back of the car. And john said, yeah, it could be that so they didn't get together over that fast forward. JOHN asked Malcolm next time your Detroit Malcolm was going to Detroit frequently, for whatever reason, let's meet and they have dinner or lunch. And DeLorean says, Listen, I want to start my own car. And Malcolm had already been through this with the Bricklin. And very if you end up being able to listen, very interesting, with 40,000 back orders, why his plant got shut down. Very interesting. And he said, first of all, I think I need about $35 million to get started. And Malcolm was thinking I got started with again, I'm not sure exactly four or 5 million, you know, some much lower number, much lower number than that. And he said, Okay, I know that if you go to Ireland, they want manufacturing your business there. I want to visit my plant. I want to be involved with my car, and I didn't want to get killed. So I didn't go to Ireland. But if you need 35 million, I'm sure. Ireland will give it to you. He says number two, he goes my Bricklin car wouldn't have been anything. Without the gullwing doors. That was the only thing that everyone went crazy about. So make sure you get going doors. Then he finally said something about don't use paint and I can't remember the reason it will be when I'm done editing, we'll have the podcast so but that reminds me of like a Forrest Gump moment like where he was kind of in the middle of everything in history. Where that lunch or dinner with DeLorean is really what had a lot to do with how the DeLorean car came out. And where he went to do it. Well,

I never drove a Bricklin, so I don't know how it drives. But I did drive a DeLorean at the GM proving grounds and it was an absolute turd. It couldn't get out of its own way. It just was awful. The only way he could wake that engine up is with turbo charging, which they did a few experimental cars. But the way the car was it was just, I got in the car got out of the car. I got into a Corvette. It was like a different world, you know, and then the Corvette didn't have any great shakes because they didn't have a lot of horsepower then. So. But glory was a large disappointment.

Brooklyn, Brooklyn used a Chrysler or AMC sourced. I think 340

the engine in the Bricklin was an American Motors with 360

was it 360? No, no, no, I'm gonna look I'm I'm trying to go by the conversation from I'm trying to remember. And it's also interesting. Dorian use that Peugeot Volvo re

no motor,

right, a total dog Bricklin motor, but in the in the recorded conversation, Malcolm talks about how he got sideways with the guy that was going to supply an engine. It's very, very darn interesting. I don't know if I can find it while we're looking at and I don't want to make you wait, but but I do remember a I do also remember AMC. So by the way, what's your is this? This is a crazy question. Or maybe I don't know if you've got it 100 times. Do you have a favorite engine?

A favorite

engine early days from your early days like I have no, it's like when I was reading your book, I really started to love the 409 even though I never drove on the 4094 on

favorite engine. Probably. I liked the 446 packs a lot. I liked the 427 for 25 Ford. And I liked the small block Chevy's especially with a four speed, a four speed and an A good small block was like a wonderful combination. Like if you took I had a 67 Corvette big block. But if you took a 67 Corvette 327 354 speed and a decent rear, it was just a wonderful quarter drive.

Was that because of the faster revving?

Well, it was just so well matched. The four speed was was a big one a T 10, which was smooth as butter. The small block could rev 6000 rpm. And the Corvette was just a balanced car with that engine also z 28 Camaros 6869 for speed. They were pretty cool cars through but having a favorite engine is is you know so difficult. I mean, engines come in style at a style in trend right now my favorite engine is the engines that are in my cars.

That's right to look at. in a more modern engine. I like the Chrysler with the long intakes.

Yeah, the the cross rims.

Yes, with the long I can't I can't think of the word now or they will very

very sexy. And the Chrysler three hundreds actually he if you want to take a landmark car, the early Chrysler three hundreds starting with the basic 300 and going a couple of generations they were a hell of a nice cars. They they were they will what Mercedes became as far as luxurious, fast, competent sedan they didn't have brakes but nobody had brakes then, but they were really nice cars.

Now by the way, I looked up I want to give me your credit in public that on Wikipedia. It says production Brooklands were Pyro were powered by one of two overhead valve engines depending on the year the manufacturer cars built in 74 received a 360 cubic gauge from AMC. Right. So you're 100% right with a single four barrel 220 horse and then cars built in 75 got a 351 Windsor.

Yeah, they went to Ford companies did that actually, so did Pierre rivolta go to Ford engines in his cars, because General Motors and Chevrolet became very difficult to deal with. And Ford was very freewheeling and they had some good engines so it was a lot easier dealing with them. But you know, Chevrolet was not that easy to General Motors is not that easy to deal with. When you're buying engines for cars.

My favorite All Time engine to look at and for the sound is a modified Flathead Ford Flathead

for I owned, I owned a couple of foot flat heads because I'm old enough to do when they when they will pop fuel the first time they had a nice sound with dual exhausts, and and steel packed mufflers. But if you want real noise, just put a set of headers on a Ford GT. And it's deafening. It's definitely

Is that what you have

now, but but I have a regular stock exhaust system. So mine is not that loud, but it's not loud at all. Really, the the the sound of an engine is really important. You can do so much just with mufflers and exhaust system and converters and whatever, you can always get the sound you want. But race cars of course have the the ultimate sound,

they have the market cornered on sound and you're right. I mean all manufacturers or at least I should say not all manufacturers, performance car manufacturers or joy of driving manufacturers all have departments for the sound tuning of the car.

Actually, I have two daily drivers. And one is my C six Corvette convertible and the other reason x kr convertible. And the x k AR has the exhaust system where I pull a fuse, I pulled the fuse and the fuse box. So I could bypass the converters on startup. And then if I go over three or 4000 RPM, it gets a little bit louder. Otherwise it's quiet. And you just pull the fuse out and take it out of the box.

So it's like the modern day version of the lake pipes with the wing nuts. Yeah. So my son who's 18 he's such an old soul. And of course, I've had nothing but old cars since he was old before he was born. And he just loves it loves it loves it. They love my his grandfather, my dad who always had the cars and the Corvettes, but the marina about two miles from us, called me when he was 13 or 14 asking if I was okay, if they hired him as a dock boy. Oh, and I said because he brought his bike up there and pocket gigantic with them. So I asked them, I'd love him to have a job. And if he wants to work there, that's the marina that my dad used to keep his boat and I wanted to be a dock boy there and I never got the job. So it's like I get finally somebody to bring people in and meet you know, the doll. The daughters are in bikinis and you're the cool guy doing the ropes from five feet away. Okay. I said, that's a really nice compliment that you're calling me to ask. I mean, did he apply for the job? They said, Yeah, he came in and applied for the job. And we told him that he's below our legal age limit or rules of the marina age limit to hire him. And he was sitting in the office. And one of the technicians one of the mechanics comes in about a 75 year old guy. And he says your son ended up sitting in there just to visit and hang out and starts talking about what year flatheads are in what year Fords and Mercury's with the old mechanic? My son's 1314 years old.

That's great.

Yeah. And he loved it, you know? And he said that he was so into it and could talk to an adult that we actually either called or looked up on the internet, the labor laws to see if we could hire him and we can so if you don't mind, we're gonna hire him.

That's really nice.

Yeah. And he was there a couple of years. He's now 18. Okay. So he's, you know, not a Jaguar exactly yet. But you know, we'll see where where he ends up. So when you were running the magazine, I know you interacted with one car and I don't want to put you on the spot. And we can edit it out if you don't remember. And I wish I had it bookmarked. But in the book you talked about in New York, I think like a street legal race car, that and I can't remember who was famous that handed you the keys or called you up. And you had the car for a week. Does this ring a bell?

Yeah, sure. Sure. It was probably 1964 somewhere around then. Do you remember the ram chargers out of Detroit?

Yes.

They did. Those candy Matic dodges. White was Candy Apple red stripes. Okay. Before they got the heavy they ran very high. Compression wedges. When the ram charges were running the candy Matic dodge built the second race car. It looked just like the real race car only was built on a two door hardtop instead of a two door sedan. And they used it for auto shows. Since it had the race motor in it. It was an absolute bitch to keep running you between the gas and trying to start it there was just awful. I got a call as I've wanted to borrow it. So I went to the Chrysler dealership on West End Avenue in Manhattan to pick the car up. They couldn't started. They had to get cans of etha discord into the carburetor. So they got started and they got the car home. And then I eventually got used to driving it with the automatic transmission. But one day I took it out street racing on cross Bay Boulevard, which is a big street racing hangout and Queens. I come up against the 409 guy with his girlfriend in the car, and I just absolutely destroyed him. And he caught up to me and asked me to pull over. So I pulled over. And he came out of the car with his girlfriend with a copy of my magazine, either the story on the race car with the head that dodge was running, and asked me if I would sign it. He thought I was Jim Thornton, the driver because that was the name on the door. so important. That's great. And then the kid went on his way. But years later, I told thought that he left and I thought it was really funny. But everywhere I parked that car, it just attracted a crowd like a magnet. It had about 125 pound battery in the trunk over the right rear wheel. It had all kinds of ballast sitting in the trunk. And it was absolutely ferocious, just ferocious. I never understood why I never got arrested and put in jail. But that thing was just I was very lucky.

Now if I recall in the book, that you couldn't get the car running, and then somebody knew what they were doing and got it going. Right. Right kinda like Jay Jay Leno's guide, put it in first turn right and

I was never a hands on mechanic. So it was always other people who when I went to the track, it was other people who change tires and, and did tuning stuff, not me. I was the one photographing and writing and driving. So just some of us had the town some of us don't.

Well, yeah, I don't need that's why I'm a sales guy. Right? I you know, I couldn't do anything besides talk somebody into something. So when you're telling these stories, I for the listeners enjoyment. I really I wish I said at the beginning. But when you're telling these stories of these cars, and it sounds interesting that a guy that could be around these cars, and a guy that's kind of well known is telling the story. So of course we're interested, because we're car people, what I really want you to think about is the rest of your senses, I want you to think about that exhaust smell that all of these cars seem to have and your clothes would smell like it half the time and that little bit of oil on the manifolds sometimes smell and that noise and when you mentioned for speed, those gears whining, you know, when you're shifting when you hear whining up, you know all of this visceral experience, like when you tell the story, it's like a little bit watered down, you got to think about almost the violence going on.

Well, the thing is that, that all of that sort of came together in modern times, because nowadays, when you see stuff online of road tests and driving race cars and everything else, you have sound you have in car cameras, capturing the shifting the steering the road ahead. So it's a complete story. What we did was, was half the story. It was it was hard to to get across what it was actually like in the car. The cars didn't stop. They weren't comfortable. Stuff rattled and shook around and smelled. And yeah, it was all of that stuff. But it was all what we expected. It was part and parcel to the thing. And you have to remember those experiences now a car considered great history back then. That was my job. That's what I did. You know, I went to the track on Saturday or Sunday to run the cars. That's what we did. It wasn't a big deal. Unfortunately, it took time away from my children and and Family and stuff. But that was part of the job. And it was work and you got paid for it. And if you look back at what we earned, and that job in those jobs, you could never understand how you raise a family, and eventually own a home. That was like, a distant hope. So, right now with these cars are worth a lot of money, and then they would just cars.

Let me switch gears a little. What's the best advice you've ever given? Anyone?

The best advice I have, I've mentored a lot of people, young people who were looking to get into the public relations business. Because I switched in 1980 or so over from doing magazines to doing public relations. And I ended up spending the next 18 years doing General Motors work and, and Buick work and having other recounts. And it was important to tell young people, that two things, the truth always matters. You don't deviate from the truth, even though the people you're speaking to and pitching stories to maybe lying the pants off, you got to tell the truth. And the other thing is, you got to treat old journalists equally. It doesn't matter if it's a high circulation magazine, or low circulation magazine. Each one of them is important in what they do, and you treat them equally nice and equally well. And I have to tell you, I don't brag about myself very often, I still get notes and letters and stuff on Facebook, from journalists, who will little guys, when I started in PR, thanking me for how nice I treated them, and did everything I had to do for them to get started in the business. So that that's what I feel most proud of that kind of Well, that's

really that's where the juice is when somebody contacts you from the past and said that something you did or something you said, or the way he treated me impacted my life.

Yeah. And and I continue to do that with young people who want to start careers and in public relations, or as journalists nowadays is very difficult with journalists, because there's no money out there. And all these online magazines pay nickels and dimes. And it's a hell of a way to break into a business. So it's kind of difficult. But when I did it, I took everything I learned from being a journalist, and how to PR people treated me when I was a small circulation journalists. One of them was the DOJ guy in New York, whose name was moon Mullins. And he was an ex newspaper guy who treated me like I was the New York Times. And we did so many stories together for so many years. And his boss was the Dean of automotive public relations, Frank Wiley in Detroit. And he was a teacher later on. And he believes in treating everybody equally, and telling the truth. And I learned an awful lot from him. And a couple of the guys at GM were really straight shooters, and taught me a lot. So when I started, since I had been a small journalist one time, I didn't care what your circulation was, I wanted to get my car in your hands. And I wanted to see a story with your byline. And I don't give a shit how many copies yourself, I just want to get the message out there. And I'll help you do. So. That's what I think makes me most proud. And I trained my son that way. Because he worked for me. Summers when he was in college, delivering cars that he meant all the journalists up and down from from Maine to Washington, DC. And later on, when he got into the business, he became their friend and had a great relationship and still does with all of those journalists. So that's what makes me feel good.

That beautiful, something that nobody knows about you where the Jeff Sterns show can get a scoop on Marty. Sure.

Well, you know, it's funny, because most of the people you went, I mean, I've been on many shows over the years, and most of the people are the same kind of people you would have on your show. The Steve pastime is the Jay Leno's, the whoever, they almost all have one thing in common. They come from a family where driving was a normal cars were a normal thing. So they either had an older brother or a father who got them into cars one way or another or they had experience riding in cars with their father, or their older brother, me. My father never had a driver's license. We lived in New York, I was raised in New York City. And the only time we had a car is when I turned 18 and got a driver's license and bought a car. Other than that, father never had a car, knew nothing about cars could care less about cars. And I developed the hobby totally on my own. And I've been into it since before I could drive and like so many people like yourself, used to draw cars and dream about cars and and that's why I said about a going places. When I was an editor, my biggest thrill was if I would get a California trip, and I would go out to LA and I anticipated landing at the airport and seeing Hot Rods and and Ferrari's and all these cars, and they weren't there and go to the hotel and they weren't there either. And I said, Where are all these damn hot rods that are supposed to be here? I was so disappointed.

Like, like me asking about Corvettes in Europe, right?

I mean, it was it was like, a strange we're all these cars. I see all these stories. And so I had to learn all this stuff from no background. We cows but my family was, you know, we lived in a one bedroom apartment. in the Bronx, I shared a living room with my brother. My father was a blue collar worker never had had much beyond the normal life. And then I got into cars and my life changed completely and and I joined the Hot Rod club and I went on sports car rallies. And I used to go to Thompson Speedway and Lime Rock and Watkins Glen and sleep in my car because I couldn't afford a hotel room. I mean, all the stuff to learn about it. And I met an awful lot of great people during those years. Most of them are not with us anymore, but great people who made things happen. fantastic car builders and drivers and car company people like Zora duntov and you name it so I feel kind of blessed that I started life with nothing in my pocket and ended up being one happy car guy.

You heard it here. First, folks. Marty is an automotive orphan. He raised himself automotive like I really really appreciate it and I also want to let you know that you're nowhere near as much as a cranky cantankerous bastard that Steve You said you're

Unknown Speaker 1:22:56
This has been Jeff Sterns connected through cars.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai