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Thursday, August 2, 2012

How Two Guys Spent $1 Million On Cars In Manhattan

August 2nd, 2012Top Story

How Two Guys Spent $1 Million On Cars In Manhattan

By Mike Spinelli

How Two Guys Spent $1 Million On Cars In ManhattanThe story of how the co-owners of Classic Car Club Manhattan populated their garage of quirkpot classics is part of Jalopnik lore. Thus, their story — including how they keep all those temperamental bastards running well enough to drive every day — is a natural for the premiere episode of Jalopnik on DRIVE.

What is Jalopnik on DRIVE? It's a weekly show on YouTube that brings to video the awesome and sometimes bizarre characters from the pages of Jalopnik. It's also the home to a new, once-monthly Jalopnik live stream that'll let you meet Jalopnik editors (as well as those characters from the Jalopnik on DRIVE videos you'll be watching each week) and give them advice on personal grooming.

There will be cars too, right? Yes, there will be cars, since cars — in some fashion — are the reason those characters ended up on Jalopnik in the first place.

When is it on? Subscribe to DRIVE, our YouTube video partner, and you'll be updated on show schedules and air dates, or just watch for the post right here. For now, Jalopnik on DRIVE will "air" Thursdays at 3:00 pm Eastern.

Are you sure this is a good idea? Yes.

Thank you. Don't mention it.

I won't. We don't need to talk about this any more.

Wait, what's the premiere episode about? Oh, right. So, back in 2004 when Jalopnik was just a weird car blog with the picture of a bald guy with sunglasses with a lollypop in his mouth or whatever, we did a feature called something like "If You Had $1 million, What Cars Would You Buy?"

No one remembers exactly what it was called because we were drunk and most of the commenters were high, but the great responses from commenters solidified our particularly skewed automotive worldview. I just wish we could remember what those responses were. (Yes, there were French cars on the list and at least one generation of El Camino.)

Soon after that post ran, Michael Prichinello, co-owner of Classic Car Club Manhattan e-mailed to say he and co-owner Zac Moseley were doing that very thing, for reals. That is, they were shopping for a fleet of cool cars with which to populate the club's garage. Club members would be putting serious mileage on the cars, with the popular ones being booked solid for months on end, and so they would not only have to be cool, they'd have to run well.

Thus began a long relationship between Jalopnik and CCC Manhattan (we held our very first party there), and so when we were thinking about New York car people to profile for Jalopnik on DRIVE, Mike and Zac were an obvious choice. The question we posed to them was equally obvious: How do you keep a bunch of quirkpot classic cars running, such that more than 300 members would be able to drive long distances on the weekends (and weekdays too) without getting stranding in the rain, in some one-horse town upstate? (Sometimes, getting stranded in the rain was part of the fun.)

Upcoming episodes of Jalopnik on DRIVE will look deeper into the buried-Dino story, profile Alan Wilzig and his front-yard racetrack and follow around our old pal, the former "Lamborghini" Batman, Lenny B. Robinson.

What do you think?

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