oh, there's more.

Oh my goodness.

Oh, look at this, an El Camino,

a Studebaker, a Packard, a Packard,

looks like a pickup truck.

I'm Tom Cotter, the first car I found I was 12 years old.

I'm 61 year old now and I'm still finding cars.

And in this series, you'll see that there are still

plenty of cars left.

I've been dreaming since I'm probably 12 years old

about finding a car like this.

(mellow bluesy music)

I used to stay at a hotel just a half mile from here

when I was out on business in Northern California

and in the morning I like to run.

So I would run down this road called Pope Street

in Saint Helena, California and I'd see these old cars

lying around and I'd see other stuff in the background.

I said there's got to be old stuff here.

I've got to meet this guy.

So you got a Ranchero here.

- [Man In Brown Jacket] I chopped the top on it once.

(laughing)

- [Tom] Did you really?

- And when I chopped it, I chopped it two and a half inches

and it was too much so I raised it back up again.

- How'd you do, did you save the pieces?

- To an inch and a half.

Yeah.

- [Tom] Now, would you sell something like this?

- Oh yeah.

- Would ya?

- [Man In Brown Jacket] I'd have to.

I don't think I'll get around to fixing it.

- This is a 1954 Ford and it's a four door wagon

called a Country Sedan.

It's got a 312 V8, overhead valve V8,

which was Ford's first overhead valve V8

after the Flathead era.

It's got a three speed with overdrive.

And this car's so complete down to the hubcaps,

the trim, the spare tire, the jack,

the air cleaner still has the decal on it.

You don't find cars that are complete like this anymore.

It doesn't happen anymore.

I'd say this car's, you know, it's worth probably $2,000,

$2,500 the way it sits.

And restored, these can go for 20, $25,000 these days.

So if you were handy at home, you could buy

something like this, fix it up and come out cash ahead

if you had to sell it.

All pretty cool stuff here.

(upbeat music)

- Carload of fellas rolled into there

and they'd blown the engine up in it.

It was a $75 purchase.

- [Tom] That's Russ when he was just a young guy.

That's a lot of stuff going on in there.

- [Russ] That's all fuel injectors.

- This is a 1972 Jaguar

and the four door version of this would've been an XJ6.

This is known as an XJ12 because instead of a six cylinder

is a 12 cylinder and this is an XJ12C.

And the XJ12C is called that because it's a coupe.

So this car, interestingly, is a four door roof line

with two doors.

So they took the doors and stretched them

and then closed them off in the back.

So it's basically a four door roof with two doors.

So lots of room.

Big door, lots of room to get in and out of,

but a real rare car.

This is a '65 Chevy El Camino 327.

Neat, solid car

that is a daily driver.

Great stuff.

(upbeat music)

- And on the bottom of the block

has got die cast in there.

The casting number's number one

on the block that I got.

- The first Chevy V8?

- Yeah, uh huh, well, it's the first casting.

- It turns out that Russ Aves is one of the original

California hot rodders.

He's lived here for, oh, since '65.

He's got a Jaguar 12 cylinder.

He's got a '57 Ford Ranchero with a 500 cubic inch Cadillac.

This stuff is all for sale.

Russ said, "I'm not gonna get around to it.

"I might as well let somebody else have the fun."

There's a 1954 Ford Country Sedan station wagon

back there that's so complete, you don't find them

like that anymore.

You don't find cars with four hub caps,

with a jack in the back, with a spare tire.

It's a three speed with overdrive transmission.

A 312 cubic inch V8, which was Ford's first

overhead valve engine in 1954.

And you know what?

He said, "Look, I'd take 500 bucks for it,

"but I'd really like to get $3,000 for it."

That thing's worth restoring, very rare car

and wagons are very desirable these days.

(upbeat music)

When we got into Northern California yesterday,

we really didn't know who to talk to

and we just talked to a car guy,

who turned us onto a car guy,

who turned us onto a car guy

and they said, "Have you talked to Ricky Hall?"

No, we don't know Ricky.

So we called Ricky and he said come on over.

So here we are in American Canyon, California

and Ricky is an old Ford guy, likes '32s

and he's gonna show us what he's got in his yard.

This looks too cool.

Is it a four cylinder?

- Four cylinder.

It's a real early '32 pickup.

- Man.

- Serial number's show it was made, I think, early February.

- Of '32, really?

- It's got the no rib in the roof cap,

the roof right here.

- Oh, okay.

Single pull handles, it's got the early style gas gauge.

- It's a Model B.

Now look at that, wow.

Well, that's cool.

Now this is a '32 as well.

'32 four door.

- [Ricky] Yeah, I got this pick up last weekend.

It was in Lincoln, California.

- [Tom] Last weekend.

So you found this a week ago?

- [Ricky] It was complete.

I started tearing it apart this week.

- There are obviously still cars like this out there.

How rare is that to find a '32 in this day and age, 2016?

- [Ricky] It's getting pretty hard.

Especially one that's untouched.

- So Ricky just found this car

and he didn't have to search through farms or ask people.

This car was on Craigslist and he got it a week ago.

The fact that a car like this can still be found,

I mean, anybody could've bought it

and this guy lucked into buying a '32 Ford sedan

that's basically never been touched.

It's not a hot rod.

It's not a restored car.

It's just an old car.

Just amazing, I mean, guys would give their eye teeth

for this thing, all over the country, every day.

So this is a Lincoln Zephyr and it's a 12 cylinder.

So if you look some of the other cars

that Ricky has, they're Flathead Ford V8s.

Well this is a Flathead Ford V12.

So basically the eight cylinder

stretched to 12 cylinders.

And they were smooth and quiet.

An old man told me once that you could take a nickel

and balance it on the air cleaner and it would stay there.

That's how smooth those engines were.

Now I didn't plan on seeing motorcycles here,

but I've never seen a Sunbeam motorcycle.

Is that British?

- [Ricky] It's made by BSA.

- [Tom] Wow, what year is that?

- [Ricky] 1947.

I got that in an estate sale in Berkeley.

- [Tom] As it is?

- [Ricky] As is.

Actually I had to replace the fuel tank.

It was rotten.

I bought it just to resell.

- Man.

- [Ricky] So now it's just something that's waiting

to go down the line.

- Oh man.

So this is a '32 Ford, three window coupe.

If you look at this condition.

I've been dreaming since I'm probably 12 years old

about finding a car like this, in this condition.

I used to read Rod and Custom magazine

and there was a section in there called Vintage Tin.

And they would show these guys in California

and find this stuff out in the desert and drag it in.

And I was an East Coast guy

and I dreamed about coming out to California

because the women were beautiful,

there was surfing, there was Coors beer and old cars.

And it only took me 50 years to get out here.

Wow.

(upbeat bluesy music)

Napa Valley probably is some of the most expensive,

desirable real estate in the United States

if not the world.

And you wouldn't imagine large collections of old cars

to be hidden around Napa Valley.

Real Estate's just too expensive.

But we talked to a guy who turned us on to Rod

who lives in Napa and we just drove up the driveway here.

Well, there's something going on here

because I see a Trabant, which is an East German car.

I see an old Cadillac under a lean-to.

A Javelin on a trailer, an old Cadillac

up on a ramp truck, a Cadillac ambulance.

I can't believe I'm in Napa Valley.

This looks like Kansas.

(upbeat music)

Now, Trabant was an Eastern German car,

tell me about how the body was made on it.

- [Rod] It's a composition of recycled cotton

and paper.

(laughing)

- [Tom] So these cars have a story?

- [Rod] Oh, every car has a story.

- [Tom] And you know them?

- [Rod] Yeah, I do.

- [Tom] Oh man.

(upbeat music)

- This was bought new by the Department of Justice,

Washington DC and assigned to Southern California

during the Reagan administration.

It's a bulletproof Cadillac limousine.

- No kidding.

- Well, you see what happens when they do

the bullet proofing, they have reinforced concrete

they pour in the doors and of course it causes

the rust to happen from the inside out.

See what the windows--

- Look at this.

One, two, like three panes of glass,

or one piece of plexiglass,

two panes of glass glued together.

And these windows can't go down

because the doors are filled with concrete.

So what does this car weigh?

- [Rod] About 9,000 pounds, extremely heavy.

(upbeat bluesy music)

- I'm gonna identify what this car is,

don't tell me.

- I'll give you 20 guesses,

you'd probably still get it wrong.

- Alright.

I'm pretty good at this, now.

I'd say an Italian.

- [Rod] It's Italian.

- It's an Italia, Intermeccanica Italia.

- [Rod] I'll be doggone!

- I'm good at this.

- You're good, you're good.

- So this had a Ford V8 in it?

Some had Chevy's, but it had Ford V8?

- Yeah.

- Look at that.

(bluesy music)

- I was after this Mark II

just because I thought it was nice enough to pick it up.

Lincoln white with red interior.

Air conditioned car, there weren't too many