The Shelby American (Summer 2022)

The SHELBY AMERICAN Summer 2022 11 Lee Cross: A Tourmeister Wherever He Goes Brooks Laudin recently submitted this report to SAAC HQ. Lee Cross is developing something of a reputation as a serial tour organ- izer. It seems he can’t help himself; if there is a hole in his calendar he calls up some buddies and suggests a mini- tour somewhere, to see something. Last week he set his sights on the 72nd Annual Grand National Road- ster Show in Pomona, California. Ac- cepting his invitation were Drew Serb, Drew Garban, Carter Cook, Joe Ho- risk, Emerson Blue, Steve Rohlier, Dave Wagner and your faithful corre- spondent – a diverse crew to say the least. Drew Serb is a tightly focused Cobra guy; Drew Garban is more of an East Coast hot rod/Rolling Bones guy with an agnostic taste for anything that catches his eye; Carter Cook is a welder-extraordinaire, hot rod fabrica- tor and lapsed drag racer who hap- pened to win the 2017 T.R.O.G. in a Bones car; Joe Horisk is a long-time hot rodder who lost a small fortune (as they all do) chasing the Ridler Award; Emerson Blue apparently can’t say what he does for a living but he lives in the D.C. area and is partial to Ger- man slag that comes out of Stuttgart; Steve Rohlier has whittled his pile down to a couple of Corvettes, includ- ing an L88, plus a 289 Cobra; and Dave Wagner, is a 4th generation Ford Motor Company employee before his retirement. He used to pursue his hobby on evenings and weekends but now he’s full-time, building and restor- ing Cobras and related AC Cars. Lee arranged a full day on Thurs- day, January 27 with tours at the Pe- terson Museum, primarily for the Vault and the James Bond Vehicle dis- play, plus the stunning Kip and Amy Cyprus collection. With our appetite for fine cars whetted, we arrived that evening in Pomona for the Move-In- Night Dinner on Thursday, giving us an early view as the cars were being placed and prepared for the show. What was usually a sit-down dinner was reduced to a boxed sandwich, a half-pint of mac n’ cheese and a Coke. What do you want for $84 a head in these COVID days? On the bright side, at least there was a show this year. Friday morning started with our hungry crew, except for Joe, looking for anything other than a boxed break- fast. Drew Serb had to leave early to meet with a client at his restoration shop back in the Bay Area so we dropped him at the airport and headed for Norm’s (“WE NEVER CLOSE”) in nearby Claremont to fill the tank be- fore walking the show. There were now seven of us and there was a line out the door, so we got our name on the list and found an area outside to wait. Dave Wagner had been talking for some weeks about a Weber-powered ’34 Ford roadster that was coming up for sale at the Gooding & Co. auction in Scottsdale. It was a full, 8 to 10- year-old Roy Brizio build with only 900 miles on the odo, offered at the auction with no reserve by an elderly consigner who simply wished to move it along to the next owner. Like most of us, Dave has always had his eye out for something of interest to add to the pile, but as things developed he had been distracted just the week before the auction by a residential property in Florida where he could escape the Detroit winters. So the ’34 roadster was now off the table as he watched the auction live on his phone while we waited for our table at Norm’s. That’s when he reminded the group that the roadster he had been coveting was about to cross the block. Lee Cross took an interest and looked at the car on his phone; there were 37 minutes to go. Dave had arranged for a friend, John Barrett, to look at the car at the auction and the report was all good; the car was a barely-driven beauty. With the purchase of the Florida prop- erty, Dave had told Barrett a couple of days earlier that we was out of the bid- ding. So Lee got on the phone to a con- tact he had from a prior Gooding auction and was directed to Justin, a Gooding phone-bidder operator. Mean- while, our name came up at Norm’s and we moved inside to our table, while Lee finished getting “registered” to bid as we walked in. There were 10 minutes to go when we were seated. Lee was on the phone with Justin while Dave was counting down the time from the live feed on his phone. The bid was at $84,000, the ask was $85,000 and there were no offers as the minutes ticked by. Lee stayed quiet. Between ordering food and heckling Lee, the noise at our table was reaching a crescendo; with about a minute to go Lee finally told Justin to place a “knock-out” bid at $90,000. Even miscommunication broke Lee’s way that morning; Justin put in $85,000, the bid changed on the auc- tion feed and the shot clock was reset to 3 minutes. Tick, tick, tick…. boom; the car was Lee’s just 40 minutes after he had first heard about it, at $5,000 less than he had been willing to pay for it. It was an epic, noisy, sight-unseen car purchase if there ever was one. The underbidder was Dave Wagner’s ob- server at the auction, John Barrett, also a friend of Lee’s, who later in the day expressed great regret at letting that one get away. Roy Brizio was at Pomona and was pleased that Lee could now properly wear the Brizio-Built jacket Roy had given him a couple of years earlier. Lee had scored a full Brizio build at some- thing like a third of its original cost. Talk to anyone who has built a hot rod or street rod and they’ll tell you this is the way to do it; find a car that’s close to what you want, if not spot on, and let the guy who built it take the finan- cial hit. Best of all, with the money he “saved” buying his first street rod, Lee bought breakfast or everyone.