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DRIVERhimself, leasing a workshop out theback of the local BP service station.Four years later, he moved to biggerpremises before finally selling thebusiness last year. Now he’s busywith private repair contracts,working from his home workshop.Throughout his time as a mechanic,his interest in collecting and restoringbig old American cars has grown.His preference is for classic carswith potential, rather than onesthat come buffed up as new.“It’s more affordable to buy carsas ‘a project’ and you know whatyou’re getting. The risk in spendinga lot of money on something niceand shiny is while it may look reallygood, it may turn out to have beenpatched up and poorly restored.”Ben’s collection has grown fromcars found in New Zealand – forexample, a 1967 Camaro purchasedfrom a man who had imported it fromCalifornia – as well as in Australia“Out the back ofLas Vegas we cameacross 300 cars in themiddle of nowhere.I was like a kid in alolly shop.“and the United States.On a trip to the US last year, hebought a 1955 Cadillac Coupe deVille that he’d spotted at a swap meetin Pomona, California. “It didn’t sellthere, so I ended up ringing the guyafterwards and driving out to hishome in the desert, an hour out ofLos Angeles. It’d just been parked up,derelict, for years. He showed us allthe paperwork, I bought it and thenhe offered to tow it to the shipper’syard for us.”Ben had every intention of holdingon to this car. “However, no soonerhad I got it going than I sold it to aguy I’d been doing some work for.He’d fallen in love with it and hadto have it. At least I know it has goneto a good home.”Ben and Lorraine have madeseveral trips to the US. Ben loves thevastness of the desert States, wherethe dry air helps to preserve thebodies of old cars. “You never knowwhat you’ll find. I remember onetime, out the back of Las Vegas, wecame across 300 cars sitting out in apaddock in the middle of nowhere.They were all projects in varyingstates. I was like a kid in a lollyshop looking through that place.”Through the classifieds siteCraigslist, Ben also found an oldcollector of cars in Arizona whowas selling his lifetime’s collectionfrom out of a yard and warehousein an industrial area. Fossickingthrough a treasure trove like thatis what keeps Ben hooked on theidea of going back again. »