‘39 Rolls, Other PTL Items to Be Auctioned

A Costa Mesa car dealer announced Thursday that he will auction a rare 1939 Rolls-Royce limousine that he said PTL founder Jim Bakker bought from him three years ago for his South Carolina theme park.

On the same day in June, 1984, Bakker bought a burgundy and tan 1953 Silver Dawn Rolls-Royce for $55,000 “for his own personal use” with “what I perceive to be church funds,” said Gary Concannon, president of Concannon’s Horseless Stables.

The statements came as new PTL leaders in South Carolina on Thursday displayed an air-conditioned doghouse taken from the disgraced former television evangelist’s Lake Wylie, S.C., home, and a seven-foot stuffed toy giraffe that was in his office. These items and others will be auctioned Saturday in hopes of realizing about $500,000 for the financially troubled ministry, which has debts estimated at $68 million.

The 1939 Rolls will be auctioned separately later.

According to Concannon, Bakker visited his showroom June 12, 1984, with an entourage of eight or nine people, including his wife, Tammy Faye.

Concannon said Bakker had come to buy one Rolls-Royce, which he wanted painted gold, to carry parishioners staying at the luxury Heritage Grand Hotel in Fort Mill, S.C.

“But he fell in love with the second one for himself,” Concannon said.

Bakker ordered the 1939 Phantom III and made partial payment of $27,000 for mechanical and body work. It was bought under the name Heritage Village Church and Missionary Fellowship--with checks and cash wired from South Carolina PTL headquarters, Concannon said.

The Phantom III was never delivered, however, and it remains at Concannon’s showroom because a $12,500 balance on the restoration work was never paid before Bakker gave up his ministry in March after admitting that he had been involved in a sexual encounter, Concannon said.

“I’ve been quiet for all these years before I found out that this particular car was going to be in a glass case,” Concannon said, referring to Bakker’s reported plans to enshrine the Phantom in plexiglass atop the Heritage Grand Hotel. “To me, that’s not for the benefit of the people. And that upset me. . . . I found out I had been deceived,” Concannon said.

Concannon could produce no canceled checks or proof of who actually paid him for the two cars, but he presented purchase orders for both cars indicating that Bakker had signed as buyer of the newer Rolls-Royce. He also had a Department of Motor Vehicles printout showing that Bakker was the registered owner of it in September, 1984.

Bakker, now in seclusion with his wife at their Palm Desert home, did not answer his phone Thursday afternoon.

In a May 1 interview with The Times, Bakker said he regretted once buying a 1953 Rolls-Royce. “It was a dream of mine,” he said. “I realize now that it was a buzz thing. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Concannon said the 1953 Silver Dawn Rolls was purchased with cash and checks totaling $58,884. But Bakker sold it to an Arizona buyer once the scandal of his sexual encounter with a former church secretary and subsequent payment of blackmail money to keep the tryst quiet surfaced.

Concannon said he will restore the 1939 vehicle--now rather dingy looking in its state of gray primer--and auction it in 16 weeks. He refused to divulge the price Bakker originally paid for the Phantom. He said he will ask $250,000 at auction and give all but the $12,500 owing back to the PTL.

In South Carolina, Jerry Nims, PTL’s new chief executive officer, told the Associated Press that the Rolls-Royce was to be used at Heritage USA, the PTL’s religious resort and theme park, and that the car is valued at between $62,000 and $69,000.

The carpeted doghouse is worth $200 to $300 but “might bring $2,000 or $3,000,” said PTL auctioneer Ivan Broadwell. He gave no value for the giraffe.

Other auction items include gold-plated bathroom fixtures from the Presidential Suite at the Heritage Grand Hotel used by Jim Bakker and his wife, a 1985 Lincoln Continental, a 1927 Franklin, and several silver and antique pianos and organs.

Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for new PTL chairman Jerry Falwell, said efforts to retrieve other alleged PTL property were being frustrated. A court order has thwarted attempts to remove property from Bakker’s mountainside chalet at Gatlinburg, Tenn., DeMoss added.

He said he did not know whether the PTL has determined yet whether church funds were spent on the 1953 Rolls-Royce.