Richard Carpenter Car Collection

[Bullet]

I had the fortune to go to the car collection of Richard Carpenter (of the musical group, Karen and Richard Carpenter). Remember back to the 1970’s? Anyway, Richard has an amazing car collection. I would say about 40 cars. Mainly Chrysler’s, 300 letter series cars and all convertibles. He had Chargers and T-birds, Lincoln’s. I would say 95% of the cars were from the late 50’s through early 70’s. All the cars were spotless show room condition cars. Not a car that had rust on it in the bunch. The full time mechanic that showed us around and talked about each car said that Richard comes in every couple days and takes another one out to drive for the next several days. The oldest car I saw was a 1937 Coffin nose cord, supercharged. About 80% of the cars were black on black.

To my happy surprise there was a 1963 R-2 Avanti. I have seen him driving that around town on several occasions. Here are some pictures I took of the event.

Mark

[55coupe]

I believe he had a black G T hawk at one time

[leonard]

that was amazing most of the AVANTI'S are rust buckets

[junior]

Thanks for posting photos...must have been so cool for you to see these cars! Not only are the cars impressive, but look at the building they're kept in...spacious, clean and bright.
Thats the way to have a car collection indeed. The photos aren't large enough for me to ID that later 50's Mopar...borders on ugly IMO (at least the fin/tail light treatment) but the roof line on it is so awesome. I imagine Mr. Carpenter must be getting on in age... cheers, Junior

[JayBird]

There is a car for sale currently on ebay that said it once belonged to Richard Carpenter. It's black and fits the style of the cars in his collection a very interesting and optimistic price though. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1957-DeSoto...57ca%7Ciid%3A1

[Deaf Mute]

It was either Jay Leno or Dennis Gage that toured that collection for us TV viewers that can't get there. Those are really neat cars and the Carpenters were a really neat duo, too bad we lost Karen so early in life.

[Buzzard]

Thanks for the post. I too endorse Junior for his taste in roof lines. In Northern Nevada, on our trek home, there is an abandoned, burnt out one I am in awe every time I see that lovely roof line. I think it is a Dodge Pioneer, but someone can correct me here.
Bill

[studegary]

Thanks for posting this. I didn't realize that the collection still existed.
I like the '71/'72 Road Runner/GTX, the 1960 Dodge and the 1964 Fury.

[sgriggs]

Richard Carpenter's 1970 Hemi Cuda was the subject of an episode of Jay Leno's Garage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Ub4ZO0yIA

[packardHawk58]

Here is Carpenters Hawk, we meet Rodger at the Sacramento Meet and he took us back to his place in it to show us his car collection.
He had a lot of cars, road runners, super birds, Sunliners, Olds Hurst Pace car, the list goes on.

[studegary]

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Here is Carpenters Hawk, we meet Rodger at the Sacramento Meet and he took us back to his place in it to show us his car collection.
He had a lot of cars, road runners, super birds, Sunliners, Olds Hurst Pace car, the list goes on.

Who is Rodger? Is he Richard's mechanic/caretaker?

[Bullet]

The picture with Roger must have been the old shop in Huntington Beach that the mechanic talked about last Sat. The mechanic said Richard C. Thinned his collection quite a bit when he moved from HB to Thousand Oaks.

Mark

[55coupe]

Roger is from the Sacramento area a Studebaker member in the past and car collector along with much other stuff. That picture was maybe 10 years ago when he had an auction at his house maybe 30 cars,what I found amazing was his tractor seat collection.

[packardHawk58]

Correct 55 Coupe, but the those photo's were from about 16 years ago.
He had some nice cars like the 54,000 mile Superbird.
I hope he is still doing OK, he is a good guy to show us around his collection.

[studegary]

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Correct 55 Coupe, but the those photo's were from about 16 years ago.
He had some nice cars like the 54,000 mile Superbird.
I hope he is still doing OK, he is a good guy to show us around his collection.

I have a life size cardboard Richard Petty that has been standing behind the bar in my home for decades.