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Cars

A mechanic, with great benefits

This car lover tools through his neighborhood in a different full-size classic car seemingly every week - but they aren't his.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published August 19, 2005

TAMPA - Jim Ward is the talk of his working class neighborhood in east Tampa. Every couple of days he drives up to his house with a different classic car. It might be a 1956 Olds Super 88 hardtop today, a '56 Lincoln Mark II tomorrow, a '59 Bonneville convertible next week.

His neighbors might not realize that none of these cars actually belong to Ward. He has a working relationship with local car collector Elton Marcus, who owns dozens of cars, with a focus on pristine full-sized cars from the 1950s and '60s.

Marcus likes owning the cars, but doesn't care much about working on them. Ward likes working on them. It's a great arrangement, Ward said.

"I keep them running, and so I get to drive these cars as much as Elton does," Ward said. "He drives them, but he has so many it takes him a few months to cycle through them. So I get to play with the toys I like to play with, and I get to drive the cars I like to drive. They're the envy of everybody in the neighborhood."

Ward isn't averse to owning classic cars. In fact, he has a fairly remarkable collection himself.

"I have 75 cars back in Arizona," he said. "They're all in dry storage, 63 in Tucson and 12 in Prescott."

Ward grew up in the car business in Commack, Long Island. His grandfather owned a car dealership and a body shop, and his mother owned several Chevrolet and Oldsmobile dealerships.

Ward worked in various capacities in the automotive industry all his life and started collecting cars when he lived in Arizona.

About a quarter of his collection consists of a fairly obscure Kaiser car from the early 50s called a Henry J, and a variant marketed by Sears called an All State, which was the same car with a different grille.

"I have 18 of them," Ward said. "It was the first compact car. They're getting pretty rare these days, especially the six-cylinder."

Sears contacted him about 20 years ago and offered to buy one of his All States for $35,000. Turns out it was the first six-cylinder All State ever produced.

Ward wasn't selling. His Arizona car collection is his nest egg, and he figured prices will just go up.

"I retired once and I'm going to do it again," he said. "That's what those cars are for."

A few cars have passed through his hands over the years, though. One he remembers especially well was a 1962 Thunderbird Sports Roadster that he bought in the mid 1970s for $275. He did some research and found that it had previously resided at the LBJ Ranch in Texas, the home of former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

"It was right after he died," Ward said. "I called the ranch and I was lucky enough to speak to Lady Bird. She remembered the car and said it had been a birthday present for one of his daughters. I believe it was Lynda. She only drove it for a year."

Ward painted the car and replaced the interior. He sold it to the president of the Thunderbird Club of America for $24,000.

"Lady Bird was very gracious," he said. "I'm a Republican, but she was one damn nice Democrat."

Arizona may be largely desert, but it's fertile ground for a car collector, Ward said. Because there's little rain or even humidity, auto bodies stay in nearly perfect condition a lot longer than they do elsewhere. Ward started picking up beautiful-looking cars. A lot of times they had mechanical problems, but he could fix those, and they made the cars extremely affordable.

He came to Florida in 1985, figuring he was done working on other people's cars for good. But then a couple of years ago he saw a newspaper ad that Marcus had placed. He was looking for someone, preferably retired, who had the knowledge and the passion to keep a fleet of classic cars in shape.

"I saw that and thought, I should go talk to this guy," Ward said.

They've been working together ever since. Marcus buys cars at a furious pace, and entrusts Ward to maintain the beauty and the value of his fleet.

In recent months, Marcus has purchased several Lincoln Mark VIs. Ward became so enamored with the car that he actually bought one himself, a rare event since he moved to Florida.

The Mark VI isn't old enough to be a hot property with collectors just yet. But Ward sees the car becoming extremely popular with people who want a classy and distinctive but still affordable ride.

"The Mark VI is the last of the Marks with the classic square body," he said. "It has a small engine, just a 302, but they've got fuel injection so they have power but they get fantastic gas mileage. They get 25, 26, 27 miles per gallon on the highway. And the parts are easy to find and affordable."

[Last modified August 18, 2005, 11:46:08]