Don Peterson, classic car collector and expert, dies at 92

Don Peterson was born a car lover and died a car lover.

He joked that his mother claimed “car” was his first word.

At age 3, according to family lore, he would call out the makes and models of autos as they rumbled down the street in 1930s-era Sandstone, Minnesota.

As an adult, Peterson would go on to edit and own Car Collector magazine, and become an expert appraiser of classic cars and a board member of the Classic Car Club of America. Above all, he was a knowledgeable and passionate collector, with more than 100 highly buffed beauties passing through his garages over the decades, from a 1934 Bugatti convertible to a bevy of Rolls-Royces, Packards, Corvettes and Cadillacs.

And somehow along the way, a 1968 AMC Javelin.

“He was a devout believer not just in owning the cars but in driving the cars, so other people could see them and enjoy them,” said his wife, Edie. He drove an estimated 2 million miles in 75 countries, many of those miles accompanied by Edie or his first wife and one or more of six sons.

Memorable trip

His most memorable road trip was in 1995, when he drove a pristinely maintained burgundy 1930 Packard 734 Speedster, only six of which still exist, nearly 10,000 miles in 34 days through all 48 continental United States, accompanied on different legs by Edie and sons Wyatt and Ryan.

“Would I do it again? You bet!” Peterson wrote in an account of the trip. “What’s next? Paris to Peking?”

“That Packard was his favorite,” said Edie Peterson. “People would call all the time, but he didn’t want to sell it,” she said, and he would not even entertain an offer.

Peterson died at his home in Roswell on Sept. 16, at the age of 92, following a long hospitalization caused by a broken hip.

Traditionally at services for a vintage car enthusiast, friends will show up in their favorite cars, said his longtime friend and fellow automotive buff Jim Gray, who expects a big turnout of classic autos for Peterson’s memorial.

“He was the go-to guy with just a plethora of knowledge about cars,” said Gray, director of Atlanta’s Peachstate Packards car club. “At meets for the club, everyone would keep him busy with questions. He could come up to a car they said was a 1935 and he’d say, ‘Well, those are 1936 door handles.’”

Peterson was born April 1, 1929, in Sandstone, Minnesota. He served in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force and graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College.

Peterson’s first car was a 1929 Model A he bought in 1949. He immediately had a new engine put in and took it on a multistate road trip.

Small-town mayor

He married Lois Ruth Taylor in 1952, and the couple had five sons: Wyatt, Winston, Whitney, Westley and Webster. After working in insurance, he purchased a small community bank in Murdock, Minnesota, and was elected mayor of Murdock in 1972.

“But the bank didn’t have anything to do with cars, and cars were his big love,” Edie recalled. So in 1974 he sold the bank and accepted a job offer with Classic Car Investments in Smyrna. Once in metro Atlanta, where he lived the second half of his life, he married Edie Tannenbaum and they had a son, Ryan.

Peterson was devoted to the Classic Car Club of America, becoming a lifelong member in 1954 and serving on the club’s board of directors for 12 years. In 1965, the club gave its first Citation for Distinguished Service to Peterson.

He started his own automotive appraisal business in 1974, Classic Car Appraisal Service, which he continued to run with four of his sons until his death. He became editor of Car Collector magazine in 1977 and ultimately became half-owner.

Ironically, Peterson was pretty hopeless under the hood.

“He wasn’t a guy who knew how to work on cars, or almost which end of a screwdriver to use,” said his son Webster. “His passion was knowing about them and driving them and the travel.”

He had plenty of road breakdowns, though, his son Westley said in an email, including a 1940 Packard that caught fire, and a couple of cars that broke axles in inconvenient locations.

Peterson’s explanation of how he managed those breakdowns and more with no knowledge of how to fix a car, according to Westley: “There’s not much that a Visa card won’t fix.”

Survivors include his wife, Edie; brother Jerry; sons Wyatt (Mercea), Winston (Mary Jo), Westley (Laura), Webster (Kari), and Ryan ( Jason); six grandsons; and 11 great-grandchildren. He son, Whitney, died earlier.

Funeral and interment services will be scheduled later by Washburn McReavy Funeral Home in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Don Peterson was editor and owner of Car Collector magazine.