DAY IN THE LIFE

Chasing Classic Cars host Wayne Carini

A HUDSON ITALIA got me doing the TV show. I’d fallen in love with one particular car when I was 16, but it took me until I was 52 to track it down and buy it. Donald Osborne, the classic car appraiser and consultant, wrote a piece about me finding the car for the

New York Times. It appeared on a Sunday and on the Monday the TV company called me to discuss doing a show.

That was 11 years ago and we’ve now made over 200 episodes of Chasing Classic Cars, which is beamed to 39 countries. The great thing about it for me is that it’s not all set up. It’s just me going about my regular business with a cameraman and a producer.

I love doing the TV stuff but the downside is that I’m away from home a lot – last year it was 183 days. I’m very lucky in having a wife and family who understand me being away so much but I’m trying to cut down, because home life is very important to me.

I’ve always lived in Connecticut and was born in a town called Glastonbury, a name that I know has special connotations for you Brits. At the moment, home is a log cabin that I built in 1973 but we’ve recently bought a 27-acre farm and I’m building a house there. It has an old horse barn that’s now filled with most of my cars.

People ask how many cars I have and I always say: ‘Way too many, but never enough!’ Twenty-seven of them, the very best ones, are held in trust for my daughter Kimberly, who is autistic. When my wife and I are gone they’ll be sold to help maintain her standard of living. It’s what we work for.

My passion for cars comes from my father. During World War Two he was the righthand man for a US General in Austria and used to hot-wire nice cars for the General to drive! When he came home he started restoring old cars, so I grew up surrounded by them. Being raised on a farm, I was given jobs to do from the moment I could carry something and I’ve always been hands-on.

W hen I left college, I repaired a brand-new Daytona Spyder that the owner had crashed – he’d wrecked the whole of one side and my father didn’t want to take on the job. I took it to Chinetti Motors for some service work and Luigi Chinetti – who had seen pictures of the accident damage – was so impressed that he got me restoring Ferraris for him. Until a year ago, I did all the painting at my restoration shop, and while I now have a very good painter I still like to do the paint jobs on any full restorations that we carry out.

If I’m at home, I’ll get up at 4.30-5.00am, do my work-out routine and then check emails – it’s always exciting to see the responses that have come in about potential leads. It’ll sound weird, but right now I do my emails while wearing a full-face helmet! That’s because I suffer from claustrophobia but I’m planning to race at Bonneville and I need to get used to the helmet. I find that it doesn’t bother me so much if my mind is occupied, and by doing emails I can now wear it for 15-20 minutes without noticing it.

I help my wife get Kimberly ready and then I’ll head to work about 7am. It’s pretty

‘IT’LL SOUND WEIRD, BUT RIGHT NOW I DO MY EMAILS WHILE WEARING A FULL-FACE HELMET’

non-stop at the shop, and I spend a lot of time talking with people who’ve come to see me; I also try to be there when a customer comes to pick up a car. If that’s not possible then I’ll make them a little ‘thank you’ video because I think maintaining that personal connection is very important.

There are too few hours in the day to waste one on lunch, so I’ll grab a breakfast sandwich late-morning and work through until 4pm, when I return to the farm to catch up with the house-build or other jobs. In the summer I like to unwind by mowing the fields, which means I’ll get home at 8pm, have some supper, check my emails and be in bed at 9.30! But I do get up very early…

I’m often asked what my greatest car discovery has been, and I guess the unrestored barn-find Stutz Bearcat was a highlight. But there’s always something new to unearth. A friend has just tipped me off about a Ford Model A ‘snowcat’ with caterpillar tracks on the rear and skis on the front, which was used to deliver mail on Lake Placid. Do I need it? Absolutely not. Do I want it? Like you wouldn’t believe!