71 / 110
Driving through the absolutely
beautiful, lush shades of green, Cana-
dian countryside between Georgetown
and Halton Hills, I start to recognize
bits and pieces of this gently rolling
hill farm country in Ontario. No won-
der Peter Klutt chose this area to
headquarter Legendary Motorcars
Company (LMC), especially when you
consider prospective customers are
able to test drive his large inventory of
classic, exotic, and muscle cars
through this beautiful scenery with
nary a vehicle in sight. I’m imagining
driving along in a 1960s Jaguar E
Type, mid-year Stingray or Shelby
Cobra, all of which would perfectly fit
the easygoing, birds and butterflies
ambiance of this gently curving farm
country back road.
Instead, I’m putzin’ along in my
luxurious, Japanese rentmobile, which
whenever I come to a full stop, shuts
itself completely off – as in dead in the
water. Hey, rental lady, ya’ coulda’
given me this little piece of informa-
tion while I was signing my life away.
Talk about throwing off my internal
synchronicity quantum gyroscope, this
hunk of recycled American beer cans
hybrid goes into stop/start mode every
time you stop, be it in traffic, at a stop
sign or waiting at a red light. Got news
for ya’ rental lady: a little word of
warning would have been nice, since I
drive real life, real world cars, which
only shut off when I manually want
them to, not when a computer shuts
them off at the flick of a microchip. Am
I griping? You bet!
Anyway, arriving at Peter’s toy
box, otherwise known as Legendary
Motorcars Company, I enter the show-
room and am soon greeted with a hale
and hearty, “
Hello, Bill!
” by none other
than “the man” himself. Peter Klutt is
known throughout the collector car
world as an outgoing, friendly car guy,
who is honest and straightforward in
his classic, exotic, and muscle car deal-
ings. These natural traits are obvious
the second you shake his hand while
looking him in the eye, because you in-
stantly know this car guy not only
“talks the talk” but he “walks the
walk.”
He began walking the walk at
around the ripe ol’ age of 15, when his
dad, among other mechanical tutoring,
taught him how to weld – a fabrication
or sculptural process that joins mate-
rials, usually metals, by causing fu-
sion. It involves melting the base
metal, then adding a filler material to
form a weld pool that cools to form a
strong joint (I looked all that up).
Peter combined learned talents such
as this with the attitude that if man
built it, he could easily take it apart
and rebuild it.
His first practical use of this talent
and attitude involved the purchase of
a ‘71 Mach I, which he was able to buy
“on the cheap.” Peter then did what
any kid with a hotter than hot welding
torch would do, he commenced to tear
the patina-worn Mach I apart, repair
what needed repairing, restore what
needed restoring, and immediately if
not sooner, sold the Blue Oval for a
tidy profit. So much for the ol’ newspa-
per route. This young’un went into the
car biz!
The first shop he ever worked his
car magic in was his dad’s personal
garage, so when the next door neigh-
bor’s Datsun 510 needed some custom-
by-crunch body work, out went pop’s
car, and in went the neighbor’s Dat-
sun. After giving Peter the keys to the
wrinkled Datsun, the neighbor went
on vacation for a couple of weeks, and
upon returning to the homestead
found his perfectly straight 510 with
an additional 200 miles on the odome-
ter. Turning to Peter, he asked, “
Do you
have a driver’s license?
” Peter replied,
“
No.
” The young, unlicensed entrepre-
neur simply told his cash in hand cus-
tomer, “
I had to go to the auto parts
store to get a lot of parts and bondo
.”
It was probably his first example of
honesty is the best policy.
His son Ryan is the first apple that
didn’t fall far from the car guy tree,
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2017 71
– Bill Fulk