A Bite of the Market -Collector Car Trends for the Next Six Months by Mike Thies

As I am appraising vehicles, many folks ask me what the future holds. I tell here what I tell them. So often I am too close to the "real metal" to have much of a crystal ball and it's not my strength, anyway. However, when I stand back and do the research, sometimes a cloudy picture does come through. It seems to me that the last…

JUDGING THE OPEN CAR SHOW

A Practical Guide for Judges at Local Three-to-Four-Hour Community Car Shows

Prepared by Mike Thies

Certified Vehicle Appraiser, I-VAN #04152019

Global Automotive Services LLC, Dacula, Georgia

Copyright November 2011, August…

A Bite of History by Mike Thies

1947 Daimler 2.5 Liter Sedan - Picnic Table Trunk, Hand Built Coach

I've spent a good part of my life around American iron, so when a car crosses my desk that was built an ocean away by a company that was outfitting British royalty before Ford ever built a Model T, it gets my attention in a different way. The Daimler 2.5 Litre, known in period as the DB18, is exactly that kind of car. Daimler had already spent…

A Bite of History by Mike Thies

Maserati & Chrysler

I've always had a soft spot for stories where two companies that had no business working together somehow made it work anyway, and the Chrysler TC by Maserati is exactly that kind of tale. Lee Iacocca had a long friendship with Alejandro de Tomaso going back decades, and by the mid-1980s he wanted a personal luxury convertible that could carry some…