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On the Road with Dan Barton
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May 16, 2024
Welcome to JC Whitney's "On The Road" Podcast. Please "Subscribe" to our channel. Dan Barton (SoCalCarGuy.com) shares poignant stories behind his collection of ultra-rare vintage cars. Dan’s personal experiences with these classic automobiles showcase the history, restoration, and artistry behind their preservation. Thanks for tuning in to the first episode of On The Road, our new podcast series. We will be featuring an episode every other week with industry experts, friends, and storytellers. SUBSCRIBE to our channel so you don't miss an episode. Visit Dan Barton https://socalcarguy.com/
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0:00
Hello and welcome
0:07
I'm your host, Angel Sala-Balen, and today we have Dan Barton in the studio with us
0:13
And Dan, can you give us a little bit of an introduction about yourself and how you got
0:17
to the automotive world and where you are? Glad to do it. How much time do you have
0:23
I grew up with these cars in the 50s and 60s. They were a big part of pretty much everyone's life
0:31
They were beautiful. We always look forward to the next year. What are they going to look like
0:35
What are they going to be like? What color are they going to be? Are they going to be fast
0:39
You know, we grew up with these cars. As time went along, I owned many of them, sold a lot of them for pennies what they're
0:47
worth today. I wish I kept all of them. Through time, I started to collect them
0:54
When I retired and moved out here to California, I sold my collection completely
0:58
I have one vehicle left. That's all you can drive is one at a time
1:03
But years ago, I had a friend of mine ask me if I would sell all of his cars
1:09
He had about 150 of them he didn't want to deal with. The phone blowing up, he didn't want to deal with
1:15
Tire kickers, he just wanted someone to sell the pile. I built a website, thought I would do that
1:24
It would be over shortly. That was many years ago, and I'm still doing this
1:29
That's how I got here. I enjoy it. I love the people. I love the cars
1:33
There's a lot of good people in this business. A lot of them are in it for the hobby
1:40
A lot of them are in it to invest. But I think even if they are in it for the investment purposes and reasons, I think they
1:48
all have a love for these vehicles. What do you have currently going on in the automotive industry or world that you'd like
1:57
to share with us? Many years ago, I started a website due to a change in my business
2:05
I had a friend. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was in another industry at the time. I started a website with a friend of mine that had about 150 cars
2:13
He wanted to sell all of them. Half of them were in a field rotting away. He had the other half spread out in buildings all across this small town in Kentucky
2:20
He didn't want to deal with all of the tire kickers and phone calls
2:24
He just wanted to sell all of his cars. He asked me if I would do that, and I told him I would do that
2:30
So I built a website. I'm a tech guy. I thought it would be a short-term thing, and it's ended up to be going on now since
2:39
the late 90s, I guess, early 2000s. I'm still doing that to this day
2:43
I've built a worldwide clientele, and I love what I do. I love the people in this business
2:51
I love talking to them. A lot of them have their own stories to tell
2:55
It's part of our life. Like I said, I grew up with them. I know them really well
3:00
We never thought that these cars would be worth what they are today, but they are
3:05
And they're art. It's art on wheels. After World War II, our boys came home, and women that were in the armed forces
3:13
They came home, and they basically said, we're going to build cars
3:18
We're going to build them big, and we're going to build them beautiful, and we're going to
3:22
paint them pink, and we don't care what the world thinks. And back in the 50s, and for the most part through the 60s, and part of the 70s, for
3:31
that matter, early part of the 70s, the big three, they changed their body styles drastically
3:36
every year, which was a tremendous tooling effort. So we're saying big three
3:40
You're talking Chevy, Ford, Chrysler? General, yes. General Motors, Ford, Chrysler. They built beautiful cars, and they're still beautiful to this day
3:49
So we talked about this a little bit off camera, but out of all of those cars, we're talking
3:55
a lot of cars, right? And I mean, even cars out of your collection
3:58
What were the standouts or your favorites out of that collection? And if you could pick one, which one would it be
4:04
Mine would be the 62 Corvette. 62 Corvette. Because that was my first car. Gorgeous. Yeah
4:10
It was just beautiful. My second favorite, probably, because it's so gaudy, is the 59 Cadillac Eldorado Brits convertible
4:20
And I found one of those, they only made 100 of them, I believe
4:24
It was 100 of them that had every option on it, including bucket seats, air conditioning
4:29
what have you. They were pretty loaded to begin with, but not all of them had air conditioning, and
4:33
not all of them had bucket seats. But the one I found, I found it in a carport in Tampa, Florida
4:40
And it was just sitting there, and it had beer cans in it, it had paint cans sitting
4:44
on the hood. It was just a catch-all. I mean, it needed everything
4:48
So I bought the car, and I blew it up, and I dipped it
4:51
And it only had one little tiny spot of rust in it. When you say dipped it, what do you mean
4:56
Dipped it in acid, which strips, you know, you explode the whole car. You take it completely apart, and then you have the body shell
5:03
And dip it in acid, and leave it in acid. That's a technical process I don't know a whole lot about
5:08
But when they pull it up, all the paint's been stripped, everything, all the rust has been stripped
5:12
And if you have a car that has a lot of chicken wire and Bondo in it, and rust, you're not
5:16
gonna pull up much. But this car was 100% there. It had one tiny hole in the passenger side front seat floor pan, about four inches by
5:26
four inches. And I was talking to a guy yesterday, telling him about this morning what I'm gonna be doing
5:31
and told him that story. He said, oh, that was probably just a leaky heater core
5:35
He said that was common. So the heater core would leak and just pool right there
5:40
And I said, wow, that's obviously, I'm sure that's what happened. And I restored it
5:44
It's a 100 point car now. And then I sold it to a collector that's up in Canada
5:50
He still has the car. And he laughs at me. He goes, I'm never gonna sell it back to you, Dan
5:55
Now when you say a 100 point car, you mean a flawless car
5:59
Pretty much as flawless as you can get. I don't think there's really any 100 point car that's absolutely perfect
6:06
You can find something if you have a magnifying glass. But somebody tried
6:10
Somebody tried. So I call it a 100 point car. It was pretty flawless
6:15
It's a 100 point car in our mind. Yeah, that's it. So you talked about your 62 Vet
6:22
You talked about how you got into the world, or how you're still currently in the world
6:27
with your online website, selling cars. Can you single out a moment in your life where it was definite, that automotive world, whether
6:39
getting your hands dirty, collecting cars, or selling cars was it for you
6:46
Was there a single moment that you realized? Yes, but I'll give you a little background
6:53
I grew up with these cars, love them. They're just part of your life when you're growing up
6:59
When the new model years would come out, we would all, what are they going to look like
7:04
Back in the day, when we were kids, we could look in the rear view mirror driving our car
7:08
and the headlights behind us, we could tell what kind of car it was, if you can believe that
7:13
That's a 57 Chevy. And sure enough, it's a 57 Chevy. But I grew up loving them, and then I started to collect them, one at a time
7:23
I had another 62 Corvette that a fella, he needed money for his business, and he had
7:29
to have $5,000 instantly. So he asked me if I'd buy his car, and I told him I would, and I did
7:36
I was in Fort Lauderdale at the time, and that car was up in Washington State in Seattle
7:42
I took about three months to finally go get it. When I did get it, of course I had paid for it on the spot back then
7:49
When I got it, and I walked in and saw it, I was floored
7:52
It was just 10 times as beautiful as he described it. And so that was my second 62
8:00
So they have been a part of my life. I've loved them, drove them, collected them
8:05
And then I had a change in the business that I was in years ago. What business were you in
8:09
I was in the apparel business, high fashion ladies apparel. I had a stellar reputation worldwide, and in the United States, I represented three
8:17
of the top designers out of Los Angeles in the southeast of the United States
8:22
And I had showrooms across the country. And when Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1999, overnight my
8:31
job went to China, and that was devastating. That was devastating. We kind of knew it was coming, but we really didn't know the impact of it would be
8:43
We didn't really, I don't think we really thought that we would lose our livelihood
8:47
and our jobs overnight like that. And so that kind of prompted you to switch gears
8:51
It did. Okay. It did. I didn't know what to do though at the time
8:56
And so I was sharing with a friend of mine that had about 150 cars in a small town in Kentucky
9:03
So that was the opening part where you were saying this guy, he was like, I need to get
9:06
rid of all of these cars without the hassle. He wanted to sell the pile
9:10
He didn't want his phone blowing up. He wanted me to deal with that
9:15
He had about 75 or 80 of them in a field riding away
9:19
They were just a junkyard basically. And then the other were nice drivers or spread out in buildings all over a small town
9:25
So I thought, yeah, I'll do this and that'll take a little while and that'll be that
9:29
And I'm still doing it. So you got- Many years later. Yeah
9:34
You got bit with the car selling bug. I did. Yeah. And so before you started selling cars, you had a collection of cars
9:41
I had about 14 cars. I had a number of 1953 Buick Skylarks
9:45
They're all convertibles. 54 Buick Skylarks. Super rare cars. Super rare. Yeah
9:50
Beautiful cars. I had a 58 Bonneville convertible, 67 GTO convertible, 59 Eldorado Brits convertible
9:58
I had some Corvettes. I owned a number of 54 Buick Skylarks, which are very rare
10:05
They only made 836 of them. They were all convertibles. There was a signature car for Buick back in the day
10:13
And I thought that every one of them, if they were even, there was a slight hope of salvaging
10:20
them and bringing them back to the beautiful glory that they were when they were made
10:25
it would be worth it. And I had a phone call one day and there was a 54 Buick Skylark sitting in a creek, sitting
10:33
in a creek in Canada. And I had him send me pictures full of rust on the bottom, but all the essential, all
10:40
the rare parts, the taillights, the medallions and the seats, all the unique parts of that
10:44
car were there and unscathed. But the car itself needed everything from the floor pan down
10:51
It needed everything. So I bought that car and went to Canada and took it out of the creek, brought it back
10:59
And I had to find a donor car, a nice little 54 Buick Century, two-door hardtop that had
11:06
no rust on it, California car. And I took that and I restored that and I chopped up the nice little rust-free parts
11:12
car for the floor pan for a convertible. You have to do it, right
11:16
Someone's got to have the donor car, right? You have to do it. You have to
11:20
I had it done by a guy that knew his business. He knew what he was doing
11:26
And when he was finished with it, you would have never known that was a car that had undergone
11:33
a complete restoration like he had done to it. That car is a beautiful, gorgeous car today
11:39
I don't know who owns it, but it's black with a red interior today and a black top
11:46
I hope whoever owns it is still enjoying it. There it is
11:50
There it is. So if you have a 1954 black Skylark with red interior, let us know
11:57
Send us a picture. We'd love to talk to you. All right, Dan, that was an amazing story
12:01
Thank you so much. Glad to do it, Angel. Always a pleasure to have you in here. Appreciate it
12:05
Thank you.
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