John Finger’s Private Car Collection: Former IMSA Racer’s Vintage NASCAR Stash

Tell everybody I keep this rough part here for the rest of my stuff. Sand blast it too much. I'd rather it look like that. I just have a Mark Donahue fire suit hanging here and not say anything about it. No way. I've never seen one of these in person. I was at Junior Johnson's last auction at Ford rotary motor that nobody had us even exist. So, we met John Finger here a while back through some of the vintage racing stuff and come to learn that he has this massive building full of well, a little bit of everything. I've been in here for about 10 minutes. decided to stop myself and say, "Wait, let's turn the camera on before we look anymore cuz I have so many questions." It's just like pulling me in like a bug light. You used to race yourself. You had a Maza dealership. Like, how did you What's with your background? Every other kind of car you can imagine. I've driven prototype cars, GTP cars. Can remember getting the call. I was at the big shop that I worked for, the Mercedes dealer, and I go back there and it's a zinc manufacturing builds the zincs. would you like to drive a car for us? I said, "Sure." So, I thought I'd hit the big time. So, we got a Formula V. We actually won the first professional race ever at Road Atlanta, which is the day before the Can-Am race. Won that. And I got this watch and didn't pay any attention to it. Threw it in a trailer. I found out later it was a Rolex. I didn't even know what a Rolex was back then. So, uh, so I got a good record, but I never could capture that glory ride. the one year the Mazda ride uh had two cars. Manderville Auto Tech ran a team and did the cars and it was a Mazda factory team and my teammate won the championship. I finished second behind him. They won the manufacturers championship and then they said, "Well, I can do this next year." So, so it quit. So, you have a little bit of everything in here. So, did you collect all this NASCAR stuff through auctions over the years? Like, it was auctions. Well, most of it. How long have you been in this building? Since ' 84. And I was in this first part for the first 10 12 15 years. Then I I moved the tenant out and added more space for him, built that wall, and so it's 75 ft plus 50 ft. So, I've been here a while. I mean, the time you get my age, you better keep up where your time goes. So, it goes rather fast now than compared to what it used to. So, when did you start your dealerships? Cuz I see you had I see John Finger Porsche there and Mazda and were you doing the dealership at the same time you were racing? I was trying to. That was the problem. uh the originally I went to work for the Mercedes MG Fiat conglomerate guy and uh was racing the Sprite. So I went to work there so I could buy parts at costs and after we moved from there to a new place I stayed there for another 15 years and then the siblings bought it out and uh ended up doing what a lot of them do, manage it. I owned 10% of it and found I owned 100% of the debt. got through that and uh they fired me from the people that bought it and they hired me back and said, "Do you want to run the Mazda store?" I said, "That's what I told you I wanted to do years ago." So, I did that. Then, I bought the franchise for the uh the Porsche store, but I had two partners that furnished the money at that time. I didn't didn't have anything left. Uh so, grew that 95. In 0 ' 05 I bought my partners out. And then in ' 08 when the world slowed down, that kind of put a kink in things again and I had to sell off some of my collector cars. But it's all good. I'm on my feet now. Been retired almost eight years. Paul Newman actually signed this for you. Yep. What's he done? Yeah, I've heard that before cuz Jack Raj couldn't even get a signature from him, so he just made him buy something and write a check. Yeah, it was on a check. But how'd you get his signature? Well, we'd race together. So, in fact, that's him here that 10 years before I was going to Atlanta for a race and Paul was there. So, I went up to him. I said, "Uh, would you sign this for me?" And he looks at it and he says, "I guess a hundred of these would be what one Redford picture's worth." And he signed it to me. He thought it pretty neat. He just happened to catch him in a a good day. Like, why did he sign it? I talked to him a lot of times and that's us down at Rhode Island at a different time. Oh, so you knew him? Yeah. From racing with him. Okay. What was he like to race with? He was Well, this who's in my class uh and of course had superior cars and whatever. But the funny story about this we go out to run and I think I broke. He won. Oh, that's you right there. Yeah. And uh if we get to the pits, then he's uh getting in the helicopter and leaving. And I'm saying, I wonder why he's driving that old car when this is one that's current now. He said, "Oh, that other car is up at Lime Rock. He's going to run there tomorrow." Yeah. I said, "I think I'm in the wrong class here. He's going to run two national races in a weekend at each end of the country." Sure. So that's where that came from. There's hundreds of pictures if you ever want more. That's a That's actually the Gatorade car behind it. That's the first car miles to ever rent at uh Daytona. And I bought it to get the engine to put in my hill climb car. This engine is out of the uh world sports car that's actually built by Manderville. And it's actually an aluminum engine and the displacement could only be 302. So, it's a SB2 with only 302 inches. Where are you going to put it in? It's stand. Oh, all these just to crank up. I'm I'm going to have an orchestra and figure out different notes. You don't see too many of these Challenger. No, it's a lot of bodied cars anymore. I like them, but uh I haven't really tried to sell it. I'm going to I keep forgetting it's there. been sitting there two years and I'm working on these other ones. But we got it cuz it had two seats put in properly and we for the school I helped the uh Chandler school uh we sold rides at one of their auctions and I took people to ride in a real race car and they was pretty thrilling. The other half the story is we took to Savannah which I'd been going there since 1964 and I get down there and they said you can't run this car here. here. It makes too much noise. I said, "What do you mean?" "Oh, there's a housing development over here in that." And the lady sits out there with the audiometer. If you go too loud, she calls the police. Oh, the resident Karen put mufflers on it. Went back the next year and I was asking some of the guys if they any of them were running traction control in the HR and the guy looks at me just like, "What do you think?" So, he had one of those. I might try it. points and plugs about my extent of electronics. What is this one? This is a real nice car now and it's got a store like they all do. The same guy I got it from in the Harbit car from had bought a new Avi Trans Am car which are quite expensive. But he always want a spare car to match his other car. So he bought this and I told him, "Miss says, "Well, this is the suspension off of it behind you." He said, "That's not going to work. You need to just get rid of it or let me fix it." He He says, "I can cut the front off and the back off, put all my stuff on there, and it'll be as good as your other car for a mere $75,000." So time I got to it been sitting five years. The guy was ready to get it out of his garage. It's got some neat stuff. I've had This will be number four Trans Am carb. I usually run them a little bit and they're so expensive to run. I'd get rid of them. This one I decided I'd try it again. They're fun. I mean, they're like a NASCAR with brakes and tires and they go real fast. Yeah, that thing looks pretty crazy. I like how they retain some actual factory dimensions to them. Well, the trunk and back or and of course the roof. That's just parts I buy at auction. Sometimes I buy them cuz I think they're neat looking. Is that an old Pro Cup car? That's a brand new time it's built. It was Huda Pro Cup. Yeah. Went to US RAC or whatever. That's exactly what you would need for the Grand National Series is probably the majority of them are old Pro Cup cars. I'm the weird guy that has a a steel body bush car, but they you most of them look like this. It's just brand new. That'd be perfect. It's really funny. I took it over to Anderson. I'd never driven any asphalt round track and I'm out there driving and Eddie Porter, who's really good, he said, "Finger, you might can run those hill climb. You don't have this down yet on these circle tracks." said, "Well, this is the first time I've ever been on it." So, we kind of laughed and that picture behind it was a year that I had a lot of fun. It's a prototype on the top left that had a Ferrari Formula 1 motor in it and they figured out and put a three rotor Mazda in it. Went fast with that for what we're doing. So, you had a Ferrari Formula 1 engine? I didn't. The guy on the car that got it with it in it, took it out and all I did was drive for him. He was an attorney and he'd call me to come drive and help him get used to the track, but you could tell him you can go through there flat out and he would and I had a would have a hard time doing some of the stuff that I was told could happen that I I couldn't get there. But he he now has one of the uh Lama winning Mazda prototypes that won the class but didn't win over all years back. Is that was that one of the ones that was at the Mini a couple years ago? Like was 787B or whatever? It wasn't. It was just like that. Oh, this is the R5. I can't keep one for I think that's R5 and this is a six. Yes. Uh this one's fresh. When I went up and found these at that time, Arrington had bought the engine shop from Everham. So I've been told. I can't substantiate most of the stuff, but they had 50 of those engines in the back of a tractor trailer right off the dyno. And I ended up over a period of time with five of them. Uh, this one's really neat. It's dry sump, but the sump pumps inside the oil pan so you don't have as much clutter out front here. And it was built that way. Yeah. And I don't think Dodge did it. I think somebody else did it. How much you pay for that one? I'd rather not say. I'll give you that for it right now. I'll take it home with me. There's a good one in that one. There's one sitting in the floor that came out of my other one. And I got a ganassie one down there in this thing I built called a NAS rod. But I've only had one blow up. And not sure uh it didn't have a race a road race pan on it, but we thought we had plenty of oil. And I bought it from Morgan Shepard. Yeah. years ago and I was up at Morgan's and he's I was going to say he's kind of like me. Never never has quite enough to do what he wants to. I went up there to buy a road race transmission and we're standing around and his engine was sitting up there on a shelf about like that. I said, "How much for the engine?" Said, "Well, we paid 52,000 for it. I rent seven laps. Would you give 4,000?" I said, "Yes, sir." Mhm. So I bought the engine, the transmission, a carburetor, and then I went ahead and wrote him another check for his charity thing for for 500. I said, so very rarely did I pay somebody for what what they asked for it, but him I did. And I don't I think he's quite quit, but he stayed long as anybody. When I built the next 100 ft, I had to give this didn't have to, but I gave this to my wife for her she shed. So that's only thing interesting in here is some real nice old posters from way back about anything you could think of. That's Morgan there. I can't tell you when I was a piss. We've wanted to do something with him for a long time. So I tell everybody I keep this rough part here for the rest of my stuff. I built it. I was going to put a wall there. So I put a bathroom in the middle and then they said, "Well, just keep all of it." So they kept it all for I don't know 10 years. and they moved out and I redid the floor and wired it differently. And this is my last hurrah of the building I'm going to work on. This first car on your left there, that's a a I drove one just like that at Daytona in 1966. They had a racetrack downtown around a football field. And I was with uh this gentleman who was kind of my mentor and a lot of people know him from way back in the day. and he helped me a lot and taught me a lot. But we went down there to race and it was a typical deal. We're in his Cadillac open trailer and we get down there. I'd never sat in a car. We take it down to the beach, put it on the beach and I ran it back and forth a few times and we went to the racetrack and it was an open event. You could run anything and I'm standing there looking at all these cars. He says, "There's Andredy." I said, "Who's Andredy?" I mean this was six, you know, 50 years ago. In fact, I think Andrew Ed had only been racing a short time. So he I don't know who won. We I practiced and the guy said, "We don't have money to get home. I better run the main event." I remember he spun out, but I don't know how we got money to get home. But we we got home. Maybe he was lying. He just wanted to drive. He was Colonel Patton's driver in the army. Really? Yeah. It was interesting. This one behind you hanging up there, it's the V that I won the first professional race at Atlanta and won the international race at Daytona. We sold it to a guy and he had it probably I don't know 20 25 years and his kids caught his garage on fire and it burnt the body and all off of tires and wheels. I helped him get an insurance settlement and got it and I said I'm not going to try to restore it. I'm just going to hang it up down here. So kind of cool. Did you clear coat it? Yeah. pawn shop I knew went out of business and I bought their sign. That's cool. How many signs do you have? Over a hundred. I'm sure there's people that are like into enough of that stuff where you could do a video just about all the signs you have. It would still probably do well. People come in and then ask if this is real and that's real and that. And I said, "If these were real, I'd be living in islands, not here." They only made six of these original ones. They're bringing 15 million now. And these are not of course even close to that. But it's got a raft 600 horsepower called H stack. It looks like Webers, but it's really a electronic fuel injection. I can't remember if I knew you had these or not. I think you told us about the GT40. Yeah, they're all replicas. This one's now called a backdraft. But when it was built 25 years ago, it was called a 427 Venom because at that point Shelby would sue you if you called it a Cobra once they got through that. Now they don't call it a Cobra, but it's it's a nice one. If if you get a real person knows something, they'll know this fender is not right or that's not right, but it's close enough for me and runs good. The GT40 is a company called Calav. There's three pretty much prominent. The Superformance, the Calav, and I forget who else, but several people make them. This is pretty much proper except they built a chassis out of stainless steel monok tubing. Square tubing. Oh, was it? You may have seen Christopher Bell's new sponsor, Kufandi. We'd like to thank Kufui for supporting racing through this channel and their partnership with JGR and Christopher Bell. They'll be sponsoring Christopher's car, the Martinsville race, on October 26th. Huani is celebrating his 10th anniversary and they're proud to unveil their new brand philosophy. Dress the journey, a commitment to being by your side through every chapter of life. They're real big on breathable fabric. Keeps you cool and comfortable throughout the day. I promise you, it's 90° in this shop and I'm doing just fine. these pants, this shirt, super breathable, super light, get nice air flow, if you know what I'm saying. Got elasticity for great stretch and ease of movement, wrinkle resistant, stays smooth even after long hours of sitting or driving, which we do a lot of around here. And trust me, I don't fold or iron my stuff. I just put it on and go out the door. It's perfect. And the best part is it's easy to clean, machine washable, easy to maintain. No need to worry about stains. You can put it on, live your life. support things that support things you like and check out Kufandy's online store through the link in the description. And they're pretty basic cars to Glend Lamont like they did in Pet Ferraris. So, it's got a ZF transmission in it and the 289 that the doctor I got it from had it redone and went to whatever's next 402 or three and it's got about 500 450 horsepower. Doesn't weigh anything. So, this is the small block. Cuz it's like the Mark one or the Mark 2. Well, they kind of went back and forth. Which ones? Which you have to get a book to figure out which ones had what, but they they went with these first, I think. Then the next year they went with the the 427s. Yeah, that's like the I remember they started with the small block and then they went to the the big block after that. I leave them open because if you don't, they all smell like gas. Wonder why is that? Like a normal museum. I do this for me and friends that want to come here. So, I don't have all everything polished and clean and all. I just put it wherever I can find a place to put it. This particular car I got from the technical school. It had been donated to them. And of course, they didn't know exactly what it was being from South Carolina. And I traded them two or three NASCAR cars for it. And it was designed by Bob Riley who just passed away and Gary Krat who ran the Corvette thing forever built it and then I think Ganassie got in it one time. I don't think he raced it but he had driven it. That's part of the prominance. Anyway, it's a it's a ground effects car right when that started. And I borrowed it before I bought it and ran a hill climb with it and one overall in the hill climb and I ran all these hill climb cars up at Chimley Rock. Uh, and I built most of them rotary motors. This one was built up north and the guy that had it won everything up there all the time. He got tired of it and I got it and I I could win with it, but I couldn't get used to ground effects. I I can't trust a car that it's going to go much further than they normally do. So, I did crash it with the wing off while we were doing some computer work on it. Just set the left front wheel up in my lap. Yeah. Uh fixed it and uh can't run it again. But it's uh you know, 1000 lb and 400 horsepower. But this must be a monster. Especially with that with that wing on there is like is that like defying the laws of physics kind of whenever you push that thing through a turn? I tell you what happened. Uh, we had the wing off and the nose and the body off and it went in there and messed with the computer. I said, I'm going to just ease it up on this straightaway and see how it feels. Felt real good until I got the end and I put on brakes and the wheels quit turning and I let off. When I hit them again, it darted over and this one caught a drain culbert. Flipped it over, bent the cage, messed up my element, landed on its wheels and I got out and said, "Guess I've been saved again." What is that? I was at Junior Johnson's last auction way back and I bought all kinds of stuff and I just thought that was neat. And this other piece beside it was those eight elements. Nobody knows what it is which probably something for a dino or something that he was messing with. That was for Junior's also. Yeah. Weird. I bought everything forklift. You bought his forklift? Yeah. You still have it? No. I sold it before I left there. I didn't know I was going to get it home. Everybody want to go home and they didn't. Nobody sat up there bidding. Strange. Well, it looks like solenoids for something weird. I'm sure somebody knows what that is that worked for Junior back then. What when was that…