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October 5, 2009
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REALLY USED CARS
Dealer Sells off Collection of Vehicles Spanning Several Decades By Ted Craig
Bill Rucker gives a whole new meaning to “cash for clunkers.” The owner of Rucker Performance in Haltom City, Texas, is selling off a collection of almost 200 cars that spans more than 50 years of auto history. Among the cars he’s sold are a 1966 Rambler Marlin and a 1955 Kaiser Manhattan. Some of the less exotic vehicles, though, drew surprising interest. Rucker placed a ‘56 Pontiac Starchief on eBay and started the bidding at $50. It sold for $750. The average price of the vehicles is $1,200. This venture makes up in some ways for a missed opportunity for Rucker. He’s bought and sold cars for 25 years. “I’ve always had a dealer’s license,” Rucker said. In the early ‘80s, a 23-year-old Rucker had the chance to buy 400 cars from a man named Frank Jarvis. It was an extensive collection that featured such prized vehicles as a Dodge Barracuda with a hemi engine and a Studebaker Golden Hawk.
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Rucker could have bought the whole group for $30,000. The only problem was he lacked $30,000. The Jarvis family owns several salvage businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Two other brothers, Richard and David, also set aside vehicles they liked that they bought for their business. One of their children came to Rucker after the brothers died and offered him the cars in a gross. This time he had the money. “It was cheese to a mouse,” Rucker said. “It was an interesting group of cars.” Rucker founded a custom motorcycle business in the ‘90s. He left when it went public in 2001 and started another business customizing and restoring motorcycles and cars. He started shifting more into car sales when the motorcycle market collapsed in 2007. Finding, restoring and selling old cars is challenging. “It’s a hard business to make a living at,” Rucker said. “You really have to know what you’re doing.” The hardest part of running this operation is just getting the vehicles to the lot. All the cars in the Jarvis collection were sitting on flat tires in a field. Rucker hired tow trucks to bring them to his store. The job was so big the tow operators did most of their work at night so the trucks were free for other jobs during the day. Rucker Performance is located on the site of a former AMC dealership. It’s zoned for storing dozens of junk cars, another advantage for Rucker. All these classic cars appearing on his lot drew plenty of local interest. That created wordof-mouth marketing that sold quite a few cars. Other units were listed on Web sites like Craigslist and
Photo by Tom Pennington TREASURED TRASH: Dealer Bill Rucker stands among some of the vehicles he’s selling at his Texas dealership. These cars came from a collection owned by a family in the salvage business.
eBay. They sold to buyers from all over the world. One local sale proved special, though. It turned out a 1966 Ford pickup once belonged to a man who lived near Rucker. He contacted the man and found he bought it new when he worked as chief engineer at Bell Helicopter.
The truck’s former owner spent some time fixing it up with his grandson, but the project was abandoned and sold to the Jarvises. Rucker fixed up the truck and took it over to show the former owner. The man was thrilled at seeing the restoration and even happier when the truck was
bought by another Bell engineer. There are 70 cars left from the Jarvis collection. Rucker is considering taking on a few other collections, including a group of 400 motorcycles. “I’m always looking for large groups that I can economically work with,” he said.
IN THIS ISSUE • ADESA opens new state-of-the-art auction facility. – Page 3
• Public shows less interest in green cars, but potential remains. – Page 8
• State leaves IADA out of education program. – Page 6
• Road construction creates challenges for used-car dealer. – Page 12