THOUSAND OAKS : Restored Bentley Takes Honors at Vintage Car Show

Gary Wales proudly told anyone who asked on Sunday that he has single-mindedly devoted the last 12 years of his life to the painstaking restoration of a car.

When questioned about his reasons for making such a tremendous commitment, Wales, a former Woodland Hills stockbroker who now restores cars full time, pointed out that his shiny black, chrome-covered, frog-leather-upholstered 1947 Rolls-Royce Bentley is much more than a souped-up vehicle.

“This transcends being an automobile,” Wales said during the 4th annual Car Roundup and Vintage Car Show on the campus of Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

“This is functional art,” he said, comparing his labors to the efforts by artists whose paintings later bring millions at auctions.

The car, transformed by Wales and a crew of assistants over the years from a scrapped hull, is now valued at $2 million to $4 million, he said.

The thousands of people who flocked to the car show Sunday were obviously impressed with the Bentley.

And even more important, the other 178 men and women who brought their vintage cars to the competition--and thus had the right to vote for the best car entered--agreed that Wales’ pride and joy was the top vehicle on display.

The Bentley received the two highest honors available, the Best of Show Award and the People’s Choice trophy, something Wales himself admits he expected after taking high honors at nearly every car show he has entered this year, the only year he plans to enter the Bentley in competitions.

“My goal for the last 12 years has been to make this the best show car anywhere in the world, and now I’m going to enter it in every show I can for a year,” Wales said.

“Then I’m going to sell it to someone with the class, style and most importantly, the money to afford it.”

Not all of the car owners at Sunday’s car show, sponsored by the Milestone Car Society of California Inc., are as driven as Wales in their pursuit of perfection, but most seemed to be devoted to their machines.

There were sections of souped-up Corvettes, areas filled with pre-World War II Model T’s, a long line of low-to-the-ground wide-bodied pickup trucks, and even a special section for convertibles.

Les Williams, a Santa Clarita salesman, stood watch over his black 1964 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport convertible, which he admits to having spent more than $5,000 on since buying it 2 1/2 years ago.

“This is the weekend fun car,” Williams said.

“This would have been the car I would’ve liked to have had in high school, so I’m kind of reliving my childhood in a way.”

Richard Britschgi, a Moorpark auto repair instructor for Volkswagen and Audi, has been driving his white 1959 Austin Healy Bugeye since his high school days in 1973, he said.

“This was my old high school car, and I just never got rid of it,” he said, adding that the Bugeye, also known as a Frogeye in the United States, is too rare to be an everyday car.

“I pretty much kept the cars for weekends back in Illinois and car shows, but since I’ve come out here, I must admit to even driving it to and from work every now and again,” Britschgi said.

While he explained the finer points of the Bugeye, Britschgi’s daughter, 3-year-old Alaina, enjoyed Father’s Day by playing with a wrench set on a nearby blanket.

Son Michael, 4, was busy looking at the other cars on display with his mother, Britschgi said, adding that both would probably follow in his car-loving footsteps.

“He’s like me,” Britschgi said of his son.

“He seems like he was born with a wrench in his hand.”