I think I remember him from the early days of the CCCI; there can't be many 'George's with '57 El Morroco convertibles..
You're memory is probably correct Gary. There is only 1 57 vert El Morocco in the world that is known, He's had that car for more years than I can remember. His name is George Swartz (not sure if I have the last name spelled correctly) He's a hell of a nice guy. He does all his own work from start to finish, including paint. He even makes some of his own parts in hand made molds. When he bought that El Morocco it was missing a few parts and as you can imagine, nothing is reproduced for that car. He made sand cast molds to produce parts himself, and also makes some of the fuelie parts for the 57 and up chevys. He subs nothing out himself, does it all at home. Very crafty fellow, and loves to restore classic neon signs as well, you'll see some of those at BJ next year. He has a huge and rare collection of them.
I watched that 57 fuelie black widow race car come together back in the 80's. We were in Charlotte at the Autofair in about 1987 when he found a NOS gas tank for it. Basically it's a 57 limousine 20 gallon tank for extra fuel capacity. To find one new in the box was rare even in 1987. He paid big bucks for it back then and had 3 or 4 other offers for it for more money before we could get it back to the truck, lol. That car sold for $200k last night.
He told me while talking to him that BJ had those 3 vettes in their possession since November of 2014, so they could haul them around the country on display at various auctions for advertisement. So this past weekend was the first time George was able to put his eye's on them in over a year. That alone made him very nervous. He also said there were more than 50 people flying in just to bid on those 3 cars. So I knew it would be a good night for him. I had a pretty good feeling that Rick Hendrick would wind up with them. I think I was more sad to see them go than he was, he's had that stuff for decades. He was tired of all the upkeep and maintenance and said it was time to let some of them go. He still has a small collection of really cool cars he is hanging on to for the time being.
Overall, George said that he has been extremely pleased with the way BJ handled everything and how the operation ran, very smooth, no problems and nice people to deal with. He said he couldn't have had a better experience. He told me this before he made his $2 million + so that speaks volumes.
I thought I'd pass that along because usually all you hear about is the headaches and complaints and no one really bothers to speak up when they have a good experience. Happy for George, he had a good weekend.