A Driven Collection

As kids we collected all kinds of stuff: baseball and football cards, Hot Wheels, marbles, rocks, bugs—you name it. As members of my generation, who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, graduated from high school and went off to college, our parents discarded a lot of those priceless collections. I remember my mom tossed out all of my Major League Baseball cards during one of our many moves across the country. They were neatly organized in shoeboxes according to year, team and player. Today those damn baseball cards would have set me up for an easy retirement!

Bob Wells was a little kid growing up in Arcadia, California during the ’40s and ’50s when he started reading every car magazine he could get his hands on. When Bob turned 16 he bought his first car, a ’55 Chevy 210 post previously owned by the Lucky Lager Beer Company. Once he got it home, he pulled the 265-ci engine and delivered it to a machine shop where it was bored to 283 ci. He drove and raced the car for a while before selling it to a buddy. Next, he bought a chopped ’32 Model A from drag racer Les Ritchey, who owned Performance Associates in West Covina, California at the time.

After Bob graduated from college, he went to work as an executive accountant before becoming an insurance salesman. In 1982, he opened his own insurance brokerage firm. His company’s success allowed him to own a string of Corvettes. His first was a ’66 Corvette coupe, followed by a ’67, ’68 and ’69.

Once Bob got the ’Vette bug out of his system, he got into Fords and bought a new ’70 Pantera. In 1972, he acquired a taste for Italian sports cars and purchased a Ferrari 246 Dino Spider followed by an ’84 Ferrari 308 GTSi.

In 1998, Bob began amassing his current collection of early street rods, classics and muscle cars. After 44 years of operating his successful brokerage, Bob is now retired and can spend all of his time enjoying his impressive collection of classic cars.

Bob was kind enough to share his current collection with us. Blue Oval fans will especially appreciate this stable.

• ’28 Ford Model A pickup
• ’32 Ford Vicky
• ’32 Ford Roadster
• ’48 Ford Anglia (dragster)
• ’50 Ford
• ’56 Ford pickup
• ’56 Buick Century
• ’57 Ford Ranchwagon
• ’58 Ford
• ’61 Ford Starliner
• ’62 Ford
• ’64 ½ Ford Mustang
• ’65 Ford Galaxy
• ’66 Ford Mustang convertible (wife Nancee’s car)
• ‘70 Ford Mustang BOSS 429
• ’70 Ford Mustang BOSS 302
• ’70 Ford Torino
• ’70 Mercury Cougar Eliminator BOSS 302

Some people choose to restore cars and trucks to add to their flawless collections, never to be driven on open roads, and others restore them to be daily drivers. Bob is a member of the latter school of thought and drives every single car in his collection. On weekends, he and his wife Nancee can be seen cruising along California’s sunny Pacific Coast Highway.

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