Jared Riecke Featured on Cars & Crowns Podcast
Cars and Crowns
Dr. Pramod Menon
Ep. 3
April 17, 2026
Welcome to Cars and Crowns, where timeless engineering meets timeless elegance.
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Look at this place,(...) downtown Covington, Louisiana.
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Live oak, draped in Spanish moss,
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streets laid out two centuries ago,(...) galleries humming with creativity and the kind of quiet sophistication that feels earned.(...) Today, we're right in the middle of it all, settled in the downtown Covington at one of its finest restaurants, the Dakota, where food is as refined as a company and the conversation flows as smoothly as a well-oiled V12.
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Because that's what we're chasing on this show, the pursuit of precision, the roar of a perfectly tuned engine, the sweep of a handcrafted chronograph, the rare, the beautiful, mechanical marvels that make time stand still, and the open road feel infinite.
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Buckle up and adjust your crown. Today on Cars and Crowns, we're talking passion, craftsmanship, and the things worth collecting from right here in the heart of downtown Covington at the Dakota Restaurant.
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The prodigal son returns home. How are you, sir? Good to see you, Doc. Welcome, man. Thanks so much for coming.
Good to see you, Doc.
Well, pleased to have Jared Rickey here,(...) a local hometown hero to some extent,
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local businessman, banker, real estate developer, and clearly a car and watch aficionado. Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks, Doc. Thanks for having me.
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Jared, again, what a pleasure to have you here. We've known each other for a long time. It's a real thrill to have you on the podcast. It's infancy for you to be one of the first guests, and as Covington goes, you know, running into the same people and how this evolved and turned into you being actually on the podcast to talk about something that we're both so passionate about.
Absolutely. I really appreciate the invitation, and anytime we get a chance to talk about watches and cars and that kind of stuff, I'm excited. Sure. Thank you.
Of course. So, historically, it's kind of been that we've kind of walked the audience through people's journeys and evolution. What I thought would be interesting, because you're such an avid collector of both,(...) where do you see the state of either, whichever one you want to talk about first, of cars and watches in terms of their evolution to what you might have thought they'd be going or where they are compared to where they've been?
You know, it's interesting because, you know, we grow up in your 20s and your 30s and your 30s and car guys, watch guys, you have this desire to acquire certain things, right? And so I remember going back 20, when I was in my 20s or 30s, you know, I still had the C1 Corvette fever and the C2 Corvette fever.(...) And just watching those cars, it really took me a while to understand that cars, and to an extent watches are a cyclical item.(...) And meaning as the audience, the purchasers, those that can, you know, remember a car from a certain age, it continues forward and the cars don't. And what I mean by that is there's some great collections right here in St. Tammany Parish of Model A's and Model T's. I mean, fabulous collections. And what they were worth 20, 30 years ago, they're just not worth anymore.(...) And you know, same thing with the C1 Corvettes, you know, when I was in high school, I restored a 1960 red with the white coves, red and white interior, it was great. And that was like an ultimate car for me for a certain period of my life.
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But they're selling a lot cheaper than they were 20, 30 years ago. And you know, your videographers are obviously a lot younger than us. And it's funny watching what happened with like Toyota Supers, right?(...) Who would have thought Toyota Supers would be pulling six figures?
Yeah.
But you look at some of the 90s Toyota Supers that are now in the six figure range. It's kind of mind boggling. So for me, I see it where, you know,(...) kind of you got to watch if you're investing in cars versus collecting and enjoying the cars. It's a different if it's it really is a different mindset. If you hold onto the cars too long, you could lose out on some of the value.(...) But for guys that just really are buying and building a collection because they enjoy it. Obviously, that's not a concern.(...) You know, I see that in the cars. Do I see that in the watches as much? Not really. I just it'd been great if you called me like four or five months ago, I had I just sold off about 20 or 30 of my watches. And the reason why I was selling them was I just wasn't enjoying them as much. But you know, there were some military Tudor subs that I had and stuff like that that I might have paid thirty five hundred bucks for that are now in the twenty thirty thousand range. Sure. So I don't know if again, not picking on the videographers, but you know, their age range, I think a Rolex Submariner is a Rolex Submariner is always going to be a Rolex Submariner. It's always going to have that mystique, that desire, those kind of things. Whereas perhaps the cars won't because yeah, man, that was cool. When I was in high school in college, I want that car now versus some of the other stuff. You know, man, that was what my grandfather drove. I'm not interested in that. You know, so I think there's I think there's a difference in the two from that respect.
Sure. I would agree with you. It is an interesting time just from the this sudden resurgence in the monetary value. A lot of these of a lot of these models or car manufacturers, you know, I think kind of Ferrari raised that bubble and it's like this crazy like Wild West as far as pricing of naturally aspirated, you know, 2016 or before, you know, engines and similarly with Porsche, probably part of your collection. The values like skyrocketed almost to the point of unattainability. You know, I haven't followed Porsche as much, but in the Ferrari space, you know, a 458 LA, which may have, you know, sold for three hundred fifty thousand dollars the time the car was produced. They're now getting like one point two.
Yeah, it's insane. I think the last time we ran into each other in vehicles might have been a couple of years ago.(...) I had a 599 GTB. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this is going to be great. This is a front engine V12. You know, it was red tan. It was it was it was Ferrari. You know, and you know, you're right. The value of them continues to climb at a rate where I just didn't even feel comfortable driving the car. Agreed. I mean, it's just sitting there and I'm not at that stage in my life right now where I want to collect things that, you know, I want to wear my watches and I want to drive my cars. I don't want to be scared to do that. And when, you know, to your point, when things start continuously climbing to certain values, yeah, I mean, there's, you know, some of the air cooled Porsches in my collection that, you know,(...) 10 years ago, you were buying them for 50 60,000 and now they're selling for 150 to 200,000 almost 30 35% year over year over year on the climbing. You know, it it goes back to my original statement at some stage that'll shift. But when is that? Who knows?
Sure. So, you know, from the you've already touched on this, but you know, from the collector collector's standpoint about the aversion to driving and those kind of things, had you ever been of the mindset that you were going to collect in order to make the cars profitable later? Has that? Has it been a part of your like drive yet? Do you think it will be?
No, you know, so look, at the end of the day, I'm a businessman, you know that.
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So will I pay what I believe is a stupid number for a car just because I want it? Absolutely not. Part of the part of the fun is the chase to find what you want. Part of the next level of fun is making sure you get a good deal and driving, enjoying the car, having fun with it, but also not hanging on to it so long that you get hurt financially. Of course. Do I want to make money on them? I mean, I really don't want to sell them. Yeah.
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It's it's space dictates how many cars I can have at any given time.(...) And like I told you, I'm doing my garage right now and my place to store my cars. And it is. It's a numbers game as far as how many you can fit in there. But to answer your question more directly, you know, I pay attention to it. But my goal with my collection was always,(...) you know, when I started out the collection,
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going back decades ago, it was I wanted to own what I wanted when I was a kid.
Of course.
Okay. And then that model kept changing because I'm in my 30s. And when I was in my 20s, that was cool. And now I can afford it. And when I'm in my 40s, that was what I wanted one time when I was in my 30s. So let me buy it. And so so my collection was all over the place. Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes, obviously Porsche,
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Ferrari.
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You know, I stepped up every Ferrari there was started at 308, then a 328. Then I had a 355 as a daily driver. Oh, wow. Nice two years. Sure.(...) And it was kind of that natural progression.
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But through it all, yes, I wanted to keep an eye on the value of them in general. But did it ever prevent me from putting miles on a car? I've got a 996 turbo that I drive. It's got 120,000 miles on it. And I'm not slowing down with it. Sure. You know, I drive that thing two, three times a week. I drive it to New Orleans. I'll drive it to the Gulf Coast.
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And a lot of, you know, especially the Ferrari space, right? That's an absolute no, no. You can't have miles on a Ferrari. Yeah.
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I believe there's a section of the Porsche world where that's celebrated.
Yeah. Sure. You know what I'm saying? I do. So, you know, to that end, I mean, this isn't really, but it also, it segues a little bit. What do you think about the resto mod space?
You know, when I was looking at it, go back 10, 15 years ago, and they were doing it to, let's go back to the C1 and C2 Corvettes, and they were resto modding those. I really thought it was cool. You know, here's a car. It gives you the look you want, but it gives you the driveability you want. I mean, you know, look, we're getting old. Air condition's a great thing, isn't it?
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Not so much the softer suspension, but that air condition, that means a lot, especially with us being here in South Louisiana.
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And there was always a factor of me that really liked it and appreciated it. But you see what's going on with Porsche right now, right? There every 964 is getting bought up and they're, you know, really good G bodies are getting bought up. They're doing the reverse. They're doing the back dates to it.(...) And you know, it just makes you kind of wonder, you got Singer out there, beautiful cars, you know, you got Rico Customs, beautiful car, all these guys, they're doing really, really beautiful, beautiful things to these cars. But at some stage, you got to worry where are the unmolested, unrestored vehicles, where are they going to shake out? If everybody is grabbing them to do that. I mean, obviously, Ferrari, you see less of it. You're starting to see some of it with Jaguar, like those 80s, XJS, those kind of things.
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And so I see it, you know, you see the subculture in the BMW world, right? With the early 3.0s, even some of the M bodies from those 80s, you know, and it's, it's, look, I'm not knocking it. It's beautiful what they do. And it, the drivability is so much better. But just as a purist at some stage, which I'm not, you know, I have both, I have some very, very pure unmolested pieces. And I have some absolute outlaw Porsches. And I have a Mercedes that we can talk about. That's an absolute, if there was such a thing as an outlaw Mercedes, I got it. And but, you know, from the, from the standpoint of what's going to be left for our kids kind of thing, kind of like, you know, old buildings, you know, why knock them down when you can restore them and keep them historic?(...) I kind of have a feeling about that, you know, it's, it's, it's tough to put into words because you can appreciate the beauty and the drivability of a Resto mod or a back date. But at the same time, it kind of makes you think, man, if that was a numbers matching car and everything was perfect on that car, why do that?
Agree.
You know, because it's got its value and its value is going to continue to claw on.
It will. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, we touched on this on the previous podcast about, you know, the age part and its effect on, you know, like your choices in vehicle and stuff like that. I think the conveniences of 2026 are, you know, close by enough in the Resto mod space do offer some level of appeal. But yeah, I agree with exactly what you said. It is though, an area where I think there's potential growth, especially say, for example, with like an old Supra, you know, the body itself or the car itself, you know, maybe the engine aren't worth as much or whatever and can be modified to. So, you know, we've talked a lot about the car stuff. Where did it start? You know, like were you a car kid in high school?
Even before that.
Okay.
I gotta be honest, like somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago, when did you recognize your first Porsche?(...) And I remember it was an episode of the fall guy.(...) I'm telling you. And it was, I remember it was on an episode of the fall guy and I saw the car and I looked at my babysitter. Yeah. And I was like, what is that? And she said, that's a Porsche. And I'm like, what is this Porsche you speak of? Like, I had to learn everything there was about it. And I was, I was fortunate. I had, my dad was one of nine brothers and sisters and one of his brothers had something to do with production of magazines and stuff. So he always, my dad would always bring me car and driver road and tracks, stuff like that. When I was, you know, a little kid, I'm talking 10, 11, 12, 13. I was immersed reading all this stuff. And I, you know, so it was an early age for me. And I'll jokingly say my dad was probably going through his midlife crisis time when I was in high school, because I had some great cars. Yeah. Time to really do. And, you know, the first car, one of the first cars I got, I was probably a freshman at St. Paul's and this is back in the news on wheels days. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. And before the Internet or anything like that, you read the classifieds and that kind of stuff. And we're driving around Covington and there was a Irish racing green 1966 Porsche 912 for sale. And 912 is, as you know, but 911 body, but the four cylinder motor.
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Dad, look at that. That's great. That's great. Anyway, long story short, my dad ends up getting the car and I get to drive the car. Nice. It was great and it was awesome. Sure. My mom was pissed.
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She was.(...) Yeah. You know, my dad had to explain it away. Oh, it's a four cylinder motor. It's like a carman. Gia this that and the other. I'm like, Dad, say whatever you want. This is awesome. I get to drive. Of course. Sure. And but really that was kind of the catalyst to it, you know, and even prior to that, you know, I remember my dad getting my mom a brand new car and getting cars and I was just really kind of focused on on that. It was. Motorcycles and cars early on and and and it's kind of just stuck with me my whole life.
So do you think that in any way, you know, the precision of the stuff that you liked, the engineering like drew you to the horologic space as well?
I do. I think, you know, for me, the German cars were always so precise.
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They ran nonstop. You know,
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as you know, I used to do, you know, these cross country road races. Yeah. Do you want to tell the audience about it? Yeah, we'll talk about that.
Sure.
But you know, the funny thing, we'll get into that in one sec. But you know, one of the things that we noticed when we were running those, you know, in oh, six and oh, seven, I ran heavily modified Mercedes CL 600.
So I saw a video of you on, I don't know which YouTube, if it was for that race, you had installed like this crazy high tech radar. So yeah, was that for that race?
That was oh, six. Okay. Oh, six bull run, which was New York to LA, the classic route.
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And again, heavily, heavily modified Mercedes CL, I think it was probably two years old. I bought it. Went to rent tech down in South Florida. They did. They threw everything they could at this car.(...) Everything ECU, TCU, lowering module, even had their wheels,
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everything we could do to the car.(...) And it was turning out ungodly, almost 700 horsepower, just south of 700 pound feet of torque at the real wheels. We had a German company called Izelman, I believe, did the exhaust for it. And then we had to get into the electronics of it, right? Because you're going from New York to LA and technology back then wasn't obviously as good as it is today. So we had two 1200 channel digital trunking scanners set in the car and like actually like pulled the glove boxes out pulled, you know, we die like man, we pulled the airbags out and in those spaces, those cavities, that's where we mounted everything.
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And, you know, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, so you could take the cover off and cover it up. So nobody broke into your car and stole your stuff. Everybody's like, Oh, you did that, hide it from the cops. It's all legal equipment. There's nothing legal about this. So we put it all in there. You know, we sat up for nights, literally nights entering in because you had to enter in the frequencies. Oh my God. Oh yeah.(...) So then then we figured out towards the end, oh, they have the ones that are just roaming like scrolling, you know, through the channel. So we put another one of those in too.(...) And then we had front and rear valentines for radar and laser detection.(...) We had laser jammers installed.(...) We did have active radar jammers. Okay. Yeah, we did. That's that's that was kind of frowned upon. But that's that's a thing. We had them back then because you only had XK and KA band back then. And we had them and they worked. They worked. And yeah, so we had those we had all the external antennas on it.
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It was great during the during the rally.
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We had a CB and we had a booster for the CB, which, you know, we're from the south. So we can talk to truckers. Yeah, which was great when you'd have all of these people from New York and LA and even London all over that would come in and do these rallies. And they didn't know what a CB was much less how to talk to truckers. So quickly, the guys from the south have two really close friends still this day, Richard Rollins and Dennis Collins from Dallas, Texas.(...) And they all had CVS in there. So quickly, we kind of all figured out, hey, we're all from the south and we're going to run together. And that was 2006 20 years ago.
Yeah.
And so I was telling you guys earlier, some of the best friends that I have to this day, I met doing car rallies. And that was one of the attractive things about it to me was, you know, you'd meet people from all over the world.
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Nobody said, what do you do for a living? Nobody asked those kind of questions. It was, hey, what are you driving? Yeah, what did you modify? How did you modify it? Why did you go with RENTEC versus Braavas? And actually, the next year I did Braavas as well. I did two cars with one was a Braavas.
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But, you know, it kind of cut through a lot of the, you know, the car world really kind of led into the watch world as well. Because, you know, people will be talking about cars and your modifications and why are you running that? And then, oh, man, what are you what are you wearing? Oh, that's great. Can I see it? You know, and it kind of it cut through a lot of the nobody asked if you were Republican or a Democrat. Nobody cared if you were a liberal or conservative. It was about cars. It was about watches. It was about that lifestyle. Sure. And, you know, that it stuck with me. It really did. And so, you know, we did rallies for the next several years. And I think the last one I did was somewhere around 2013, 2014. And then it kind of wound down after that.
Did you miss it?
I did. I miss it greatly. You know, but let's face it, there's there's risks you're willing to take in your 30s that, you know, you're not really willing to take in your 40s or now my mid 50s. It just, you know, it was it was it was the right thing at the right time for me. And I really enjoyed it. And I took away a lot of it. And there, like I said, I've got life. I've got friends from London. I got nice friends in New York. I got friends all over. And it all goes back to 20 years ago doing car rallies.
Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that like the fundamental part of being a car or watch enthusiast is just that it doesn't matter about the other stuff that seems so peripheral. It's like if you have a real passion for either or both, it's just a talking point that leads to great relationships, you know, later in life or even presently. So did you have it in your mind that you would start collecting or was it just one watch that led to?
It was one watch. It was this watch right here. Let's talk about it. Which one was that is a Rolex 16800.
Okay.
(...) And that was the so like I said, mentioned earlier, I went to St. Paul's and when I was at St. Paul's, your eighth grade graduation was a big thing.(...) So my parents gave me that watch for my eighth grade graduation.
Wow.
Yeah.
Can you see it?
Yeah, absolutely.
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Here you go.
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And literally I still have the books, the box, the little cloth underneath it, the little anchor, everything.(...) And I wore that watch pretty exclusively through the eighties into the early mid nineties. So all the way through college, I went to LSU.
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And that was the watch I wore daily and didn't lose it. Didn't get stolen. Didn't pocket, you know, any of that kind of stuff. And I'm just saving it for my daughter, you know, it's in the safety deposit box. And sure, you know, I cannot tell you that all my watches, I have the books, box and papers for because I don't. Sure. Um, some of them, I bought it without it. Some of it at later stages, it might've gotten lost or something, but that one to me was, you know, super special. Um, we were on a dive trip in the Cayman islands and, um, my mom and dad gave me that and it was, it was a, it was a big thing. Oh yeah. And, um, to still have it, to be able to pass on to my daughter is a big thing for me.
So you had a Rolex and then were you of the mindset that, Hey, Rolex is it or?
No, because at that time, you know, remember the early mid eighties. Swatch. Yeah, of course. Watch was popular. Yeah. Oh man. I had some swatches. Oh, I actually still do. I actually still have a few of them laying around. So no, it wasn't that it was only about Rolex, but it was, that's what opened the door. Now again, as you know, being a child of the eighties as well, you know, there was not a lot of, there wasn't, there was no internet. There was not a lot of watch magazines, periodicals or anything like that to really research it. So you really just had to dig where you could dig.(...) And you know, for me, the, you know, Rolex was like, you knew what this thing was. Yep. Right. And you knew there was something special about it, but how do you seek out the others? Well, then, you know, I'd go on these dive trips at an early age. I started scuba diving when I was like in the sixth grade, so in the eighth, ninth, 10th grade and all like that, I'm going on these dive trips. You know, my mom and dad are putting me on this. Grace, probably when I was at LSU, you know, you would, in Baton Rouge at the Coliseum, they'd have the jewelry and watch show. Oh yeah. Right. And on a random Saturday or Sunday, you know, I'd go to that and, you know, just walk around and look and try to understand, you know, I mean college, I don't have any money. So, but I could at least try and, and, and gain that knowledge about the different brands and what makes them special and who they are and why is it special. And that kind of really just opened the door for a floodgate of different watches that I had.
So from that Rolex to, do you remember what it may not even be here? The next one. Yeah. Do you want to just walk there? Okay. Which one is it?
It's this two-tone Datejust. It was my dad's and he gave it to me because my mom bought him a gold Rolex President.
Okay.
So it was sometime later in high school and it was just sitting. I remember, I remember because I went in to talk to him because I got in a speeding ticket.
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So I had to go tell my dad and he was getting ready to go, you know, packing his bag that night to go work out. He worked out every morning and still actually still works out every afternoon now, but he was packing his bag. And so I wanted to kind of soften the blow about my speeding ticket. So started talking to him about the watch. Dad, you never wear this. And well, your mom got me this when I wear this one. I was like, can I wear this one? He's like, sure. I was like, all right, great. By the way.
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So perfect lead in. I don't think he found the humor in it. It's off the bull a little bit. But wow, dad, this is so special. Thank you. It was yours and now it's mine. And so anyway.
So did you find that on your wrist quite a bit?
Yeah, you know, I really did. I, like I said, through high school and college, I wore the Submariner daily and that was like my dress watch.
Okay.
And so I kept it in a safe and, you know, uh, as you can tell, I hang on to things. It's like I said earlier about the cars. I, I'm not really interested in buying them to flip them. I mean, yeah, there's, you know, you can make money doing that and I respect it. And some of my best friends, that's what they do for a living. But for me, you know, I'm a real estate developer. We're in the construction business. We're in the banking business. I got enough work.(...) The watches and the cars for me,(...) I don't want to call it an escape, but that's where I find some, some peace. Comfort is, is collecting and, and, and you know what I'm saying? Seeking out those pieces that mean something. And then, you know,(...) right out of college, you know,(...) getting married, buying a house, you know, building a house, whatever and all like that, you know, money is not as freely available as, uh, as you would like it, but it later on in life, that's where a lot of these watches started. Like, you know, I have two different Daytona's right there, Rolex Daytona's, and I bought them right before my first two road rallies.
Oh, okay. Sure.
And so, you know, those watches mean something to me because I can look at that watch, look at the pictures from that year, and that's what's on my wrist. Nice. You know, this one, this is an older Daytona, um, and it's starting, uh, the, the sub dials are just starting to brown. Yeah, exactly.(...) And, um, somebody noticed it last week on a watch dealer here in town, noticed it on my wrist at a, uh, PCA event. And he goes, man, you swapped out the band. I'm like, yeah, you know, some of my watches are like some of my cars. I can't leave well enough alone. You know, I want to customize that. I want to, you know, do things to it. And, um, but that was the watch I was wearing when I got married. That was the watch I wore in the, uh, in the delivery room when Addison was born. Yeah.
I'll never leave your,
no, not at all. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of these watches that I brought today. Like I said, it's, it's not that any of them are so super monetary,(...) uh, high value monetarily, but to me, they mean something. So, so,
you know, this, this kind of came up. Um, but I, I'm curious what people's perspective is on this. The natural progression is then to move on to AP or Patek or BC or, you know, I've kind of started thinking more about micro brands, you know, and, and like, you know, I guess there's so much you can accomplish and then it just becomes, seems like more and more expensive and more expanded and all that. Where do you,
so, you know, I've had the APs.
Yep.
(...) Um, I've had one Patek, uh, I've sold them both because, uh, they were living in the safety deposit box at the bank more than they were even coming to my house, much less on my wrist.
Sure.
And again, I'll go back to the whole car thing. You know, I want to be able to wear my watches. I want to be able to drive the cars.(...) And when it, when they get to a certain value, it kind of takes the fun out. Like, you know, I didn't bring,
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um, I got a bunch, I say a bunch, I got probably five or six marathons watches. You know, these watches are indestructible. They're, they're issue watches for certain militaries. They're great. I love them.
Yeah.
And you know, they're four or $500.
Yeah.
You know, relatively speaking, that's not an expensive watch. Yeah. Um, same thing with the, uh, some Omegas, some of the Speedmasters and, and, and and there's a Omega here that my wife gave me when I sold one of my companies as a gift.
Nice.
You know,(...) that's the James Bond one.
Yeah. 007. Yeah. Looks great.(...) So it's a Seamaster James Bond version. Yeah. Yeah. It's great.
And I love the second hand where they actually got the 007 on the, on the short end of the second hand.
Oh, I didn't realize that.
Yeah. Nice. I mean, some cool detail to it, right?
Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
And it's a beauty. It's a stainless with a blue dial. I mean, who doesn't like that?
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Um, you know, so yeah, I agree with you. I think, you know, I think a lot of people that Rolex, they chase that Rolex, right? They get the Rolex and then it's the next Rolex, the next Rolex, you know, maybe a Daytona, maybe a gold Daytona. What are you wearing today? By the way,
it's a T-ton.
There you go. And, um, and then if, if that, that passion, uh, for mechanical watches continues, you realize out there, there's a lot, a lot of ground to cover.
Sure.
As far as watches go.
Have you, have you like kind of gone down the rabbit hole of the movement part?
I have, you know, it's, it's, look, I'll say this. I don't know the movements as well as you know, the movements like I know, you know, my, uh, Submariner here, that's a 30 35 movement. The next one was a 31 35 movement. Had a couple of the later Submariners that had that you can tell the difference in the beats per second. Sure. Um, you know, I, you know, IWC some of their watches, they make their own movements, they sell them out. I've got a Cartier up there. I know they sub those that, you know, they buy them from third party purveyors.
They do. So the movement in general, yeah, you know, it is this rabbit hole too, I guess, like, because it's never ending in terms of like all the different parts and all the different outsourcing and whether it's truly in house and you know, how much of a variation on the caliber, you know, it really is.
Yeah.
Uh, the craftsmanship part though, to me is the, like the astonishing part. And I know that a lot of that stuff has changed in terms of machine ability, you know, like in the late 1800s, early 1900s, when the craftsmanship was all hand built without any of the tools that we have now to make these micro engines.
Right.
I mean, it's remarkable.
And they were sitting there with like these little thin pieces of copper or metal or silver or gold, and they're sitting there and pow. And then take this little thing with the big loops and sit there and smooth it out. Yeah. It's insane to me.
It is absolutely insane to me. Yeah. And then, um, you know, the, the tourbillon, um, just like how that came to be. And, you know, it's just, it's remarkable
talking about six figure watches. Yeah, right.
Exactly. Well, there's a couple of companies, interestingly, uh, I don't want to call micro brands, but they make tourbillons at a reasonably price. Uh, Frederick Constandt, they were purchased by the citizen group started off as a mom and pop and, uh, not astronomical, not six figures, but not five figures. Yeah. Uh, and then I think you can get some, I mean, they're Chinese made or whatever. I don't, I don't know the same things about those, but yeah, it's just an interesting thing that people still develop. That's totally unnecessary. That's all for the craftsmanship.
You know, I'm probably going to destroy the name, the Valois movements, early Valois movements that the Rolex Daytona's, you know, and predatonas were using, again, you're talking about they outsourced those movements, right? Then they added their own bridge and maybe a couple other people. And so then where's the argument, right? Is that a Rolex movement because they touched it and they modified it, or is that an outsourced movement? To me, I never really got lost in that as part of my collecting. It was really, you know, and I do, I have a few, like, well, at least one, um,(...) quartz movements here. Um, you know, not a lot, but that one for specific reason, because it's a Breitling emergency too. But as long as it was a mechanical movement to me and you know, it had the, it had that feel to it, you know, where you're wanting it. You can feel if it's a clean movement, if you can feel if it's a crap, it's time to go get this watch clean oiled and regulated, that kind of thing. To me, that meant more to me than actually who sourced the movement.
Yeah, I agree with you. And I think for me and maybe for other people, it's just a matter of the complexity, you know, I haven't gone down that or chased it yet. I don't know that I ever will.
The complications. Yeah, right. Exactly. Okay. So wait, here you go. Here's an IWC. I have, it doesn't have, um, a great number of complications to it, but it's got a few, it's got the day, it's got the date, it's got the sub seconds, sub minutes. And to me, you know, that's again, relatively speaking, that's a five figure watch, not a six figure watch. And it's a low five figure watch. But to me, it's every bit as interesting as some six figure watches, just because of the complications on it.
Agreed. Yeah.
You know, it's got a good feel to it.
Sure. You know, okay. Great. Yeah. This is a beautiful watch. I don't have any first-hand experience with IWC.(...) Um, I mean, the complications on this, uh, obviously took a lot of craftsmanship. The weight is astonishing.
Yeah.
Um, you know, and, uh, I'm sure it keeps time beautifully. Do you wear it?
I wear it. I wear it. That's one of, um, that's one of my, I don't have, I currently, I don't have a lot of gold watches. One of the reasons why is because my wife kept stealing them.
(...)
Seriously. Every time I would turn around, she was bringing my watches to the jeweler to get links tanked out. Everything from, you know, two tones, so mariners to, uh, Rolex presidents to, uh, gold Cartier. So finally I'd start buying her own. So she'd leave mine alone. And then she started taking like, I'd gotten, uh, one of the C-dweller 43 millimeters, uh, with the red writing. And next thing I know that one's on her wrist. So, you know, other than that, you know, other than that, my collection stayed pretty well intact, but you know, I don't wear a lot of gold watches. I have a few on here. Um, you know, uh, one of them was my grandfather's, my late grandfather's watch. One of them was a watch, you know, my wife gave me for our 10 year wedding anniversary, you know, that kind of stuff, but the weight of the gold watches. It's either, I either love it or I hate it. And that IWC I love it. Yeah. I absolutely love it. It's, it's got a great weight to it. It's, it's not like the, uh, solid gold Daytona's or the solid gold presence where it just yells gold at you when somebody sees it, it's more subdued. Um, and I think that was part of the wearability of the watches. Like I said, drive the cars, wear the watches. The wearability of some of these watches is what really started attracting me to other brands.
Okay.
And you know, the comfort in them and maybe the size differences where, you know, Rolex was always a 34 millimeter, 36 millimeter, a 40 millimeter. And now they go up from there. And you know, you had watches out there that were broken on the half millimeter, like 37.5 millimeter, those kinds of things. And just the wearability of it and the comfort of it made me kind of chase down those brands and look at the different models that those brands had. Yeah. So one of the few quartz watches I have is the Breitling emergency too.
Okay.
Um, I'd gotten one of the emergency ones when they first came out, you know, that's the one that has the, the emergency one had the, our original emergency had the, uh, the beacon, the 121.5 megahertz, uh, search and rescue beacon, and then the two actually has its own, you know, E-perb built into it. So it's satellite driven. So the old ones, if you were lost somewhere, you had to wait for the search and rescue planes to come over you to pick up your signal. This actually goes to a satellite and sends your location,(...) which I thought was cool because, you know, like I said, growing up scuba diving and stuff like that, you know, and then these next two, like I said, this was my Oh six bull run watch, most seven bull run watch, both Daytonas, um, just thought it would be cool to have those on the race because, you know, the heritage of them and those kinds of things. And, and I still wear them, I wear them all the time. These, the watches I brought are in heavy rotation and meaningful to me for various reasons.(...) Along those lines. This was the, uh, the first year I did a bull run, uh, me and my co-driver Byron Burkhardt, um, we won third place our first year. And this was a watch that we got because, uh, there was somebody on the rally actually made watches, it was a watchmaker.(...) And, uh, so anyway, first, second, third prize all got watches. So that was the watch. That's why it's got the little bull run logo on it and stuff.(...) Again, not an expensive movement, but it's a cool watch.
Yeah. It has some history to it.
Yeah.(...) Um,
(...)
this is one of my most recent watches. This is a Breitling. It's one of the ones that solar driven.
Oh, nice.
And, uh, one of my business partners and mentors, Don McMath gave that to me for Christmas a couple of years ago.
You know, Don, I do. Yeah.
Yeah. So Don, Don got that for me and, uh, it's, it's, it's in heavy rotation on the weekends and it's, it, it means a lot to me. That's great. So moving on to this, it's a Doxa. Um, yeah, my daughter picked that out for me. Let's see. She's 22 and she picked that out for me when she was shopping with, uh, my wife when she was about 10 or 12 years old.
Oh, it's good eye.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the, probably the orange dial is what attracted her to it. You know, but it's a cool watch. I'll wear it. It's it where you want to talk about the beads of rice bands. They wear so comfortable. They really do.
Absolutely. Wow. Very cool watch.
Similar band on this original, uh, vintage, real vintage, uh, the humor before tag humor.
(...)
Um, I saw that watch on, I don't know, um, Instagram or something like that. Sure. And I was like, man, that's a cool watch. And so I've got this great friend, watch buyer, uh, skip Powell up in Connecticut. If you ever looking so one source, something, he is the guy call skip skip has me an original unmolested, great, great condition, uh, you know, and he had it for me in about two weeks. Wow. I was like, okay, that's, that's, that's pretty good. Sure. Um, the next two are these, these were my grandfather's watches. Nice. So obviously, um, that's a Hamilton, very dressy, very blingy. Yep. Um, very small, very 1930s and forties. And you know, then this is an Omega constellation and actually wear this watch a lot. Yeah. It's why it's on the NATO band. It's kind of comfortable. Um, you know, it's, it's, I wear this one, I'd say probably once or twice a month, you know, to work stuff like that. It's just, yeah, it had originally had a leather band and I have the leather bands for it, but you know, the comforts and the, you know, NATO bands are so easy to wear and they wear out, you throw them away. It's nothing overly, uh, complicated. Um, we talked about that when the James Bond.
(...) So between Rolex and Omega, uh, not from a quality standpoint, what do you think about just the companies?
(...)
I think they're both really great companies. I do. I think, you know, it's, um, I say it was, there was one of the James Bond movies with, uh, Daniel Craig, where the lady, the Bond girl asks, you know, makes assumptions about him growing up in a boarding school and I'm sure that's a Rolex, no, it's an Omega. So you, you know, that kind of sets the bar that kind of in that same, uh, that same, uh,(...) platform, right. And you know, I own several of each and they're both comfortable and they're both very wearable and they're both very well made.(...) Um, I really enjoy both of them. Sure.(...) My younger brother absolutely loves Omega, loves Speedmasters. I've, you know, I've got several, I've got a Speedmaster, a Seamaster, um, you know, the James Bond one, some other ones. I like them. I think they're great watches.
So the price points a lot better. I agree. Yeah. Especially like, you know, if your first foray is Omega as compared to Rolex, it's a little easier on the wallet. Yeah.
You know, you feel like you have X to spend, you can go buy two Omega's versus one Rolex.
The only, the only, it's not even a negative. I haven't quite understood why there are multiple iterations of like, say, for example, the Speedmaster, you know, it's like they keep kind of tweaking it a little bit and I don't know if they're limiting that particular model or version.
Okay. So allow a counterpoint. Let's go back to Rolex Daytonas. Look at the pre-Daytonas versus today's day tonas. You know, you went from a time in the seventies, late seventies, early eighties, where you couldn't give a Daytona away.(...) I mean, it was, I remember seeing a Daytona in, you know, after I got my first Rolex, every time we go to the islands or something, I'd want to go to this watch store and go look at watches and stuff like that. And, you know, obviously I never got another one, but it was fun to watch, go look at them. And I remember seeing, you know, certain Daytona's, you know, in the, in the watch, in the watch cases. Um, and there was like $600 for a Daytona. It was like $1,100 or $1,500 for a Submariner.
(...)
I mean, come on today. I wish, you know, thanks mom and dad, but I wish I'd gotten a Daytona instead, you know, but you know, I think, I think all of them are going to do something along those lines because, you know, better movements, moving that movements in house, uh, more beats per minute, um, throw some complications on it to keep it a little sure.(...) Yeah, exactly.
I would just say that my assessment though, is that doing that from Omega's perspective is watered down, you know, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Or whatever the collectability, um, you know, I, I just kind of heard that echoed as well. Uh, I don't know speed master it's on the list. Have you seen the new, um, reverse Panda?
Yeah.
Yeah. That's a great watch.
Uh, they're making a gold or gold planted one as well.
Look, I love the Snoopy's. Yeah. I mean, come on, but look at the prices on it.
They've maintained their desirability.
I agree with you.
Yeah. Very cool.
Now, if I was Omega, what I would have not done as much as I like swatch, I wouldn't have done that co-brand like that. I think that cheapened it a little bit there. You know, I think, you know, you're a marquee brand, be a marquee brand. Yeah.
That makes sense. Okay. Let's move on.
Uh, so we haven't seen your cool. Reverso.
Oh yeah. Very cool.
You know, this was, uh, my wife gave me this for our 10 year wedding anniversary. That's gold. I think is the thing for when you're 10 years. And so that's what she got me. I got her a gold Cartier. She got me that and she had got it engraved on the back and it is a really cool watch. And I do that is a, you know, I have a black band for it. I put the Brown band on it just to make it more daily. You know what I'm saying? Less formal.(...) And I enjoy wearing it. It's, um, you know, it's got, it's got a moon phase on it. So it's got a little bit of a complication to it. Sure.
Um, date on here too.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, like I said, it's again, going back to the comfort and the wearing of the watches, I really, um,
won from the original houses of virology, JLC, um, yeah, beautiful piece.
And then, and then this is, uh, this is a Panerai. Um, this was a gift to myself kind of sorta. Um, when we were moving my daughter up to New York to go to, to start NYU. Nice. Um, I was bored and I was wandering around and I wanted something to kind of, uh, mark that time for me. And I'd always wanted one of the submersibles and just happened to wander into, yeah, just happened to wander into a Panerai shop and happened to see it there and happened to put it on my wrist and happened to leave with it. So you wear that when you dived and stuff? Yeah. I wear that when I'm diving, I'll wear that when, um, you know, uh, just where I'm worried that I don't want to bang up something, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's an indestructible watch. It really is.
Yeah.
And you know, I've got some other submariners and like I said, my marathons and stuff, they're pretty indestructible as well, but that one, um, you know, and, and look, let's be honest, unless you're really a watch person, you don't know what this is, you look at this and this could be a $300 watch. You know what I'm saying? And there's a part of me that really enjoys, you know, look, the vintage Euer, this is a five figure watch, you know, and that's if they're in really bad shape and that one's in great shape. There's a part of me that really enjoys wearing the watches that do not attract attention and do not attract that, but to a purist, to a watch person, to a collector, even a hobbyist there is, Hey, that, that is something special. And that's kind of what I like about it. Sure. And then let's see, last I got this, uh, Cartier Santos. This is when they first came out.(...) Um, I was on a trip to Dallas, my wife and I visiting her brother, my brother in law, and they had just come out and you know, I'd scoured in New Orleans, couldn't find any, and so we were in Dallas. So we went, I forgot where in Dallas we went, but they had one left and it was the one that was in the, uh, cabinet. Okay. And I had to beg the lady to sell it to me because she was like, well, we're not supposed to sell it. That's the last one. And people want to come in and see it and try it on and order them. And I'm like, you know, I did, I did my best begging and obviously it worked out. So ended up getting it. And, you know, again, it's a Cartier, so it's more of a piece of jewelry, perhaps, than a watch, but it's, it's a very wearable watch. I like the, uh, the butterfly deployment class on it. You know what I'm saying? It's very comfortable. It's for the size of it. It's very wearable. Um, it, it, it works well in my wrist. You know, and, and that's, I think a lot of, I think if you're a really, a one watch person or a hundred watch person,(...) you got to look at how the watch feels on you and you got to, you got to enjoy wearing it because otherwise now it's just an investment and there's a lot better stocks to go by. So there is watches, if that's what your mindset is.
Fair. Um, Cardi is interesting to me in that this, I don't know, I think they might have started with watches, but this house of high jewelry or, you know, uh, like, I guess like the, you know, Oscars,(...) you know, the movie stars, that's a house they flocked to for fashion that they've still maintained such a serious level about their watch craftsmanship.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I find that to be interestingly odd. Well, you know, and, and go back and look at some of the most collectible. Rolexes from the sixties and seventies are co-branded with Cartier.
Right.
You know what I'm saying? The dials are stamped Cartier and Rolex. And you know, you can have an old, you know, Submariner that maybe a 12, $15,000 watch you find on with the Cartier stamp. You're more than double that now just because of the Cartier stamp being a co-brand. So, you know, I think that adds a little level of, you know, credibility to the watch side of it versus it just being purely jewelry.
Uh, but these guys have, have nailed it. They had some new releases on the Santos du Mont. Yeah. Um, there's one called the it's not the reverse. So, but the time goes backwards. Um, the rewind, a red dial. Uh, it's beautiful. It's limited in the number of releases and they made a skeleton too. That's a great looking watch. Um, you know, this, uh, this is a Santos, right? Yeah. Yeah. Santos du Mont was a Brazilian pilot and whomever Cartier, uh, whatever his first name was, he made this watch for him to 88 with.
Yeah. Cause they were friends and he needed, that was back in the pocket watch days and he needed something here. And I love the story and it just, you know, that goes back to, you know, you were talking about micro brands before, right? And so perhaps back then Cartier was considered at some level, right? Yeah. I mean, to be able to walk it, can you imagine being able to walk into Cartier or Rolex or Omega or any of these Breitling and say, look, I need this, build it for me.
Yeah. Come on. Incredible. What a fantastic collection. What, where does it go from here?
(...) Um, it continues. It does. It continues. Like I said earlier, I had sold off some of the military watches I had. I had quite a few of those.
(...)
And, um, I just, when I was buying a lot of watches in the 2010 range, um, you know, back then you could buy a Tudor Submariner for, you know,
(...)
$900, $1,500 was a perfect one, a great one. And I was spending 3,500, 4,000 ish for the military marked in one day, you know, they had the special engravings on the back and, you know, every once in a while you get lucky on eBay or something and you'd look at it and somebody would have it marked it, you know, $800, like all the other ones and cool engraving on the back and you'd look at it. Oh, okay. That's an artesian military watch. Buy it now. And I'd wear them and you know, I'd enjoy them, but they started climbing in value to the point where, you know, I had a IDF watch that was actually worn. I had all the documents and everything worn on the green mountain raid, the whole nine yards there. I'm totally going to slaughter this name. Like she, I 13 there, their version of like the Navy seals Delta and all like this, it was a guy's watch bought it from him, had all of the stuff together. And I remember I paid at that time, which I thought was astronomical for a Tudor. I paid, I want to say like $6,500 for it. Now you go buy the identical watch unmarked, no documentation for a thousand dollars. Okay.(...) You know,(...) again, talking to skip, Hey man, I'm a lighten up some of these watches. You know, I'm not really wearing them. I'm kind of worried about it.
(...)
You know, he ended up just killing it for me on that watch, you know, got it to the right person. It's he's got a, he's got a list of buyers that just sit there waiting for certain things. So he's really easy to work with. And he was like, yeah, I can place that watch for you. And you know, this is what we're going to do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Great guy to work with. So it was also important to me that the watches that I was selling were going to the right people, right? You know, not just another dealer that's going to go sling it on a table and it's going to be one of those things that a watch show and, but people that actually wanted them to enjoy them, put them in there and collect and put them in their collections, wear them occasionally, but also have the story to tell with it.
Okay.
And, and, and so, you know, that was, that was big for me at the time. Right now I'm more about the complications.
Okay.
You know, micro micro brands don't scare me. Small brands don't scare me. Um, I like, you know, the, I like the mechanical. Sure. And function functions of the watch.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, I don't want to say that's an acquired taste, but you know, you've kind of owned everything and, you know, I've owned a bunch. Yeah, right. A lot. Right. Exactly. And it's like, you know, Hey, there's a really cool brand that I came to know about called Laurent Ferrier. He was a master craftsman or whatever that title is that one can achieve at tech.
Mm hmm.
And he started his own brand. Um, and I can't say that it's all the rage in the watch world, but, um, like multiple reviews of his craftsmanship.
Then, you know, I've owned a couple of Frank Mueller's. Oh, nice. Really great watch. And I had the banker for obvious reasons for a while. I think my wife might've given it to me. Um, war, I love the watch. Yeah. It was a great watch. Um, pretty, pretty tough watch. I mean, you know what I'm saying? I'd, I'd wear it sometimes when I was fooling with my cars and stuff like that. I think I laid down a motorcycle with it on one time. First thing I did was look at the watch. Yeah. A lot of fun now look at myself and make sure, but it was great watch. I really enjoyed having it. Um, you know, so I agree that there's a lot of great brands, you know, out there.
And social media has made them way more available to the public. More prevalent, right?
Yeah. You know, where, where is, again, go back to before the internet, before social media, there were brands out there. We didn't even know existed.
Yeah, sure. Now this is fantastic. Okay. We can move on to the, yep. Okay. Good. So thanks so much. The collection is fantastic and we can't wait to see where it goes or what you add to your collection later.
(...)
So kind of moving back, swinging the pendulum back to the automotive space.
Yeah.
Well, I really want to hear about the Porsches, but I'd like you to talk, if you don't mind about the Mercedes collection and like, you know, how, how that,
so going back to what we were talking about before, you know, uh, I've never been a, a one brand, a one Marquis type guy and, you know, the German cars, you know, obviously Ferraris, you know, like I said, I had a three 55 for a daily driver for about two years. It was great.(...) Uh, but the Mercedes, the German cars were always so well-built, so indestructible, so, you know, even during bull run, you know, we'd be. Driving at very high rates of speed through death Valley, Nevada on this trip, and you would see the, that was when the Lamborghini Gallardo's first came out the V10s, right? The Audi motor that were seriously not cooled properly. You'd see them. They were all lined up, broken down because they all were overheating. And here me and my co driver and the, you know, triple digits through the desert with the seat coolers on and stuff like that, it was great. And, and the car never let me down. And same thing with Porsche. It just, if it starts, it runs. And there was an attraction to me about that. The Mercedes, um,
(...)
you know, we grew up, my mom had a Mercedes growing up and, and I remember it was a 240 D the diesel five cylinder. And, uh,
(...)
I think it was zero to 60 in a minute and a half. It was like the non turbo version. It was so sad. Like you try to pull out in traffic and die, you know, those kind of things. But again, the cars were so indestructible. They were just tough. I mean, she had three boys. She was carting around to baseball, little league and stuff like this. And we're slamming the doors and all like this. And my older brother ended up with the car when he left for college. And then he had it all through college car and never died.(...) And to me, there was always an attraction. I loved Mercedes. I still do. Um, and you know, so when I started building my collection, you know, one of the most iconic cars was the R one Oh seven, the, um, the, the two door convertible from 72 to where was it? 1989 was the last version. They, you know, started with the, uh, for four 50 SL.
(...)
Then the three 80 SL back when they made, you know, emissions, a big thing. And they had to dial down the motors. Then the five 60 SL and, and, and the SLs were like a big thing. So, um, and they were cheap. I was buying them at auctions for five grand, you know, 7,500, those kind of things and you know, bought one for my mom, you know, as a birthday gift to one year. And her and my dad enjoyed it for years. And actually I just sold it to, uh, another doctor, John Logan.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. Or the beginning. Yeah. He, he loves it. He's, he's so excited about it. Oh, that's great. Three 80 SL. And, you know, again, had the mechanic go through it, bumper to bumper, make sure everything was perfect before I sold it to him. And I think the bill was $600 to change all the belts and hoses and everything else, because there's so many, they made so many of them and yeah, they changed the motors, but you can take a hardtop from a 1975 four 50 SL and put it on a 1989 five 60 SL. Okay. So the body was always, you know, a few little nuance differences, but nothing that really mattered. And those cars are just, they were good, cheap, fun cars to have their convertibles that had a soft top. It had a hardtop. You know what I'm saying? There was so much diversity to it. I really enjoyed it. Um, at one time, uh, my parents owned this building for a long time, the one that we're sitting in today. And, uh, it was just a, it was a record store in the front at one time and the back was storage, and then it was a warehouse. It might've been, you know, I'm an off brand church at a period of time. You know, what was actually, yes. Okay. There you go. When I was in high school and college and later and stuff, and then, uh, I ended up buying it from them and doing stuff with it. And, uh, but when somebody was storing cars here and they had been here forever and two of them, there were three cars and I ended up with all three. I had to go chase down, get titles, had to go through the whole process and the whole nine yards, and it took over a year to get titles. And one of them was an 88 BMW M six.
Nice.
One of them was a 1971 300 Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3. Oh, wow. And the other one 78, uh, 6.4 50 SEL 6.9. And the six point all three were pretty rare cars, you know, good cars. Um, but they'd been sitting for years. They were roof leaks in this building. One of them, the 6.3 caught the brunt of that, you know, part of the ceiling, which there was a ceiling in here at one time. It had fallen on the car. So the cars needed work, um, to varying degrees. Um, the M six, we had to do a lot of motor work to, uh, Dallas, Los Al with motor works by Dallas down in Mandeville. Yep. Great mechanic helped us a lot with those cars. Um, the 6.3 Mercedes has an air suspension airbags.
(...)
He had to source those for me because they're not really easy to find. Um,
(...)
but great cars. Uh, I sold the M six, um, to a friend of mine, Chris Smith from London, who lives in Dallas now, sold that to him a few years ago. Uh, I still have the six three and the 6.9.
(...)
I still drive them. Uh, shot you some pictures of them. They're still in my collection. Good looking cars. And, uh, you know, the, the, the 6.3, we had to do a full restoration on it. Caught the brunt of the dash in the building. So, uh, we were able to save the leather and the seats and that kind of stuff out. So we pulled that out, had those conditioned and clean. All the wood went to a local woodworking shop here. They sanded it, restained it. Looks great.(...) The car, my friend Dennis Collins helped me with the paint. The car went to Dallas in a trailer,(...) uh, down to bare metal. If there was any rust, they'd cut the rust out. No Bondo went back with the liquid lead. You know what I'm saying? Where they beat up the lead and reshape it. So it was about a two and a half, three year restoration on that car. And, uh, it's, it's a great car. It's a lot of fun to drive. You know, when the weather's nice outside, you pull up to the, you know, bond sock you to go eat sushi or something in it. It gets a lot of attention.
Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, that whole like late seventies, early eighties vibe. Uh, I don't know what model years your Porsches are.
So, uh, the Porsches, oh, I have the oldest one I have is a 74 and the newest one I have mine, not my wife's. She's got a couple of mine. The newest one I have is probably an Oh three. Oh, sure.
I just think they're coming back. I think there's a lot of like inherent emotional attachment, you know, for people that are our age, you know, to cars of that era, uh, that, you know, can be restored or, you know, and some driven comfortably, you know, going back.
Yeah. Going back to my friend Dennis Collins, who is a big car guy and very popular in the, in the automotive space. You know, he told me years ago, he was like, start buying every air cooled Porsche you can get your hands on.
(...)
And, you know, this was probably 15 years ago. I'm rolling my eyes. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. So I'm gonna stick to Mercedes, whatever. And, uh, cause I had a couple of Porsches, but nothing, you know, not like, damn, he was right. I mean, he was really right. And you know, that's it kind of his opinion right now is that the G bodies, the 74 to 89, he still thinks those are going to have plenty of room to run. Because those are the cars that you and I grew up with the posters on the ground. Right. Yep. And so when you sit there and you think about growing up in the eighties, you got the Mercedes SLs, right? You got the 500 SEL, the W 126 bodies. You know what I'm saying? The ones like in, um, Beverly Hills cop and all that kind of stuff. And you've got Porsche 911s. Yeah. You know, now sprinkle in a few 944s because those were great cars. And, you know, I remember, uh, I really wanted one of those. I have a 944, I have a 944 S an 87 944 S in my collection. And I have a 88 944 turbo red tan in my collection. Cause that's what I wanted for high school graduation. And my dad said, yeah, go sit down. And so he obviously that didn't happen, but I was, I found a great one. Um,(...) two owner car, uh, right now it's got 49,000 real original miles, all original.
(...)
Go into what you said. I agree. I think those seventies, eighties, those G body Porsches, again, I'm a sprinkle in some 928 S. I just bought myself a 87, a 928 S four, which is the first year of the S four version of it. Um, great car, very drivable. They're all drivable, very comfortable, but it's those cars when you, when you drive it and, you know, like I said, you're driving Ferraris and you get the, you know, the kids are like this. When you're driving the old Porsches and old Mercedes, the parents, you know what I'm saying? It's a different feeling to it. And, um, you know, a lot of times you're in the old Porsches and people come up and oh man, is that a this year and this year and yeah, my uncle had one and I remember he took me for a ride in it, this, that, and the other. And you know, it's, it's, I remember that too. I remember, you know, going back to the fall guy with the first time I saw a 930 turbo, you know, what is that? And just that emotion, the first road and track I saw, I don't remember. It was what I had to have been an 84,(...) either 83 or 84, uh, addition, uh, whatever month it was of road and track that had just the back end of a red Carrera and it's black riding for Carrera was on it.
Okay.
Sure. And I remember seeing that as a kid and you know, it just, it drew me to it. And so again, back to your point, I think those cars have plenty of room to go. I think there's plenty of nostalgia for it. Um, you can still buy the mid years, the 74 through 77. You can still get those cars, you know, 40, 50, 60 grand in really good shape. So relatively speaking, you know, 40, 50, 60 grand is a lot of money. Don't get me wrong, but relatively speaking, when we're talking half a million and up for Ferrari, I mean, what are you going to spend for a 73 Ferrari 365, let's go GTB, not GTS. Cause it's half the price. You're still spending $700,000.
(...)
You know what I'm saying? Or let's go buy a 1976, you know, first year, the nine 30 turbo when it was a 3.0 liter and no intercooler, which are the most valuable nine thirties right now. You're still going to spend two 50, but hell of a lot cheaper than three quarters of a million for a similar type car.
And Porsche has built that reputation of almost indestructibility. I mean, stuff goes wrong, you know, with anything or whatever, but you know, I think that's also, uh, attracted people.
You know, to, to, to that point real quick, Porsche is one of the only brands that still makes every part for every car, which is why I think it's, I heard it. Um, uh, I was at a PCA thing here at, uh, Mike Heydell's garage last weekend and somebody there said something that like 70, 72% of all Porsches ever, uh, manufacturer still on the roads. Well, one of the reasons why is because if you need an alternator for a 19,(...) you know, 69 911 E and you can't find it anywhere, you can still get it from Germany. Yeah. You're going to pay for it, but you can still get it. And God knows there's, you know, multiple off brands and aftermarket manufacturers of it, but to have that ability to get parts like that, you know, we were talking earlier before you got here about, you know, some of the earlier Lamborghinis,(...) you can't get parts for them. Sure. Wrecked cars are selling for as much as running cars, you know, perfect cars, because somebody needs to rob the parts off of it. Yeah.
It's crazy. I mean, just goes back to our original part of the conversation about the value of these cars and how, I mean, who would have thought that a 40 year old Porsche would have this kind of value or Mercedes,(...) you know, especially somewhat restored. I think it's remarkable. I think it's a great time to be a car enthusiast.(...) So in, in your portfolio, so there's air cooled and water cooled.
I have air and water both in the Porsche. Do you, do you like
have a preference? Can you solve the age old question of which one's better?
So let's say this, the air cooled have a very distinctive sound to it. Right. A very distinctive, um,(...) Mo, you know, the nine 15 transmission. Um, it's, it's somewhat clumsy, but once you get used to it, it's great. You go to the G 50 transmission. Oh, I have a, uh, 1990, nine 64.
(...)
Uh,
(...)
Outlaw, you know, this car was, this car was, uh, just a great nine 11 that somebody bought it got flooded in Florida during one of their floods. So it got, you know, it's got a branded title. Somebody then bought it, use it as a race car. I bought it after it had started being restored from a race car into back to a street legal car. So yeah, it's been flooded, but who cares? Because everything's been replaced. You know, when it was a race car, there was one Recaro seat in it and nothing, no carpet, no anything else. Uh, you know, and I have, you know, it's very, it's been punched out from a 3.6 to a 3.8 liter, you know, it's got the RSR cams in it, RSR exhaust in it. Uh, when it's cold, you're going to freeze because it's headers straight out. You know, there's, there's, you know,(...) certain things that have been done to it that make it less comfortable, but really a lot more fun to drive.
(...)
The point I'm saying with all that is, is that any more or less fun than say the 74 911 S that I have, it's different, but it's fun.(...) I was telling you guys earlier, one of the most drivable fun cars I have is a 1999. 996 narrow body first year manual transmission. It is so drivable. It is so much fun. It's, I mean, you know, I'm not going to say what roads around here. I enjoy opening it up on, but there's a lot of roads around here and going up towards Folsom where you get, get a little bit of hill, get some turns and stuff. It is one of the best cars to drive.(...) And you know, people still throw rocks at it because it's the first year of the water cooler. Right. It's got the runny egg headlights, all the things that, you know, people want to throw rocks at the car about, but it's one of the most fun driving. And let's get back to what we're saying earlier about air conditioning. The air conditioner will free you out. Now we had some fun with the car. It's got a, it's got a livery package. It's got stickers and all, all over it. You know, you, you got the pictures and all of it and you know, it's got a duck tail. You know, there was never a 996 that came from the factory with a duck tail. It's got one, you know, the, uh, inserts have been, the seat inserts have been torn out, made plaid, you know, took the, um, took the real steering wheel out and airbag out, put a Momo steering wheel in it, you know, did some fun. Took the center console out, had some fun with it. Yeah.(...) Nothing that really adds to anything other than the aesthetics, but the aesthetics are great on that car. And when I bring it to a cars and coffee, I can park, you know, a really expensive nine 30 turbo right next to this car and more people taking pictures of this car with the runny egg headlights. And you know, it's water cooled because there's a cool factor to it. There's an aesthetic factor to it. Personally, I like the nine 30 turbo better. You know, that's, that was a, that was a grail, holy grail car for me to get that. And I waited a long time to find the right one. John and Dylan Sherrick at Nola sport in New Orleans founded for me. Okay. Um, I talked to John about this car probably two years ago, this identical car. Oh, wow. And he still had it. And I decided it was time right around the time I turned 55. I was like, all right, it's, it's, I've never owned a nine 30. That was the poster car in my room when I was a kid. And, um,(...) you know, I remember seeing the first one's real life in person. Um, Dr. Walter Sherman, I don't know if you know, Dr. Sherman, OBGYN he's older, he's retired now. He actually gave, you know, he was one of the two doctors that gave birth to my daughter, wow.(...) And, uh, anyway, when I was a kid, he had a son a year younger than me. So at river forest Academy at St. Paul's, he would be dropping his son off in nine 30 turtles.
That's all he drove for years.
(...) And so, but those kind of memories stick with you. And it's not just the nostalgia. It's once you get in the car and you start driving it and you realize, you know, you know, the old saying you shouldn't meet your heroes. Yep. Yeah. Well, in this case, that's wrong because you know, driving this car, you know, everybody named it the widow maker because the turbos don't kick in until about 4,000 RPM and you know, if you didn't know how to drive, you don't know how to drive, you know, personally, I think if you don't know how to drive, you shouldn't be able to buy cars like that personally. But that's just me. Um, but anyway, long story short, finally got that car, enjoy the car. I love the car. I love driving it. It's fun at cars and coffee, but I think the water cooled cars are starting to come into their own now because, you know, guys that are 10 years younger than us, they didn't grow up looking at the eighties cars. Right. They grew up looking at the nineties cars. Well, from 99 to 0, four, oh five, you had runny egg headlights. Sure. It was the first water cools. Um, you know, there's a lot to be said for those cars. Yeah. You know, there's a lot to be said for the air cool.
(...)
I think it's all in what you want to do with the car. I mean, like if you're going to drive to Destin, I don't know that I would take an air cooled 11 to go to drive to Destin and sit in traffic and those kinds of things, I would take a water cool, you know, but if it's, you know, a cars and coffee event, if it's a run around the country, you know, go to go through Washington parish up to Mississippi and have some fun with it. Yeah. I think cars all day. Yeah. But again, we're only talking about nine 11. You still got the V eights with the nine 28s. You've got a great little four cylinder in the nine 44s. And then, you know, you sling the turbocharger on. It's got the same kind of turbo lag. It's small turbo lag, but it's, it's got a little turbo lag to it, but you know, they're great cars. They're a lot of fun.
I believe it. Do you see anything else being added in the near future? Any other automotive manufacturer?
(...) In my collection or, um, you know, I still, uh, one of the cars I had in high school was a BMW three 20. I I've always loved the three series. I almost bought, uh, uh, what is it? The M E uh, 30.
Okay.
You know, the, the first version of the three and 88 89 90 that era. Um, I've looked at a couple of those, uh, you know, those are climbing. I mean, there's six figure cars now. Um, I might've missed the boat on that one because I was lucky. I got a lot of the Porsches I've got. I was buying them years ago, you know, recently, but I'm still buying them. I bought, you know, I bought a nine nine six turbo and I bought a nine 30 turbo both in the last several months. Oh, nice. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, the nine nine six turbo, it was a deal. I mean, it was just right time, right place, right car. You know, I use it as a pseudo daily driver, a lot of fun. You know,
(...)
I feel as though I stole the car. You know, the guy that had it before me was an engineer, did a complete engine out service, did everything to it. His life changed a little bit. I didn't get into that with his personal stuff, but sold the car quick.
(...)
I bought it. I enjoy it. I love it. Again, we're back to the water cooled runny. Yeah, of course. You know, a lot of those cars from that era. So then, you know, you go down the BMW rabbit hole, right? And then there's a lot of great cars from the late eighties, early nineties that BMW made, I was fortunate enough to have an 88 M six. Like I said, it was a Cine bar red with the white interior, great color combination, great car. Uh, it was very well sorted. So it was a lot of fun to drive that car. I would take, uh, my daughter Addison to go drive it, you know, driving around like you don't understand what this car is. You know, rolling a ride, playing with the phone, right? But, uh, no, she's, she's kind of a car girl. So she's, she's starting to get into it a little bit more, but, um, you know, as far as a collection, you know, I think a lot of it is still what, what, what draws me to it, right? You know, it's gotta be the right car. It's gotta be the right deal. Um, you know, I'm still looking for some early air cooled, just rollers. So I can build another outlaw. Nice. That's a lot of fun to be able to sit there and you know, you know, you're going to spend a year of your life doing this and you know, you're going to have to have a lot of patience and take your time. I mean, you know, if money's not an object to you, you can get it done quicker. You just, to do it, the slow, methodical, cost-effective way to do it to where you make sure the car's dialed in and you're getting exactly what you want. Yeah. Right now I'm restoring a 76 9 11 Targa. Oh, nice. I think I was telling you about it before we got on screen.(...) Um, my friend in Dallas found it. It was in a mini storage for like 15 years.(...) The guy, uh, it's only right now it's got like 40, somewhere around 38 to 42,000 real original miles to 2.7 liter. I'm having the motor broke down, totally redone. Sure. And you know, we'll put the Carrera chain tensioners in it, oilers in it rather, and those kinds of things that small little upgrades, but it's all numbers matching.
(...)
Uh, friend of mine in Mobile, Alabama that I went to St. Paul's with, uh, Daryl Horton just did a down to bare metal backup glass out the whole nine yards. So we're painting it back factory colors. So it'll be, it'll be a real, it'll be a real restoration numbers, matching the right colors. Everything's right on it, but it's, you know, I'm a year into it. It's going to be another year. It just, it's, it's part of it, but you know, the building of the car, that kind of thing that's really started to be a lot more fun. Of course. I mean, 10 years ago when I was doing the Mercedes 6.3, it was like, you know,
hurry up a little car, you know, type thing.
And now it's, you know, there's, there's some, there's some, um, pleasure in the patience and time knowing it's being done right and, you know, seeing it come together and, and, and I enjoy that, but you know, that's a long way to answer your question that you asked me about other, other brands or Marquis that I see. I, BMW is probably still good on my list. Um, at this stage, I think of, uh, owned all the Mercedes. I still have one, take it back. I still have one in restoration. I think I sent you a picture of it. It's a blue, it's a 64, two 80 SC, 250. Yes. I'm sorry. Two 50 SC. That was the big coop that they made into also had a convertible.
Okay.
So it's got a back seat. So it's much bigger than the one Oh seven, um, six cylinder motor. Um, it's really a great GT kind of touring kind of, and again, you know, you see the right ones at auction and they're bringing two 50 to three 50, you know, at auctions and stuff. So this is one I'm taking my time with. We're rebuilding it slowly, doing a lot of the work in-house with my guys, um, that I have at my shop and, you know, taking our time with it. It's fun, but you know, I'm, I'm, I've had a lot of fun with the, uh, with the Mercedes,
(...)
but I think I've had the ones I've wanted, the ones that meant something to me, cycled through them. There's still some BMWs out there, you know, early seventies, the 3.0, uh, you know, those kinds of cars, they're iconic.(...) They're they're timeless. Yeah. And you know, as again, let's go back to the cyclical nature of it. Some of those cars are on the down slope. So it's maybe a better time for me to buy it because I'm going to drive them.
You know, like, well, we can't wait to see you back on the show. Yeah. And when I
get my, uh, my, my warehouse all together and get the cars set up and come and get it, come do that.
I'd like to end with, uh, with this,
(...)
um, what do you think defines you more? Your car or watch passion?
Who,(...) as far as a definition for me, um,
(...)
well, not to get away from your question, but I would say family first, above and beyond anything. Um,
(...)
you know, and, and trying to bring my daughter into that watch culture and bring my daughter into the car culture. Uh, but me as a standalone, I think if you ask friends, friends or family members, they're going to say the cars, because the cars and the watch has kind of started at the same time, but the cars have always been more prevalent to me and obviously more public to me because, you know, doing the rallies and having the cars and having the, you know,
(...)
car friends that, you know, may be famous and this kind of stuff as a part of my life where the watches were always much more personal. Okay. It was very private. It was very kind of, you know, most people look at your wrist and they don't, yeah, they don't really notice it, but they notice what you're pulling up in there. You know, so, you know, if you ask me what ice, what, what, what me, Jared, Ricky, would do I, if I had to choose one or the other to continue chasing, it would be the cars. Okay. Absolutely. There's just so much more, um,
(...)
I believe camaraderie in the car circles and the car culture,(...) and there's so many more cars out there that are so different. Yeah. And, you know, it's like, I was telling somebody the other day when they asked me about air cooled Porsches, you could line up for air cooled 9 11 FCS and go drive each one and each one's going to drive differently. Sure. Each one is going to handle a little bit differently. Each one's gonna, you're going to feel different in it. Whereas if you line up for well cleaned, oiled and regulated Rolex Submariners, they're all going to keep the same time. Right. They're all going to feel the same on your wrist. It's, it's, you know, so I think that, I think for me personally, the passion is more there with the cars than it is with the watches. Now we're talking a one versus a 1.5 type thing. You know what I'm saying? It's not a, yeah. But yeah, I would say the cars.
Yeah. I would probably agree with you in our conversation. Um, but look, it's been a tremendous pleasure.
I appreciate it.
We really can't thank you enough for, you know, walking us through your journey and bringing your collection here for us to see, we'll get some footage of the car and then we'll revisit once your collection has evolved to the next level in either space and feel free to come back anytime you'd like. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you. My pleasure. Okay. Thanks so much. My pleasure. Thank you.
(...)
All the money. Thanks. I appreciate it. We'll be in touch.
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$18 Million settlement obtained for paralyzed dockworker in local counsel in Shreveport, Louisiana to badly.
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