Feb 14, 2021
Alan Morin duPont Registry, Boulevard Customs, Tampa Bar Car Museum
Jeff Sterns, I'm connected through cars with my good friend Alan Moore, and I'm really looking forward to this episode. I hope you enjoy it. Alan had an illustrious career from selling German imports and Ferrari before joining DuPont registry, and then running Boulevard customs customization for exotics for celebrities, including some world known pieces in SEMA. And finally at the Tampa Bay auto museum. He's got a fabulous history, United States, France. Take a look, I hope you enjoy.
3:47 Alan went to France as a kid and was mesmerized.
5:23 So like I drew a bunch of 911 turbos, so 911 turbos with that big whale tail. You know, the 930s like the 76.
6:35 I realized there was a lot of a lot of innovation that occurred. And you know, even in the early early 1900s, late 1800s, early 1900s in France, of course, Germany as well.
8:33 Citroen two CV, which is the French version of the Volkswagen, ....it was an air cooled two cylinder horizontally opposed front wheel drive car, with just tons of room. You can seat five or six people in it, and get 40 to 50 miles per gallon and they never broke. There's no coolant. There's, there's really it's such a simple car. So they made you know, 9-10 million of those cars.
9:23 Alan as a young man was general manager of a fast food restaurant. The owner and general manager of actually at the time, came in and recruited him to sell Honda.
12:15 Alan moves to Mercedes for the next eight years.
14:30 Alan's love of the car helped him sell the remaining Peugeots after the brand left the USA.
14:30 Alan also sold Ferrari.
it was a 2.0 or 3.0 Testarossa
Correct,
i12:15 Ferrari 456 looked like a Ford Probe.
18:28 Dealer gives up the Ferrari dealership due to Ferrari's pressure to get into teh Challenge racing program.
19:46 Ferrari salespeople! Listen to this in case you ever have to go back to selling to get models out the door!
22:00 Jeff and Alan discuss the ethics and dynamics of "above MSRP" sellers and buyers.
28:10 Jeff proves that his 27 years in dealerships and eight years as a consultant to the business knows everything about cars... (nothing)
28:16 Alan left the retail carbon assignment to work for DuPont publishing and DuPont registry.
32:06 Carrera GT, which were the V 10, carbon fiber, mid engine, Porsche, they listed like $450,000, sticker price.
38:12 (Porsche Cararra GT customer: "How do I get out of this car, I'm gonna kill myself in this car."
.38:54 Jeff: I've called surgeons, and they said, Doctor, whoever's in surgery, and I've said oh, you know, I'm just the car guy with this turbo or he was looking for, oh, he said, If you call to interrupt them. I know you've been there. I mean, I can ask any guy and and, and I'm like, Well, I hope it wasn't a heart transplant. You know, he's doing yours and the guy would just come on for a minute.
43:16 Good job getting 100 grand deposit from the European on the super America. That's not a deal. And good job getting the $550k or whatever we got for the Daytona that's not a deal even though the car is shipped already. And we got the money already.
50:06 let me let me get dealers off the hook around the world that customers get frustrated about shipping. (Jeff tells some crazy transport stories)
55:41 Audience! with Alan you've got a guy in a museum for the same reasons that he got into the business you love.
56:22 Well, so the the finance manager needs to take your car deal. And find a lender, whether it's the manufacturer or a bank, that will agree to the interest rate and terms necessary to make your deal work at the numbers that you've agreed to with the customer.
1:00:48 you and I met through DuPont registry.
Right, who's gonna look at the web,
1:07:53 (origin of cars and coffee) Tom duPont came back from California. And he was out there at some event that he said, Hey, I was stopped into Starbucks on the way to the airport Saturday morning and they're having a car show out there in the parking lot of Starbucks, like Lamborghinis and Ferraris and muscle cars and all kinds of cool stuff. And apparently they do this every week.
1:08:36 Vinnie (Russo/from another episode), you know, we were doing events. And then he was running our most of our events at that point. And so we all sat down and came up with this idea for this cars and coffee and came up with a logo
This was oh five june of Oh, five. I think I think you were there. That one or one of the first?
1:09:25 Jeff: I was there early.
1:11:45 "Floridians and weather"
1:12:26 Jeff: I probably even brought my 31 Ford hot rod (to cars and coffee)
1:13:08 we had one car that that left the road and bent itself. a really nice restored 440 charger, that when he left and he jumped on it got a little sideways, he overcorrected, and nosed it into the ditch and bent it
1:18:38 I have a little Smithsonian Museum of my past cell phones.
1:26:43 a museum. And I walked in there and I'm thinking, this is just incredible. You know, these, this, this is right here in Pinellas Park. There's, I don't know that there's another museum like it anywhere that has the kind of innovation that they're that they're so enthusiastic about right here in front of us.
Yeah, the Honorable disco bar scene.
1:29:09 why would you want your dad to bring home a 38 Oakland for the kids to look at at night when you could bring, you know a waitress in cocaine?
1:30:41 the most interesting car we just got. You will appreciate is a 1913 wait for it. Sterns, knight,
1:34:07 Roy Jones, a fighter Phantom when that car came out. And he couldn't take delivery of it until we put the televisions in it we used to send a lot of stuff to Boulevard. Shaq with the Superman. .
1:35:33 SEMA tuner challenge
1:38:40 one of the great projects was a company called Davidoff of Geneva. And they wanted to have a mobile cigar lounge
1:41:40 26 inch wheel... $40,000 in stereo
1:46:01 Johnnie Cochran
1:48:27 Billy Mays
So you get a million bucks. For would you get Stinger Porsche?
1:56:15 the Porsche Carrera GT, F 40, an Enzo McLaren f1
1:59:07 Alan, you're a legend. am really honored. I appreciate it. I think it was a great conversation.
1:59:40 I appreciate you saying that I'm I'm not a legend. The nice of you to say that it. I am a car guy like so many others.