I recently attended a car show in Palm Beach, FL that was hosted by John Staluppi. I frequently drive by an old Sears shopping center that I remember used to be part of a large mall. The mall was knocked down and only the actual Sears store was left. It is not much to see from the road and is fronted by a few small storefronts. The stores are your typical 25x50 stores inside, but the building goes WAAAYYYYYY back. I never gave it much thought. Turns out, that John Staluppi owns a ton of car dealerships in New York and also builds expensive yachts (is there any other kind?). What is really cool is that it's just an ordinary old building that you would not give it a second look. However, inside, the entire store has been converted to look like a town. There is a paved road that circles around the store with parking spots and a park in the middle. The stores look like small town stores you would see in a 1950's small town. It reminded me of the town in Back to the Future in 1955. It had a bakery, a Big Boy, general store, drive in theater, a small car dealership, fire dept, and a gas station/garage (you get the idea). Of course all of the stores were named "Staluppi" ie: Staluppis Bakery, etc. One of the perks if you build the town I guess. He had only two first gen Camaros. One is a 69 Z/28 with cross ram and the other a 69 SS Convertible with a 572. He is selling the Z/28 on ebay if you want to check it out (ebay # 200268194648). I could not believe such a huge collection was in my own neighborhood.
Here is the link for the museum to check out all of the cars.
http://www.carsofdreams.com/about.htmlNow, that being said, a friend just sent told me about her trip to Punta Gorda and visited this guys private collection. The guy's name is Rick Treworgy. His last name kinda describes his collection of cars. The bldg was not as cool as the Staluppi one...but the amount of cars and more importantly, the type of cars in this collection is nothing short of total car nirvana. I counted over a dozen first gen Camaros alone. Not only did it seem that he had every kinds of cool car imaginable, but it seems he has one in every color as well. Now this is how to spend money if you have lots of it.
http://69.89.25.185/~trexsoft/t-rexsoftware.com/buzzandjackie/collection.htmJust thought you guys would be interested.
