Family car catches buyer’s eye during Concours on the Avenue

Glen Jennings owns “Lost in the 50’s, an American Classic Car Museum” and has made 95 trips to the states to add to his collection. He even has the 1966 Batmobile, “There’s always opportunities for the right car and over here it’s a matter of narrowing that down. There is literally a car I’d like to buy on every corner.”

At the Concours on the Avenue Tuesday, something caught his eye.

“Right now this car behind me, this 1953 Chrysler New Yorker is absolutely stunning.”

That car has a story of its own. Its been in Randy Kunes’ family for 60 years. Kunes and his dad were supposed to restore the car together but his father was diagnosed with cancer.

Kunes says it took him ten years to restore this 1953 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe and it’s not for sale, “Have been offered twice more than $100,000 for it and I have turned it down. I mean it’s priceless to me.”

The Visitors Bureau says a number of Car Week spectators come from outside the country, nearly 30% from Germany and Canada and about 12% from Italy and France.

So far Jennings says he’s bought two cars on the peninsula for about $50,000, “We’ve still got a week to go so who knows, it’s hard to say.”

Jennings understood the sentimental value of the 1953 Chrysler but did offer to display it in his museum, “I would send it to Australia knowing those conditions that it will be seen by many many people,” Kunes replied when asked about the offer.

Kunes won second place in class American, British and European Luxury as well as The John C. Kerby-Miller American Excellence Award, for the automobile that best represents the era when American cars turned heads around the world. This award was created to honor one of the supporters of the Concours on the Avenue.