Car-crazy collector driven to help others

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This article was published 23/04/2010 (5953 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

YOU won’t find a 1953 Fiat 8V Ghia Savonuzzi Supersonic in your average auto collection. Never mind the fact the Supersonic is a rare car, but a Calgary collector just happens to own one that was owned by the late actress Lana Turner.

Fred Phillips maintains a collection of automobiles that numbers just over 60. While the collection is in the Calgary area, for security reasons we’re not going to say exactly where it’s located.

Suffice to say that Phillips has opened up his collection for viewing to groups of 25 people or more.

So far, he’s hosted a few groups of interested parties. At the end of the tour, he’s asked for a suggested donation of $20 per person. That adds up to $500, or sometimes more if folks are feeling generous. Phillips then matches the funds raised and makes a donation to the Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre.

Addiction and alcoholism — almost everybody who walks the planet is touched by it, whether it’s a friend, family member or a co-worker, Phillips says. We’re aware of it, and we’re affected by it. But AARC has a solution and they are helping adolescents.

Not only are AARC clients going through addiction and alcohol problems, but they are dealing with adolescent issues as well . I became aware of the work AARC does and wanted to support it.

For the last two decades Phillips has actively collected a variety of automobiles, everything from Ford Model As to Ferrari F40s.

Or, as Phillips himself points out: "(These are) cars Fred loved. None of it makes sense; it really only makes sense to me. (The collection ranges) from one-off, coach-built Italian cars to production muscle cars to rat rods and race cars."

Phillips jokingly says he wasn’t raised in a car-enthusiastic family.

"My dad passed away owning a four-door Maverick," he says.

But Phillips can clearly recall the day he wanted to learn more about cars. He was a young teen visiting family friends in Rockyford, Alta.

"This Charger drives down Main Street and the older brother says ‘That’s a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T’, and I remember asking how does he know that?" Phillips says.

"That completely and indelibly impressed me, and I said I’ve got to find out about cars —- that was the seed that was planted for me."

Phillips bought and sold a few cars during his high school years, and was on his was to earning a computer science degree when he dropped out to pursue his own business venture.

He operated Fred’s Restorations for a short time before a new opportunity arose, that of manufacturing acrylic automotive accessories.

Phillips started Focus Auto Design in 1987, and began producing aftermarket acrylic headlight protectors.

Essentially, the company was cutting, bending, heating and forming acrylic, and then moved on to produce a variety of hood protectors, side window air deflectors, sunroof wind deflectors and headlight and tail light covers.

"I was manufacturing car parts for a living, bought the building, invested in some residential real estate — basically a bunch of things clicked, but I’ve worked hard and had a lot of luck, too," Phillips says.

He left the world of collecting cars briefly while he got his company up and running, but then in the early 1990s he was back buying cars of all sorts.

The Fiat 8V Ghia was a vehicle he’d pursued from the early 1990s when he saw it at a Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance event.

He was finally able to buy the car in 2006 via a telephone bid at the Geneva Sports Car Auction.

Of the V-8 powered car with its unmistakable rocket ship lines, Phillips says: "If George Jetson bought a car, this is what he’d buy."

But it wasn’t Jetson who bought this particular car; it was Lana Turner. She was the first owner from 1953 to 1955.

While a stunning car like the Supersonic takes pride of place in Phillips’ collection, so too does a Messerschmitt, a German-built three-wheeled bubbletop microcar.

"The best part for me is the Messerschmitt attracts so many people, and it’s more laughs per mile," Phillips says. It evokes emotions from grandmas to astute car people. Although these two cars are about as far apart as you can get they are equally as much fun.

By opening his private collection Phillips hopes to raise $25,000 by the end of the year — enough to help an underprivileged family put their teen through AARC. Tours are by inquiry only.

Visit www.focusauto.com for a peek at some of the cars in the collection.

Phillips is open to tours of groups of people 25 or more — and they don’t have to be auto enthusiasts to enjoy the collection.

— Canwest News Service