They are, of course, one in the same – collectibles and needful things. And, oh, how they can get their claws into you. I’ve been collecting car junk and related paraphernalia since I was a kid, beginning largely with Corgi and Dinky 1/43-scale die cast cars. But, I think it really shifted into high gear when we started restoring the 1965 Mustang my father dragged home one day in 1984 much to everyone’s surprise. In restoring the car, Dad told me to hit all the Ford and Mustang shows, photograph everything, every detail, and go to swap meets and buy up all the Ford and Mustang brochures and ads I could get my hands on. Okay. So, as you can imagine, I have a seemingly endless string of marketing materials for the 1965 Ford, largely revolving around Mustang. I created a small display in a bookshelf system in my room, a space where the ads, brochures, owner’s manuals, trinkets, etc were on display. Looking back, honestly, for a “kid” to have conjured that up – pretty cool. I even had an original Rotunda oil filter still in the box. Still have the filter, but the box didn’t survive the move to Texas three years ago. Angry and dismayed, I tossed the box – my daughter grabbed it and cut the lid off so I could at least keep that. Very thankful for her cool and quick thinking. Somewhere there’s an AM/FM/8-Track head unit too. But I never seemed to stop. Posters, signs, F&B lighted signs, on and on and on… the rabbit hole. My bedroom looked like most garages by the time I was about 13 – you should have seen my first apartment.
One guy who’s quietly huge in the collectibles and needful things arena is Steve Contarino. Some of you might remember the name from years back, in the printed issues of Garage Style, he was an advertiser who ran a Checker restoration company. Yes, the Checker Cab cars, as made famous by New York and the TV show “Taxi.” Steve has long had an impressive amassment of automobilia from all corners of the globe. Among his ventures, he’s launched into the automobilia business with his very own Automobilia Vintage, which I like pronouncing as “Automobilia Veen-Tahj.” Not sure that’s the right way to say it, but it’s fun. Anyway, with that in mind, I hope you’ll welcome Steve to the business side of the rabbit hole and check out his website and add to your own gathering of needful things!
Thanks for stopping by!
