This is an Arrow 8.

It's a 2005 Arrow 8 MORGAN.

It was imported, it's in 2005 with a special permit from the government.

7th October 1957.

That's when he started.

So we're one of the oldest, if not the oldest transportation museum on the East Coast.

So 41 Dodge there was only 7480 of them made.

Every car has a story.

It's like the best thing ever.

For some, they end up here.

These are just some of the stories about those who collect and restore vehicles, giving them a renewed lease on life so that their stories can be told right here on Radical Restoration.

(music) Closed captioning provided by Cre-Oil.

On line at Cre-Oil dot com.

Funding for Radical Restoration is provided by (Music) Rakabot sources sustainable materials to create boot racks that organize footwear that allows drippings to go in the bowl.

Models designed for home, work or recreational settings are available on line at Rakabot dot com Joe's Hand Cleaner Manufactured by Clean Products supports Radical Restoration With our without water Joe's Hand Cleaner cleanses to ingredients that are food or cosmetic grade A family business since 1948.

On line at Joe's Hand Cleaner dot com.

Tire tag.

Re Usable labelling to organize tire rotation and re-mounting.

Tire Tag.

(car honk ) Tire dash Tag dot com Additional funding provided by Nutrafarms and Hagerty Insurance In this episode, we head to Virginia for the 50th anniversary of the Morgan Car Club as they put on a car show at one of the largest cave systems in the eastern U.S. at Luray Caverns.

Then we take a tour of their car and carriage museum before visiting a classic car show in rural Ontario.

(music) My name's Gary Heck.

I'm from Cartersville, Georgia, and we're here with the 50th Morgan Show.

This is a Aero 8, its a 2005 Arrow 8 Morgan.

Imported in 2005 with a special permit from the government and that's all it's in this country is 60 of them and this is one of the 60.

This car has an aluminum chassis aluminum body.

Everything is aluminum weighs like 2400 pounds and it's 360 horsepower.

Its got a BMW 4.4 liter engine with a six speed manual transmission.

(music) That they were going to start producing a new version.

They are with a... Well, this is our Concours and this is the 50th year that our group has met.

Now, if you go to the Mimslyn Hotel in honor of the 50th year.

I made a quilt which is hanging in the lobby.

And it has on it the 16 different locations where the car club has met over those years.

And it has pictures which I hand-painted.

Of the ten different types of cars that were produced by the factory in that time period.

So it's going to be auctioned.

At our banquet.

(music) And you have to double clutch to.

Get things to work just like this.

Maybe, maybe even more.

And this is all this is all very nicely done.

I brought a 1953 flat rad Morgan Plus 4 which my husband, Carlton Shriver, tried to restore before he passed away in the year 2014.

And I have been working, trying to get it finished since then.

I have never really been behind the wheel.

I was always a passenger, and now I'm learning how to drive it, learning how to shift gears and learning what needs to be done on it yet.

it's still a work in progress, And I love the car.

(music) And mostly, mostly original.

So you've got your spanner and everything that's original tool kit.

That's actually an MG tool kit.

Morgan did not come with a full tool kit, just a jack and a hammer.

But the MG came fully fitted out, and so I collected these mostly from eBay UK, right over a period of years to get a complete correct MG tool kit.

They're all all pretty smart.

Yeah.

And these are MG unique wrenches for removing the cylinder head and the valve cover.

And this one I like this.

You never see this in the United States.

It's a nesting set of wrenches.

The little rod comes out and then these guys pop out and each one do it.

So it's very compact, Right?

And that's the whole thing fits in that little space.

This car has a toolbox just under the bonnet on the firewall.

There's a long, rectangular open space.

And that's where the jack, if you carry the wrench to remove the knock offs, mallet and so forth.

But if you put stuff in there, it all rattles around.

Yeah, it's nice car.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's it's a driver.

We enjoy driving it all.

over the place, and don't worry too much about you know it's it's a display only because it's got some penitence.

I'm Jeff Jordan from Fort Valley, Virginia.

And the car you're looking at is a 1959 Morgan Plus 4, four-seater.

They made about 6800 plus fours and roughly a 10th of them are four seaters.

The four seater model is really neat, though.

The back is a little bit squarer.

It gives you some storage space.

And so when my wife and I travel in it, we have some place to put our luggage rather than on a luggage rack.

The car is mostly original.

This is the original paint color confirmed by the factory, and I've done most of the work on it.

It's not a restored car.

It's been well maintained and repaired as needed.

The professionals put in a new wiring harness for me and did some of the heavy work that requires heavy tools.

But I've done the brakes, the fuel system and a number of other systems and keep it running Yeah.

How to many?

(music) You just have to get the color on your rack and down for that, right?

Yes, you can if it's noted tones once it red and green windshield.

Oh we got to get done these cars.

Well it's because you just decide to swap cars over.

(music) I'm Rod Graves, senior vice president of Luray Cavern Corporation.

I'm also the manager of the Car and Carriage Caravan Museum and curator.

Oh, my father started this collection in 1957.

It was one of the first transportation museums on the East Coast.

It's pretty unique collection.

Dad was had always been a person that appreciated art and he felt like that these were kind of art on wheels, so to speak, and they were under-appreciated.

He was very mechanical as well.

And he started collecting right after World War II and it was probably a very small handful of people in the whole country that did this.

And they all knew each other all the really, really great early collectors.

And he had this vision of of having another attraction here at Luray Caverns.

And prior to that, there was nothing else than than the Caverns which is a really incredible experience.

But he wanted to modernize the company.

And this was part of his vision to have this new museum here to celebrate the history of transportation, starting from the very early to pretty much the present day.

And he felt like these automobiles needed to be celebrated and to be respected as a genuine artifact and work of art that should be seen by everybody that comes here that was started in 1957.

October 1957 is when he started.

So we're one of the oldest, if not the oldest, transportation museum on the East Coast.

The 1899 Peugeot dad bought that in France and actually in Paris out of a very old carriage shop.

He was very fortunate to get that.

That is the oldest one of the oldest Peugeots out there.

It is Vis-A-Vis in other words face to face.

Vis-A-Vis feature on that is one that was popular with carriages at the time.

So they were selling to a carriage crowd.

The Riley is we think is the oldest.

Well, we think its the fifth oldest Riley in the world.

It's a very special car.

It has a mother in law seat at the front.

We we joke that if the mother in law gets snappy, you can just put on the brakes launch her.

But that Tulip body was designed by Henry Ford before he had his car business.

He was designer for Cadillac.

And if you look at Henry Ford's first car, the Model A, there were two Model A's and his earliest Model-A almost looks identical to it, but just not as fancy and much more affordable.

The Locomobile car company was started in 1899 and they were started out as a Steam car company and they were built for the everyman.

They were America's first everyman automobile.

I saw an advertisement in the Smithsonian magazine at my grandmother's house, and it's a great advertisement for the Locomobile Right before the Depression and says, This car is not for, for any man This is the man for that that has basically has money and a lot of it.

So who would do that today.

I mean, it was really quite, quite a shocking advertisement.

But it does show you where we were right before the Depression.

There was a lot of money out there and status was was really a different genre at that time.

(music) The Packard that we have was used by the Pope when he came here to the United States, the Packard were just overbuilt.

They were total class.

They were meant to last forever.

It's most underrated automobiles other than maybe Studebaker, but Packard was just an incredible automobile.

Yeah, the Model S is probably is the creme de la creme of our automobile collection.

Now, it's important to note that the car and Carriage Caravan Museum Dad's vision was from the everyman to the elite car company.

He wanted to show the whole spectrum.

When Dad bought that car, it was in a fire in New York and it was in a garage and a gentleman sold it to him.

And it was a very it was a very hard it was a very hard restoration for him because the the wheels had actually melted down.

Everything else was in very good shape.

It's just basically a smoke, smoke damaged.

But he couldn't restore the car and he said he restored the car for an awesome $16,000 And it's one of the rarest cars in the world.

The Model S is was originally called the white elephant and was a pace car here in the United States when he got it after the fire, garage fire, the the wheels had to be completely restored and he was at a standstill because he didn't have I mean, they just weren't out there, its such a rare car.

And so he went to Mercedes and asked them if they would reproduce them for him.

And they said it was impossible because he said your your Air Force, Army Air Corps bomb bombed everything we had.

So that was his reply.

And of course, dad, being a pilot, kind of understood that and it didn't but three months later he got a call and said, you know, we've we've actually found the gentleman that designed those the the the wheels for that automobile.

And he took down the mold to his bunker when Germany was bombed in his area.

So they survived.

And we will reproduce them for you, if you say it was the finest automobile ever made by mankind.

So we honored that.

And it really is in my mind.

I mean, it's got to be one of the best in style performance Rarity.

It's exquisite.

It's a 1940 Lincoln made especially for the Ford car family.

There were only 13 of them made the Ford family had a lot of people said they were superstitious.

For some reason, they only made 13 of these.

And I don't think there's any mistake there with that.

And I believe only two of them exist.

Now, a gentleman came in the museum and was just falling apart because he had one of the one of those cars.

And he showed me actually his calling card and his the other missing one there.

So they are out there, but there's not a lot.

And they were made specifically for his family.

It's the only automobile in the whole museum that has a radio.

Really unusual at that time condition wise is by one of the best conditions of any automobile we have in the museum.

It's a extremely rare automobile.

And it's it's one of the top cars in our our collection for sure.

(music) Well I'm Jim Cousins I live in Collingwood and we're having a bit of a car show and and farmers market here.

We do it every Thursday night and we just gather for two or 3 hours and away we go.

This is a 41 Dodge there was only 7480 of them made.

I've had it for 48 years and took me three and a half years to get it done.

I had to wait till the kids grew up and moved out.

Then I started moving parts in and I took the we took the body right off the frame and built her from the ground up.

The only thing not original on the car is the color, because I saw Dick Tracy cartoon 35 years ago and he was driving a yellow and black car.

I said, if I ever get it on the road, that's the color it's going to be.

(music) Producer: Hey, how are you doing Not too bad A 1950 Studebaker Starlight Coupe.

I always wanted one when I was a kid, I liked it.

And when I got older, I decided I found one.

I'm going to get it.

I just like the looks of them, like the looks like the cut back window.

I like the front end, the torpedo, front end on them.

And that's the old plane, the old bomber.

(music) And I am Rae Hockley from Nottawa Ontario.

And this 39 Plymouth Coupe, which is a V-7 businessman's coupe.

I'll I, my son has done most of the restoring and the paint job themselves and I bought it probably in 1997.

And that sat in my garage for probably about ten years.

And I retired and I went to Florida and I came home and it was in my shop, all tore apart and and I think it started out pretty good.

There wasn't too much missing.

That's all.

Original.

It may not be the original paint but its original color.

(music) I'm Russ Matthews from Wasaga Beach Cruisers.

And I've owned this car for 54 years and bought it new for my wife in 1969.

It's a 1970 duster, so it's still here.

It's still running and so am I. I just put it in the garage all the time.

(laughs) I let my wife drive it every so often.

(music) My name is Dalton Lowe .

And the car is a 30 model A Ford.

And how long have you had the model A?

I've had it 52 years.

Yeah.

And I had it restored and that's the story.

My dad always owned the Model A Ford he had about three of them.

And and there was one car I really praised and that was it was a model A 30 Ford coupe.

And we did everything with that car.

And when the when the war was on and that and you know, you know, there was so many like most of the cars, most cars didn't run during the Depression and the and and the and the war.

But but the Model A's always, always run like this car, to give you a little history on it, belonged to a man at the beach.

And he was getting old and he wanted to know now this was before hospitalization.

So he wanted the doctor to look after him until he died.

So, you know, he gave him the car.

So he gave he got the car and he looked after him and I got the car.

I had like a deal made with him, but he took it to the dealer and then he bought a new car and he traded this in and I bought it from them.

the fenders the fenders out there.

They're different on on the rest of the thirties than that.

This is what you call an eyebrow fender, you notice it?

And when you when you go Producer: It looks like an eyebrow Well yeah.

The other fenders are just and he told me that they only manufactured 500 of these cars and it was holding up production so they they changed the fender.

(music) My name is Brian Leighton and this is a 1970 Monte Carlo and just got it just it's all pretty well original except for the rims and it's just a 350 in it.

I've had it 14 years and it's all I do is wax and shine it.

So it's all the way it was.

And I've done a few repairs to it and just keep it shiny.

I always wanted one and when I got to be 57 I thought, Well, if I don't do it now, I'll never do it.

So I've had it 14 years.

So I've given away my age, (laughs) (music) Oh yeah, I know, yeah, I said something about that.

I think you made a world.

Yeah, my, my, my deployments.

I've been doing the work I've been doing since I was a kid.

Right.

So how long have you had it?

Since last year.

Oh, okay.

So it's fairly new to you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

(music) He's able to use stuff from, uh, Illinois you guys were making.

Yeah, So.

Yeah.

So I was able to.

Get rid of all that stuff.

You know, what they're doing to them.

Yeah, great.

Go to Cornwall and go straight north So, any way, it sat with a guy, who looked at it and I'm not a mechanic or anything And I'm Dave Hopper.

I live in Stayner.

Try to come down and help out the market as best I can with my vehicle and add a little excitement to the evening.

A 79 Corvette.

I've had it since 2018, so it's been a a restoration project.

So we've pretty much got it finished now.

But thanks to a bit of help and lots of time in my garage, we've managed to Yeah.

Rebuild it.

I purchased it from a a fellow over at a place called Alfred, which is halfway between Montreal and Ottawa.

So I went over one November day and I'm not a mechanic, so I didn't really know a lot about them.

I should've done more research when I bought it.

But anyways, I love Corvettes, so we've rebuilt the air conditioning and brakes and front end and rear end and U joints and it's had seven different owners.

I have more fun doing the history of these vehicles and probably anything else, driving is just a bonus.

But when you can research who owned it and where it come from and where it had its start.

But it's had seven different owners and I don't think one of them did any more than even change the oil on it.

We figured the brakes were original, so it's never stayed in one place for too long and they drove it and then sold it.

And the chap I bought from did have it for 15 years, but I'm sure he never he couldn't have used it very much because we, we went through a lot of things on our checklist before it was roadworthy.

Yeah.

And then here we are today.

So it's just been a labor of love and some nights it was more labor than love.

And a couple of nights I went in from the garage and my wife was, I threatened I was going to sell it.

I just I'd had it but she said, Hang on, hang on it's the kind of car you wanted, so just give it some time and I'd do a little more research, make some phone calls and get some advice and then go back in with my wrenches and pull things apart.

And yeah, we've managed to get through those humps and but yeah, learning curve that was but there's a lot of information out there and a lot of support.

Corvettes have always been the iconic American or Canadian car and yeah, I just wanted to be part of it.

But yeah it still it takes a lot for the faint of heart if you're going to restore one, you, I have a few mechanical skills, but just enough to get me in trouble I suppose, and as far as the restoration goes.

But I did all the interior myself and the electronics.

That's one thing I can I can work away at.

I left the rest to people that know what they're doing.

(music) Funding for Radical Restoration is provided by (Music) Rakabot sources sustainable materials to create boot racks that organize footwear that allows drippings to go in the bowl.

Models designed for home, work or recreational settings are available on line at Rakabot dot com Joe's Hand Cleaner Manufactured by Clean Products supports Radical Restoration With our without water Joe's Hand Cleaner cleanses to ingredients that are food or cosmetic grade A family business since 1948.

On line at Joe's Hand Cleaner dot com.

Tire tag.

Re Usable labelling to organize tire rotation and re-mounting.

Tire Tag.

(car honk ) Tire dash Tag dot com Additional funding provided by Nutrafarms and Hagerty Insurance Thank you for joining us.

My name's Gary Nichols.

Until next time, may all your rides be radical.

(car drives by) (tires squealing) (sanding) (music)