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CORVETTE TODAY #98-Corvette Nation TV's Michael Brown Is Selling His Corvettes & Neon Signs!
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May 8, 2025
You remember Michael Brown as the host of TV's Corvette Nation Show. Michael has amassed a baautiful Corvette collection of cars as well as over 125 neon signs. All are going to be sold at the Mecum Auction in Glendale, Arizona, March 16-19, 2022. In this podcast, your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, sits down with Michael to overview all the Corvettes, all the neon signs and why he's selling everything! When you listen to this CORVETTE TODAY podcast, you'll be booking a trip to Arizona in March!
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0:00
[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
0:06
that talks about everything corvette with your host steve garrett mc and dj at one of the largest corvette weekends
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in the country corvette fun fest president of the corvette club of kansas city missouri and radio disc jockey at
0:19
the number one radio station in kansas city for over 40 years here's steve garrett
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thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you by mid-america
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motorworks pursue your passion at mamotoworks.com i'm your host steve garrett i appreciate
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enthusiasts like yourself at mid-engine corvette forum.com also a shout out to
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canadiancorvetforum.com welcoming corvette owners from around the world my guest on corvette today is a
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returning guest he was on podcast number 15 in late july of 2020. he was an abc
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anchorman in dallas he wrote produced and directed the corvette documentary called the quest his hooked on vets
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corvette collection along with 120 plus neon signs is going up for sale at the
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mecum auction in glendale arizona next month in mid-march please join me in welcoming back to the show mr michael
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brown michael it's great to have you back on corvette today hey steve it's good to hear from you and thank you so
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much for having me back it's wonderful to have you here buddy first of all the big question is michael you've amassed a
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terrific corvette collection called hooked on vets the first thing that comes to my mind and everybody listening
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to this podcast is why are you selling everything i know that's the most common question i've been getting and it's kind
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of hard to answer flippantly i've been saying i plan to live forever but just in case i don't
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i have amassed a pretty good collection a lot of things in case my plan of
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living for eternity doesn't work out i'm not sure my kids and grandkids would
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appreciate having to manhandle all of the things that i've amassed that's a silly answer but actually i've just
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gotten to a point in life where first off a part of the whole process for me is the hunt and the acquisition i've
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enjoyed that so much for the past few years a lot of your listeners perhaps most will know the name ron pratt from
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chandler arizona he's a very successful businessman and i don't put myself anywhere near his category but for
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several years all of us enjoyed watching ron sit on the front row at barrett-jackson every year and no matter
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what car came along or what piece of road art if he wanted it he was going to get it he could outbid everyone and he
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built an enormous collection again mine doesn't even fall into the corner of
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what he was able to do and i remember at some point he said you know i enjoyed doing that now it's time
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to turn my attention to something else so in a very small part i guess i'm a little bit like ron pratt and perhaps
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other collectors again a lot of the fun was collecting i've had to compartmentalize the nostalgia part over
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in my brain saying look yeah i really do hate to give this up but it's time to do
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something different i will say after the sale and i'll say it again after the sale i
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have not yet owned my last corvette but this is just sort of a mid to later
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life readjustment that has been kind of fun and if it's in itself so long answer to your question but no specific reason
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but that's sort of a general thinking that as i approach this well i kind of thought that would be the case michael
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and it's a good time to sell the market is just on fire right now i love the hooked on vets collection tell me how
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you put all that together well i never and probably most collectors would say
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this i never set out to have a collection i've only dreamed as you know
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i've told you before back in high school when i saw my first corvette which was a 63 10th anniversary split window coupe
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and i said someday i hope to have one of those never thinking that i would and it took 22 years before i did i never
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imagined i'd be able to afford or own one corvette but after i got that it was
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the only one that i had for a number of years and then i had the financial ability maybe to add one more and i
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started looking around and so it was a process of evolution and the same thing with the neon signs i bought a sign or
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two and really enjoyed owning that it's just sort of a process of evolution one
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day you wake up and you've got oh my gosh where did all these come from
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how long did it take to put the collection together as far as the corvettes with the first one the 63
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split window i acquired that in 1985 again never intending to have a
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collection but i guess that would be the starting point it would be several years before i bought the second corvette time
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wise for a timeline from the beginning up until now it was 1985 when i bought
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the first one so here we are at 37 years i was not collecting all of that time
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and certainly the neon signs didn't come along until about 15 or 17 years ago
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when that started but overall it's almost four decades amazing now tell me what happens now now
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that you've decided to sell the collection how does mecum come in and get it and ship it out you know that's
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an interesting question and i've never done this of course i've been to many mecum auctions and know many people
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associated with mecum.com and i've watched his growth over the years it's been amazing what he's done with his
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business and the presence he now has but when i decided to do this i contacted me
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because i knew what their capability was i just never experienced it firsthand and you can imagine steve you know how
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many major auctions that organization does each year it's almost one a month
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and they have to work so far in advance because there are so many almost limitless details to pull this off
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and it's like many many years ago when i worked in broadcasting and i was a news man and anchorman the news went on at 6
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00 p.m whether you were ready or not so you better be ready because when you got a cue from the floor director said
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you're on the air live you better be ready well it's sort of like this with one of these enormous auctions they've
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publicized to tens of thousands of people in most cases there'll be that many people and more at the auction so
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you better be ready well in order to do that they just have dozens of people and when i contacted them and we struck an
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arrangement they immediately sent a person or two to walk through the collection and get an overview and then
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for the last two months literally it's just been an ongoing process they sent a crew down to produce still photography
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for all the cars and all the neon signs recently they sent a video production
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crew who was here for several days shooting all of them and interviewing me i have to say their promotional
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capabilities and attention to detail has been amazing but as far as the
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physicality now that this monster is in motion and the date of the auction is
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coming up which is march 16th through the 19th in glendale which is a suburb as most people know of phoenix so they
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will literally later this month they're going to send six or eight men several
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trucks and they will begin the process of taking down these dozens and dozens of
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neon signs some of them weighing hundreds of pounds apiece
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and they will take them one at a time and then on site another crew will be
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building lumber crates for each individual sign then they'll be put on 18 wheelers and transported it's a
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machine a well-oiled machine but an amazing amount of work because it
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took us years to put these signs up one at a time as i bought them they're going to take them all down
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crate them and transport them across several states in about 12 days wow i'm
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actually anxious to see how they do it that would be interesting to see a behind-the-scenes footage film of that
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putting it all together and shipping it over to glendale it really will i know that the hooked on vets collection you
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really focused on black corvettes and or silver corvettes tell me more about that
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and where that inspiration came from yeah i don't know where that came from steve except that i've always thought a
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black car if it's kept clean is absolutely stunning some people say no
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no it's got to be red it's got to be white that's a personal thing but for me a black car that is kept spotless is
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absolutely gorgeous contrastingly if you let a black car get dirty it really shows the dirt so anyway i was always
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attracted to a black car or a combination of black and silver and if you think about it if you've seen the
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pictures the 63 split window is a sebring silver exterior but it has a
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black interior so those two colors just speak to me so i bought the 63 split window and then
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years later when i bought the second car which was the 62 it also just happened to be silver with
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a black interior and i just locked in on that color combination and that's where it's remained as i collected the
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remainder of the corvettes there you go and i know that you've got almost every generation represented except for c4 if
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you had to keep one or two cars michael which ones would it be well sentimentally of course i would have to
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keep the 63 split window coupe that's the one that started it all for me and as i mentioned before and i told you
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earlier and i'm really dating myself here i was a junior in high school when that car came out i was growing up and
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going to high school in a small southeastern oklahoma town certainly never saw one come through town never
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saw one in person but i said someday i'm gonna have one of those that's how i
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wound up with that first car and it evolved from there that's a great story
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let's take our first break michael and coming up we're going to talk more about the neon signs here on corvette today
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the state of kansas and now back to corvette today with your
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host and my husband steve garrett hey thanks for listening to corvette
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today the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you by mid-america motorworks pursue your
14:18
passion at mamotoworks.com i'm your host steve garrett with me is the legendary corvette nation tv host
14:25
michael brown in this second segment we're going to talk about all the neon signs going up for sale at the mecum
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auction in glendale arizona in mid-march michael you own about 125 neon signs
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talk about how you got started collecting those and your interest in neon signs
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well it sort of was an evolutionary process as well steve and you know i grew up in the era and i'm really dating
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myself again i grew up in the area when neon signs were just everywhere they were a part of my downtown existence my
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first job besides a paper route in hugo oklahoma the summer between my sixth and
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seventh grades i got hired to work at a local dry goods store but we called it back then a department store it was
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called the people store this was long before walmart came into america and changed small town america so everyone
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went to this store and got their school clothes and shoes and so forth and i worked as a clerk i had to wear a shirt
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and tie i was 13 years old i sold clothes out front i had to clean out the restrooms in the back i helped offload
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the trucks anyway that was my experience in working in this dragon store it was called the
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people store and out front there was a 12 foot tall vertical double-sided neon
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sign that said the people store and red goo shoes and it had a red goo shoes
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logo on it so that was just an icon of my youth flash forward 40 years or more
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when my parents were still living in hugo and i was located here in the dallas fort worth area i would
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frequently go up there and about 12 or 14 years ago i went up there one time of course that store had long closed the
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sign was gone i found the sign out north of town it was derelict all the neon was broken and gone or whatever but i
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recovered that sign and it took me weeks to find someone who could restore a sign nobody works on these for the most part
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these days so that was an icon of my youth in the meantime as i was building the corvette garage
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beginning in 2006 at a new house we had acquired and i built the garage from the
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ground up i was putting corvettes in there but i thought well i need some decor some road art i didn't know that
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was a term for it back then but i just started buying a few signs and initially some of the signs that i
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bought were corvette related or automotive related but contemporary signs that you can buy off of ebay or
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anywhere now nothing historical just window signs some of them are called and just decorating the walls with those but
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then i had occasion to buy a couple of original porcelain neon signs from the 50s
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and they were just so neat that i started focusing more and more attention on those and ultimately i got to the
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point of putting all the corvettes that would fit in the garage you know no matter how big your garage you're going to fill it up absolutely right so i got
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to that point so i was focusing then more on just adding neon signs and going
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after original ones put those in the space that remained in the corvette garage and then we owned a home
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next to our property that we don't live in it's a vacant house but we have a property manager and some day employees
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and they sort of hang out there and his office is there it had a room that would lend itself it was two-story to putting
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neon signs in there so my collection then stopped with the corvettes because i was out of room and it spilled over
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into this house next door adjacent to the corvettes and then ultimately i filled that up with neon
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signs anyone can go to mekom's side now for the glendale sale and you can see a
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lot of really neat pictures that they took of the sign so that sort of evolved too and i really got into neon signs
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talk about the most unique sign that you've got there michael that'll be going up for sale well the first one
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that i mentioned the shoes and the red goose the people store sign that's sentimental to me obviously because i
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worked under that sign way over a half a century ago but there are a number of
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them that really are special some of them are recent acquisitions some of them by bone for several years in every
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instance where possible i tried to get at least a photo or two of the sign when it hung in its environment wherever that
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was and they have come literally from all over the united states one of the more recent acquisitions is a sign that
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i had restored my my sun guy and it says maxi's monogrammed hats wow and then
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it's got a flashing street sign of 46th and broadway and this is about a 10 foot
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wide sign that hung over a 10 foot wide store
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right in midtown manhattan at times square and it was one of those places where all the tourists go to get
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monogrammed hats or snow globes or whatever and this sign literally has been seen in person by millions of
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people and probably not a single one of them unless it happened to be a neon sign collector would have even noticed
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but it turned out so beautifully that it just really made a unique sign
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another one that i'll mention is the paramount picture sign and probably if i had decided to keep
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any one sign that may have even been it when you see this sign you realize the workmanship
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that went into creating and the bending of metal this is a classic paramount
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picture sign logo in script that everyone who's a movie buff has been familiar with your
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whole life this sign was on the back lot of paramount pictures in hollywood for many
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many years and i've never seen another one like it up close to see what it took again to
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bend this metal and do it in porcelain enamel it's just breathtaking it's such a unique sign i
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understand there's already been a lot of interest in that so each sign tells a story i have two or three signs that
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actually hung on old route 66 which i love the history of that and that still
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is the most famous highway in the world probably and people come from all over the world so again each sign where
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possible i've gotten to know its history and each one just like the corvettes is
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unique and holds a special part in my collecting heart if you will are there
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one or two signs that'll bring a tear to your eye when they cross the block and sell michael well possibly the people
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store signed because it was the first and actually there are two or three more signs that also came from hugo oklahoma
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and not all at once later i had a chance to acquire two signs one is a classic
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art deco pontiac bullnose sign that also was at a dealership in hugo and had been
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in storage for 35 years and i became aware that it was there and
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again this is a sign from my youth and that sign is almost flawless another one is a big 11 foot vertical buick sign it
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also was at the same dealership it was a dual dealership and for obvious reasons
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these are signs from my hometown and they hold a special part one other is a
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dual sign called the erie theater and that was our local downtown theater in
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hugo oklahoma and as a ten-year-old boy my buddy and i would ride our bicycle there every saturday morning and watch
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movies it cost a dime to get in the theater back then so for many reasons those signs of my
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youth will as you say possibly bring a tear to my eye but they're very special that's for sure well michael let's take
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our final break and coming up we're going to talk more specifically about the hooked on vets corvette collection
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or accessory pursue your passion with mid-america motorworks [Music]
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you're listening to the corvette today podcast with steve garrett
23:41
hey thanks once again for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you
23:47
by mid-america motorworks pursue your passion at mamotoworks.com
23:53
i'm your host steve garrett with me is legendary corvette nation tv host michael brown in this final segment
23:59
we're going to talk more about the hooked on vets corvette collection michael i know that you said in segment
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number one that the 63 split window was the car that really got you into corvettes and that's the same with me
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talk more about that car we'll go through all the cars as well well steve yeah the 63 split window as corvette
24:17
aficionados and perhaps people who aren't even corvette aficionados know is
24:23
unique the 63 split window coupe came out in 63 which was the 10th anniversary
24:29
of corvette first corvette hit the road in 1953. the 63 was the first time that corvette
24:36
offered a coupe earlier models had as an option a removable hard top but this was
24:41
the first time a coup came forward again it was the 10th anniversary it was a very special design it was a
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controversial design there were two famous engineers corvette guys early on
24:53
who were involved in the design of that one of them wanted it and one didn't obviously for 63 the one who wanted it
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won out and it's a striking striking design but there is a problem as you sit in the
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car and look in the rear view mirror all you see is that center stripe that separates the two windows thus the split
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window and i remember guys back then were saying it's a perfect place for a motorcycle cop to hide and come up
25:20
behind you you can't see it was controversial and as a result in 64 the
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split rear window went away it's a solid window so all of a sudden okay you have a one year you have an instant classic
25:33
because it's such a gorgeous design and that car that's the one that really i guess you would have to say hooked me
25:40
on bets initially i set it a goal it was a very long-term goal and turned out to
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be a long-term goal to acquire one but i got that a long time ago that's wonderful also you've got some really
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unique cars and you do have every generation represented except for c4 talk about some of the corvettes that
25:59
are there because you've got a c1 a black c1 that is one of four cars and then you've got some big block cars that
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are very rare as well well i do and actually at one point i had a c4 several
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years ago my biggest problem is i always bought i never sold but i traded my c4
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off from the time so i could acquire two c2s that little transaction gave me one
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of each of the five c2s from 63 through 67 which for many decades was the
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shortest generation until more recently when the c7s came along which also has been a five-year generational thing
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so yes i have two c-ones one is a 57 corvette and that was the first year
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that both the four-speed and fuel injection were offered on corvette as an option it was the last year of a single
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headlight and the little 57 is a favorite of several members of my family it's just a great looking car but the
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oldest car in the c1s and the oldest of my collection is as you mentioned a black 54.
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again all corvette people know that 53 was the first year they only built 300
27:12
corvettes that first year most of them were handmade they were imperfect in many ways all of them had a little six
27:18
cylinder side draft carburetor they were putt-putt cars but they were revolutionary in that they became
27:25
america's first sports car most of us still say america's only true sports car
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so there were 353 all of them wore white with a red interior and they had a beige
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convertible top in 54 the cars looked physically exactly
27:43
like the 53s except four colors were offered most of them still were in white but
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they offered a blue and a red in some numbers that i don't have on the tip of my tongue and
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depending on what you read there were only four that were original black cars
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in 1954 now some things say up to 11 or 12 nobody really knows for sure and in fact
28:11
nobody knows a lot or absolutely sure every now and then a 54 black one will
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come on the market and there is a claim made that this is one in four mecum is
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promoting this as one of the four and i truly believe it is i have documentation from a researcher
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back several years when i bought this he said i've looked at this exhaustively i can find none that were made according
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to vin numbers after yours i feel certain this is one of the original four
28:42
at one point i was at mccakin many people call the muscle car and corvette nationals a bob ashton show in chicago
28:50
every year where ncr's judges give certification to corvettes and i asked one i said how do you know for sure
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that a 54 black one is one of the original he said it's almost impossible to tell they really weren't doing trim
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tags back at the time sometime you can for instantly scrape the paint or whatever until but that's a
29:12
long answer to the question that yes this is believed to be one of only four
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of the original black corvettes and it's just in immaculate shape it's a very special car it's not a fast car it's the
29:25
only automatic corvette i've ever had until the c8 which as you know you can
29:30
only get an automatic now all of the others are four speed or six speed or seven depending on the year but the
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little 54 yeah that's the oldest and the anchor of my collection on that end and
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it's a really special car it really is and bob ashton was just on the corvette today podcast
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yes i'm going to be down there this november i'm going to be doing a seminar on the
29:52
corvette today podcast oh terrific which one of the corvettes are you going to miss the most michael well different
29:59
ones for different reasons steve and i'm not hedging obviously the 63 we talked about a tear in the eye this one will be
30:06
really special and hard to let go of but it's time and as i mentioned i've had that for 37 years but they all drive
30:14
differently the c2 big blocks that i have the 66 and 67 with those factory
30:19
installed side pipes i mean there's nothing like cruising down the road with that and people hear you as you know
30:26
before they see you yes with one of those cars so those are fun to drive but
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then you get into the later years the c6 the c7 and certainly the c8 i've got a
30:38
couple of zr1s that are supercharged they're just amazing to drive and fun to
30:43
drive so for different reasons each one shares a special and they're unique the
30:48
78 which was the longest generation the c3s my 78 of course is that's a 25th
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anniversary car it was also the first year that chevrolet was invited to pace
31:00
the indy 500 although i don't know why it took so long for them to ask so that car is fun to drive because it has that
31:08
long long nose and a little steering wheel and you sit there it's a unique driving experience
31:14
and for 15 years corvettes sort of looked very similar so even people who don't know corvettes if they see a c3
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they say oh yeah that's a corvette the 78 that i have is unique in that they made
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6502 of them that year which were replicas of the pace car but only 202 of
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them were four speeds i'm not sure why they made so few of them but my car is one of the four speeds and it's fun to
31:39
drive they all have their own unique characteristics and it would be hard to pick out which is the favorite to drive
31:46
but if you go for speed obviously it has to be some of the very latest and newest ones michael you have a c8 corvette
31:53
that's going to go up on the block as well give me your impressions of the c8 and what you think of that car i bought
31:59
a couple of cars in the past and done what's called a museum delivery so the
32:04
museum delivery is a really special thing and it's fun to do at least once it benefits the national corvette museum
32:11
but you go there and they do the delivery and i had done that at least once in the past
32:17
but when i bought the ca i decided to drive it home previously i had shipped it back to texas so i took delivery on
32:25
march 16th of 2020 it was the 273rd c8 that was ever built and if you start
32:33
thinking about the dates that literally is when the pandemic started rolling
32:38
across the united states and literally i chased or it chased me from bowling
32:43
green kentucky all the way back to my home in the dallas fort worth area in texas
32:49
but i got to drive that car 756 miles in the first 48 hours that i
32:55
owned it and boy what a unique experience that was you forget that the engine is behind you
33:02
except for the fact that the hood is so short you seem to be so close to the pavement up front
33:09
but response time and just the feel of driving a c8 is so quick it's so light
33:16
it's just a totally unique experience we've been talking about a rear engine or a mid-engine corvette for decades but
33:24
now that it's here i recommend everybody get behind the wheel what if you can it's a fun fun car to drive it was 60
33:32
years in the making that's for sure we're going to glendale arizona in the middle of march give us the exact dates
33:37
once again and if someone wants to preview the neon signs and your hooked on vets collection where can they go see
33:44
it prior to the auction okay good question the sales the make them auction
33:49
sale in glendale which of course is a suburb of phoenix the actual sale dates
33:54
are march 16th 17th 18th and 19th for more information just simply go to
34:01
mecum.com and then you'll see a list of their upcoming sales and very near the top of that is glendale if you click on
34:09
glendale you can scroll down through and see all of the cars that will be offered and of course there are hundreds but
34:16
you'll find a couple of headings one says hooked on vets corvettes and one says hooked on vets road art which is
34:23
all of my neon signs and the mecum people as i mentioned earlier have done an amazing job of coming in and
34:30
photographing each individual car and i think there's like two and a half or three dozen photos from every angle of
34:37
every car and similarly on the neon signs and other signs they photograph
34:43
these from every angle up close and so you can see every possible area of each
34:49
sign and car on the mecum site they've just done an amazing job of making it
34:54
available for any prospective buyer to see and make a decision and feel confident of what they might be
35:00
interested in so i hope i'll see a lot of your listeners to this podcast in glendale next month in march if any of
35:08
you who happen to be listening happen to wind up with either one of my cars or some of the road art some of the neon
35:14
signs i hope we'll have a chance to shake hands and say hello michael it's been an honor and a pleasure having you
35:20
back on the corvette today podcast all the best of luck in the meekum auction and i'll look forward to seeing you in
35:26
march in glendale thank you steve i appreciate you having me back on the show you're doing a great job with the
35:32
podcast and i look forward to seeing you soon as well thanks for listening to corvette today and please be sure to
35:38
tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the corvette today podcast and also thanks to our
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at arrowlaurie.com you've been listening to corvette today
36:08
with steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on corvette
36:14
today you can email him at steve garrett dj gmail.com
36:19
that's steve garrett dj gmail.com garrett has two r's and two t's or
36:26
connect with steve on social media on facebook twitter or instagram using at steve garrett dj
36:33
thanks again for listening to corvette today
36:59
you
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