The Infamous Pond Car Collection

Bob Pond's car collection is a dream turned reality for most car enthusiasts. Over the last sixty years he has built an impressive empire of amazing vintage cars including high model luxury items. This article gives a background peek into his notable collection and the history of Bob Pond's collecting endeavors. Read more about Pond's car collection.

Pond left the Navy in October of 1945, aching to jump into the booming business of commercial aviation. But the family business called him back, and -- owing to that sense of obligation ingrained in all Midwesterners -- he signed back with Advance Machine Co., an organization, started by his grandfather Merritt Pond, that built floor polishers and industrial vacuum cleaners. Pond was the eighth employee. He went from bookkeeper to salesman in just six months, and the traveling required by the job was the perfect excuse to talk his family into buying an airplane -- a Cessna 180, then a 182, then larger and larger planes. A jet came in 1970, fulfilling both Pond's overseas expansion and flying dreams. 

— Blake Z. Rong

The Art of Preservation

The art form of collecting older cars is growing in popularity but there has been a little confusion in the verbiage that accompanies this hobby.There are stark differences in the requirements and conditions for a barn find as oppose to a preservation class piece. This article enlightens us in the refined pursuit of collectibles and how this time tested hobby made its way into the world of vintage cars.

If preservation-class cars appeal to the true connoisseur, barn finds appeal to the adventurer, the romantic, the dreamer. While a barn isn't, strictly speaking, necessary for a barn find (any type of nonideal, long-term storage will do), the detritus of the passage of time must be obvious. Thick dust (preferably as thick as the layer of ash deposited by the last eruption of Mount Pinatubo) is de rigueur. We've even heard stories of people running vacuum cleaners in reverse to create or enhance this effect.

— Barn Find Cars vs. Preservation Class

A Mustang Worth One Million Dollars?

The Mustang is nothing short of an American staple. It's arrival to the Ford assembly line quickly challenged the automotive industry and limitations of American car design. The explosive sales over the first two years were record breaking, surpassing the million unit mark. This condensed documentary walks us through the history of the "Million Dollar Mustang".

The Million Dollar Mustang” is not about how much these great cars go for at auctions in today's heady times, but about what made them worth so much in the first place. Nearly five years in the making, the documentary starts out talking about the Ford Mustang in general, how they sold 22,000 of them on the first sales day and then sold a million of them in the first two years and things like that -- the notion that the Mustang was a revolution in American car design and in the American consciousness. Then it starts to narrow its focus more and pretty soon the bulk of the piece is all about the Shelby GT350 R. This is a good place for it to go because that car, made by Carroll Shelby and his team of motorsports greats, took the Falcon-based economy car and made it corner and brake just as well as it accelerated, for the most part. Once it gets set on that particular Shelby, the film really goes to town.

— Million Dollar Mustang

Oliver Jordan's 220 Car Collection

Oliver Jordan's stash of pre-war cars was recently discovered and entrusted to the hands of VanDerBrink Auctions. This massive collection of cars has been hidden in Enid, Oklahoma for over sixty-one years. Jordan, the car collector, was known around town as "the man with all the cars". VanDerBrink has promised to publish an online list of items for sale prior to the actual auction.

It's been six months since some 500 cars from the gigantic Lambrecht Chevrolet stash found new homes, and many of them are well into their restorations. In fact, all a few needed was a new battery, some fluids, and a few hours of work to be brought back to life. Others will surely be preserved as-is, not even with their dust wiped away. And as historic as that sale was, we always suspected that there could be a few more car stashes in that part of the country that were ripe for picking. It turns out, it didn't take long for another large collection to come to light, this time in Oklahoma. Some 220 cars, most of them pre-war, are set to go to the highest bidder this summer in what promises to be another grand spectacle. And the same auction company that oversaw the sale of the cars from Lambrecht Chevrolet will be auctioning them off one by one on June 7. So just what is this collection? Yvette VanDerBrink of VanDerBrink Auctions clued us in.

— 220 Car Collection Sold by VanDerBrink Auctions