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Photograph by Chad Pilster
West Valley car collector Greg Smith mugs for the camera from the cockpit of his 1958 AC Bristol roadster.
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Car Crazy
A behind-the-wheel look at what drives some of the West Valley's vintage car collectors
By Steve Enders
Asmile glimmers on Pete Stylianos' face when he thinks about his first experience with a Rolls Royce. As a teenager in New Hampshire, he dated Susan Barker--her father was the wealthiest guy in town, and was really important. He owned a Rolls.
Stylianos waxes lyrical about what it was like being in père Barker's presence. Other men around town would sometimes whisper about him, as if he were royalty and it was uncouth to speak his name aloud.
"There was just something about him," Shaking his head, arms crossed, Stylianos is unable to put words to whatever made Barker so great.
He remembers looking at Barker's car one day and seeing the Flying Lady, the graceful, faceless, winged and arch-backed woman who serves as the Rolls hood ornament. When he saw the lady he knew that he too, would someday own a Rolls Royce--arguably one of the world's ultimate status symbols, chariot of the rich or famous and foreign dignitaries.
Today, Stylianos has achieved the status he was looking for, thanks to semiconductors, and has four gorgeous Rolls Royces to show for it.
As if to clarify any confusion over who owns these fine cars, the embroidered, script initials "PS" on his crisp, white shirt match the initials he's had painted in gold under the driver's side window on each of his cars. His license plates read "P2 34," "Pete RR 2, "Pete RR3" and "Pete RR4," in sequence in the garage.
The white Silver Shadow II is his "everyday car." It gets about the same gas mileage as any SUV on the road today.
Around his neck, Stylianos wears a gold Flying Lady pendant studded with diamonds as a testament to his pride and joys. He also keeps an 18-karat gold original Rolls Royce key in his pocket. He can't use it though--the gold is too soft to turn in the ignition.
"I just like them," he says of his cars. "They're classic and comfortable. And fun."
Speaking of fun, he also owns a Lamborghini. Right now, it's garaged at another of his three area homes.
At his palatial Saratoga hillside home overlooking San Jose, Stylianos is having an even bigger garage made to hold his automobiles. By the time the garage is completed, the newest model Lamborghini should have hit the market. He thinks he'll buy one.
Ironically, resting too close for anyone's comfort at about two inches away from an immaculate 1959 Silver Cloud I, lies a vintage orange Volkswagen bus.
"To me, this is the finest car Rolls ever built," Stylianos says of the Silver Cloud. It truly is gorgeous.
"But you can never forget your roots," he says, adding that the VW carries his stuff very dutifully when he needs to haul a load.
Photograph by Chad Pilster
Pete Stylianos kneels behind three of his four Rolls Royces.
The Club
Stylianos is one of about 550 car collectors who participate in the Northern California region of the Rolls Royce Owners' Club. It's no surprise, really, that Saratoga, Monte Sereno and Los Gatos lay claim to more than 40 of the club's household memberships. Many others are located in and around Palo Alto and in Napa County.
Fun is an understatement to describe the feeling of elevated stature you get when driving around in such a car.
Thanks to Austin Kilburn and Greg Smith, two Saratoga club actives, I'm able to get behind the chrome, metal and wood to find out just who owns these incredible automobiles you sometimes see on local roads.
"The real enthusiasts have other cars," Kilburn says. "A lot of our members are one-car people. Many own newer cars, and they don't work on them."
The owners' club is also decidedly male-dominated. Couples are members in the club and participate in drives, picnics and shows, but it's usually the men who own and repair the cars, Kilburn and Smith say. They can, however, recall one female member who has been known to turn a wrench on occasion.
These two gentlemen aren't flashy eccentrics by any stretch of the imagination. Their homes aren't mansions and they aren't awakened by butlers and don't drink mimosas by the pool every morning. Instead, they're just regular guys who own dogs and have lived in the area for some time.
The difference is that over the years they have been fortunate enough to own and enjoy some of the world's finest automobiles.
Smith is the national director of the regional chapter of the RROC, and Kilburn is an IBM semi-retiree with a penchant for all kinds of different cars. He also has been a judge for the club, which holds meets and contests regularly throughout the year.
Kilburn has a Jaguar and an Austin-Healey convertible on blocks in his barn. That's why he bought his house--so he could store and work on his cars. Even with a barn full of cars, parts and machines, Kilburn rides a bicycle to work every day. He claims more than 60,000 miles on his bike, more miles than are on the Austin-Healey.
Smith is also a racing fan, besides being a limo owner. Right now, a 1982 Ferrari 308 GTS--the kind Tom Selleck drove in Magnum P.I.--rests on jacks in his garage, waiting for a new accelerator cable. The defect, unfortunately, makes the car unusable for an upcoming autocross.
Outside the garage, however, waits a 1958 AC (Auto Carrier) Bristol, ready to pounce on any driver who dares challenge.
This hot little sports car--a regular racing champion in its heyday--was a precursor to the Shelby Cobra, which eventually evolved into what Kilburn calls "a fire-breathing monster" sporting a 427-cubic-inch Ford engine and big, fat tires to hold the rocket to the ground.
Sure, both Kilburn and Smith own a few cars that, if they were in top restored form, together would probably be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that's not what car collecting is about, they say.
"What's the point in having them if you don't drive them?" Smith asks. "There are some guys who don't, but the cars are meant to be driven. And if you don't drive them, they deteriorate more quickly," Smith says from the cockpit of the AC.
"My wife always says to me," Smith mocks, " 'Oh my God, you got another car. Why do you need another car?' "
I ask him why he does.
"Don't ask those kinds of questions," he says, wagging a finger at me. "You know what the answer is."
On this crisp, blue Saturday we're certainly driving. Smith has decided the day is suitable for his 1954 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith--a black, beautifully restored, eight-passenger limousine and one of about 11 ever made. He's done all the restoration himself, even the woodwork in the back seat that flips open as a bar, holding bottles of port and champagne and exquisite crystal glasses.
The car is fantastic, and boasts all the best British engineering able to fit on four wheels in 1954. Wooden "picnic tables" fold down from the panel separating me from the driver's seat--it's on the right--and "jump seats" pop up from the floor behind the panel for the maximum seating configuration. Smith has even converted the ashtrays above the tables to hold reading lamps.
"You don't want people smoking in here," Smith says matter of factly.
Drivers' Ed.
I've never been in a limousine before. Not even on prom night. On momentous occasions such as those I decided against limos and instead drove dad's 1977 Fiat Spider convertible. I loved that car, with its ragtop and vinyl seats, and so did my dates. It was just cool to drive, especially in summer. I even put a stereo in it.
But, save for the carburetor, I never really knew how to fix the thing. There was a pin that fell out sometimes which screwed up the timing. Fix It Again, Tony.
But still, if my friends and I had chosen to be extravagant and had driven around town in a hired limo on those nights, it most likely would have been in a stretch Lincoln Town Car--the American image of luxury.
Today, I feel like I'm very important and understand why Rolls Royces are a kick to drive. There's an instant feeling of prominence that comes along with simply sitting in the back of such a car, not to mention owning one.
And the satisfaction increases tenfold simply knowing that this perfect car is running perfectly because you fixed it yourself.
For effect, Smith calls me "sir" as he opens the rear door for me to step in and out.
As the machine lumbers and creaks out of Kilburn's driveway and down the street toward Quito Road, people driving by nearly crash into each other as they crane their necks to get a look at this unusual and beautiful automobile. People can't help but look. It's a blue whale in a sea of brine shrimp.
Its chrome headlamps are the size of basketballs and the front fenders curve and stretch gracefully for nearly 10 feet. They continue flawlessly to the running boards that meet my feet when I step out the back door.
The engine purrs as Smith places a chauffeur's cap on his head and his foot on the pedal as we hang a right toward Los Gatos. Suddenly, the fancy Jags, Mercedes and Beamers we pass don't seem quite as distinguished as they do when I'm driving next to them in my Volkswagen Golf.
"I wouldn't pay a dime for a Volkswagen," Kilburn says. "I don't know why, they've just never appealed to me."
Photograph by Chad Pilster
Bernie Sims and his 1951 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith limousine.
Old School
When the Union Jack flies over the Kilburn house, it's tech-meet time--a chance for owners to come together and learn to repair specific parts of their British cars.
Two weeks ago, Kilburn hosted an overdrive session and installed an overdrive system in his '38 Bentley. Now, the car does 80 mph on the freeway, no problem.
"My 22-year-old daughter learned how to drive in the Bentley when she was 14," Kilburn says.
And even though we're riding in $60,000 worth of classic automobile, Kilburn and Smith don't let them sit in the garage, rubbing them down twice every week.
To his credit, Pete Stylianos is a purist at heart much like Kilburn and Smith. He says that for years he wouldn't let anyone touch his cars. He'd rather do it himself.
"You can't muscle these things. You don't want to risk stripping a nut or anything. It's better to take an extra day," Stylianos says. "We're not in a hurry with these things."
The wooden body of Smith's limo creaks and groans as we bounce over potholes in Quito Road and steer quickly around those tight turns. "It's big, so you've got to be careful," Smith says. "But it's not hard to steer, and it's got a real sharp turning radius. Better than you might think.
"I don't even keep a key to this car. Nobody knows how to start the thing, so I just don't worry about it."
The dashboards on these old cars are extremely complicated. Power steering, cruise control and radio buttons in modern cars don't have anything on these instruments. Switches, levers and knobs adorn the dash and steering wheels, and do everything from changing the carburetor mix to lubricating the suspension.
A foot pedal on cars dating back to the '20s and '30s releases oil on suspension parts to dampen noise. It should be done every 250 to 500 miles or so, depending on conditions.
Our first stop this morning is at Randy Hall's house, where a 1928 Phantom I roadster is cooped up. Hall bought it in 1956, and restored the 6,000-pound car himself from top to bottom. There's a patched hole in the concrete floor where, one night, the car's weight took over and the car fell through.
"I was a misplaced youth," Hall laughs. "I was taking shop classes when I should have been taking physics."
Hall's car is a blue-and-cream touring convertible dream and carries a 488-cubic-inch engine.
"There's a lot of power in there, but it's got to be enough to carry the car. It's heavy," he says.
As Hall retrieves a photo album documenting his restoration efforts, Kilburn explains that most of these cars are 100 percent handmade. Finding parts to restore them can be somewhat of a pain, because even if the parts were made by the same manufacturer in the same year, they may not be interchangeable.
Because of that, the RROC used to be sticklers about which cars could carry the prestigious "classic" title. Sometimes entire bodies were different from the original, and the cars weren't accepted by the club.
Today, things have changed for the most part, and Hall's beautiful car is rightfully honored for what it is, a classic car from the "classic" era of the 1920s and '30s.
"They couldn't even sell them after the Depression. All these cars were just sitting there, so a lot of people just re-bodied them. Now the classic car clubs approve them," Smith says. "They can't afford not to accept them--all the bodies were all rotted out."
Later on, we head over to Bernie Sims' house, tucked away in a nook of Saratoga that seems to be reserved for the owners of classy automobiles.
As we pull into his driveway, we're greeted by an amazing limo that looks similar to Smith's but is a couple of years older and a couple of feet shorter--a 1951 Silver Wraith.
"Bernie wins all kinds of prizes with this car," says Kilburn, envious of the immaculately restored leather seats.
Sims also has a slick old T-Bird in the garage, but for now the Rolls is on display.
"That's the trouble with these cars, they're restored," Sims says. "You don't take these cars to the grocery store. People mistreat them."
Kilburn says, "I take mine to the store, but people are curious. Some people 'key' them because they're jealous."
It was actually Bernie's wife, Steffi, who got him into car collecting. She says she went to an auto show once and left intrigued.
"It's been fun," Bernie says. "It's definitely filled a gap in my life."
What's fun, Kilburn explains, are the people involved in collecting. At the shows, like last month's prestigious meet in Palo Alto, everything from the cars to people's period outfits to the picnics they bring along in their cars are judged and enjoyed.
"Once you get started in this hobby, you can never stop," Steffi says.
Randy Hall and his 1928 Rolls Phantom I.
Photograph by Chad Pilster
Phantom Menace
Later on, as I talk to Bernie and Steffi Sims on their backyard porch, it becomes apparent that there are at least two schools of thought when it comes to Rolls Royce and classic-car ownership.
Bernie says that his vision of the quintessential Rolls is his black four-door Silver Wraith limo. Pete Stylianos' vision of the perfect Rolls is the Silver Cloud. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and even though they all appreciate each others' vehicles, how the beauty is interpreted is an entirely different matter.
Back at Stylianos' house, the judge in Kilburn emerges as he peers at the wheels on Stylianos' black Silver Shadow. They're of the spoked-chrome variety, something Kilburn says would not only cost points and be frowned upon during competition, but woulsd diminish the monetary value of the car.
Stylianos hops in the VW bus through the passenger seat, starts it up and oh so carefully backs it out alongside the Silver Cloud and down the driveway to increase the dramatic effect for a photo of his cars.
As he walks back up the driveway, Kilburn takes a look at the fender of the white Silver Shadow. It looks as if he's interested in the reasoning for the scripted "PS" under the window. He's actually pondering the "Rolls Royce" decal on the fender.
"Hey, Pete," Kilburn calls out. "This didn't come with this sticker on here, did it?"
"Oh no," Stylianos replies with a flick of the wrist. "I thought it looked too plain."
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
