Cars Yeah With Mark Greene

Chuck Bennett is the president of Zymol, a unique and premium car care company that he started over 30 years ago. The unique formulas are rooted in nature and science and the first batch of Zymol was cooked up in a coffee urn in Chuck’s kitchen. The brand is known world wide among automotive enthusiasts and he’s been creating high quality car care for the most discerning collectors to the avid enthusiast who wants his or her vehicle to look their best while being protected from the elements. Originally based in Connecticut, he moved the company to Brooksville Florida where he grows his own carnauba and other plants that they use in Zymol products that are pure, powerful, and perfect!

Richard Pietruska’s Motor Art exhibits the dynamic fluid motion of the automobile while simplifying the basic design lines of some of the most exotic vehicles of the past and present. Richard studied automotive design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where he received a degree in automotive design and he earned his masters of fine arts degree there as well. He has been a professor at the college for over 40 years. He is a member of the Automotive Fine Arts Society and has won the prestigious Peter Helck Award for 3 years in a row and he won numerous Athena Awards of Excellence at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. His amazing work can be seen in many automotive magazines, private collections, and museums around the world.

Kevin Davis is a self-described serial entrepreneur living in Montana where he manages five business ventures from web development to vacation homes. A car guy from an early age, Kevin has always enjoyed meeting other automotive enthusiasts and loves the car hobby. Never one to sit still, he started detailing cars and created his latest product, the Detailer’s Helper. It’s a lightweight, paint friendly tool belt designed for professionals and the home enthusiast who love to take care of their favorite rides. Think of a tool belt for the car care crowd. He’s with us today just back from the SEMA show where he spent some time sharing his new creation with the automotive market.

Scot Keller is the Chief Curator at America’s Car Museum. He directs the Museum’s exhibitory and exhibitions. His career in the automotive industry spans three decades. He’s worked at BMW, Callaway engineering, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Audi in advertising, merchandising, communications, and strategic development. He worked for the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit and for General Motors as well He had direct responsibility for GM’s heritage activities and co-founde the GM Heritage Center museum in Detroit.

Patrick Hong is a serial entrepreneur, an automotive enthusiast, and the founder and CEO of Prenostik. Prenostik is a public relations and marketing business intelligence, cloud-computing software platform that helps organizations tie consumer response to results. Passionate about any vehicle that goes fast, he is the former Executive Editor for Road & Track magazine and as an automotive writer he’s driven and tested numerous vehicles. He’s competed in 24-hour driving competitions around the world and flown in jet fighters and on board zero gravity vomit-comet planes. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a Master’s degree in aerospace engineering and he’s always looking for ways to solve problems and he is an advocate and strong believer in entrepreneurial spirit and life-long learning that stimulates critical thinking and innovation.

Adam Pitale is the chief detailer, product engineer, and head of customer service at Adam’s Premium Car Care. At the age of 9 the entrepreneur bloomed and he started a small business, "Adam’s Bicycle Repair and Cleaning." From there he went on to washing and waxing the cars in his neighborhood, and at age 12, he hired his first employee, a 16 year-old boy from the neighborhood. His business grew in to a Mobile Detailing Business, and he specialized in limousine fleets through high school and college. Eventually Adam developed his own car care products and he started selling them at the Orange County Swap Meet in Southern California. His business grew, a website was born, and today a full line of premium car care products can be found at Adam’s Premium Car Care.

Lance Miller is Co-Owner of Carlisle Events, one of the first companies in the United States organized specifically to conduct and promote events for the collector car and truck hobby.  Started in 1974 by Bill Miller Jr., Lance’s late father, the event has grown from being a swap meet to 13 automotive events and four collector car auctions. After running his own successful company, Lance returned to help run Carlisle Events along with his business partner Bill Miller Jr. In addition to his role at Carlisle Events Lance serves as President of the Chip Miller Charitable Foundation which his mother Judy founded. Lance has won various racing series and continues to race as time permits. His collection of cars includes many Corvettes and he’s an avid surfer traveling around the world to catch a wave. As his father often said, “Life is good.”

Tom Cotter has been a car-crazy guy his entire life. After selling his company in 2000 he bought himself a 289 Cobra and drove across the United States with his pal Peter Egan. Yes, that Peter Egan. His car collection grew and he wrote his first book, Homan-Moody, The Legendary Team. Then he wrote a series of six books on barn-finds including The Cobra in The Barn, The Hemi, The Vincent, The Corvette, and The Harley in The Barn. His latest book, 50 Shades of Rust was just released. He’s written biographies, been a contributing Editor of Road & Track magazine for 12 years and writes for the New York Times. He’s the former Co-Chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance and teaches public relations at Belmont Abbey College. His latest build is a ’32 Ford Hi Boy Roadster that he’s dreamed about since he was 15 years old.

Jacques Vaucher and L’art et L’automobile has been decorating the automotive enthusiast’s home, garage, business, museums, and racetracks since 1975. His website arteauto.com is the largest online store and auction site for automobile art and gifts. It’s a playground for enthusiasts with 22 categories of automobilia and over 1,600 items listed. Always changing and forever enticing you’ll never know what you will find at his site. He was the unofficial test driver of toy cars for Eureka, a French toy manufacturer owned by his grandfather. He attended racing school in France and he raced in touring and endurance championships in the U.S. He managed Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti’s New York show room. Jacques life around cars has been amazing.

Denise McCluggage is a legend in the automotive world. She is a race car driver, a journalist, an author, a photographer, and a honorary judge at Pebble Beach, Amelia Island and the Santa Fe Concorso. She embarked upon a racing career in the late 50s and took part in many international sports car races. Her co-competitors include: Juan Manuel Fangio, Sir Stirling Moss, Phil Hill and many others. She’s won at numerous races around the world and driven many outstanding race cars. Her trademark white with black polka dot helmet was a standout on tracks around the world. She’s an award winning journalist, writer and photographer. Denise holds the Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism and the Dean Bachelor Lifetime Achievement Award and was the first journalist to be inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame. Her adventurous spirit and zest for life are magical.

Peter Vincent is an artist, author, and photographer who’s been working with the landscape at the Bonneville Salt Flats for over 20 years, combining it with the Sub-Culture of Land Speed Racing and the Pop-Culture of the American Hot Rod. He’s a regular on the salt every August for “Speed Week” and never misses this gathering, ever. He’s published numerous books on the automobile and his work has been displayed in museums across the country including many permanent collections. His fourth book, The Bonneville Salt Flats, 20 Years of Photography was released in the fall of 2013. Peter’s fifth book, The Rolling Bones is due out in the late fall of 2015. His images have been published in many magazine including The Rodder’s Journal and American Rodder. One of Peter’s photographs hangs in my home.

Artist Jan Rambousek uses digital-imagery to create wonderful artwork. As a founder of Playground studio he has collaborated on a number of assignments and digital solutions for clients. He also is behind VirtualRig Studio, the motion-blur simulation software that has become a popular among all the big names in automotive industry. Jan‘s latest collaboration – The Silver Arrows Project – is a combination of staged photography, advanced 3D graphics and state-of-the-art computer imagery that brought back to life the legendary racing cars of 1934 through 1939. 

Craig Morrison is the Operations Manager at Morrison Enterprises. Craig grew up with a father, Art, who’s life has evolved around cars since the 70s. His father sent him off to find his way in the world and after some time in the South Pacific and other adventures he returned to the family business ready to be much more than “Art’s son.” Morrison Enterprises designs and builds chassis, custom chassis and all sorts of components for custom cars, street rods, and more. Craig works along side father Art and a talented team building dreams for automotive enthusiasts around the world.

Ryan Turner has been focused on the VW industry for over 13 years. His obsession started with the purchase a '72 VW Beetle in high school and has since spiraled out of control and consumed all aspects his life. Three years ago, he made the big leap: He quit his job as a government contractor to start his own business, Krauthouse Motorsports. With no formal training and little investment capitol, he has since expanded his portfolio to include a VW-themed t-shirt sales site and has most recently acquiredVWDiesel.net, an online community of enthusiast committed to all things Volkswagen diesel related. With the support of his wife, he is working to build and expand the site to include a blog, podcast, custom builds, and more to help fuel VW enthusiasts worldwide.

Alex Raphael founded Max RPM Motorsports in Bremerton Washington in 1977 when he was just 17 years old. They service, repair, modify, and tune Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, VW, Ferrari and Lamborghini automobiles. They do all sorts of maintenance and specialize in high performance exhaust systems, suspension components and anything that maximizes performance on your special automobile. Every day they strive to elevate performance to a new level.

Cliff Reuter has created the website Etceterini.com. Etceterini is a result of a passion for automobiles that he shares with his father Jack who has enjoyed an amazing life around European racing cars. Over the years the Reuters have owned numerous interesting and iconic cars including Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis, Bandinis, Bugattis and many more. Cliff has created a dedication to the history, documentation, and preservation of Etceterini cars. What is an Etceterini car? Cliff will explain the answer to this and he will share more of his families rich automotive history today on Cars Yeah.

Wendi Martin is the President of Enthusiast Media Group that she founded in 2006. While her company focuses on print media, consulting, promotional material, and more, Wendie’s involvement in the automotive world is very extensive. She caters to the top enthusiasts in the automotive industry. Her company runs several concours events including the La Jolla Concours, Carlisle Events, and the Desert Concorso. She belongs to the Driving Diva’s, an enthusiastic woman’s BMW driving club. She’s completed several high-performance driving M Schools and has run tours through South Carolina to Ashland and the Biltmore. And she is the chair for the BMW CCA foundation raising money for BMWs museum and street survival program. Wendie’s a car girl through and through.

Byron Sandborn has been a BMW Club member for over 41 years after attending their driving school at Seattle International Speedway. After that experience Byron was hooked on driving at speed. He autocrossed and then raced in ICSCC and SCCA events winning championships in 1987 and 1988. After being invited to drive a friend’s Shelby King Cobra in a vintage race, a friendship at the track with another vintage racer was formed when he helped with their Elva Mk 7. That friendship lead to a career move to Vintage Racing Motors. Byron’s been a key part of VRM for over 25 years as a mechanic, restorer, manager, and a driver. He’s raced over 175 different cars at over 35 different racetracks around the world. And yes, that's a Lazy Boy recliner that Byron built in to a drivable racer.

Dennis Simon began his career as a fashion illustrator after graduating from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1969. He later worked as an art director in an ad agency and then as a full-time freelancer. In 1986 and 1987 Denis designed the exhibit system for the Collier Automotive Museum in Naples, Florida, providing an ideal opportunity for him to combine his skills in exhibit design with his longstanding interest in vintage automobiles. His interest in cars has been life long. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, books, and on many event posters. Through his imagery and design, his goal has been to bring back the missing elements of style, romance, and panache that so characterized an earlier part of this automotive age.

Pete Vack is a writer, a book author, an editor, and a publisher who has had hundreds of articles published in magazines such as Road & Track, Automobile Quarterly, AutoWeek, Vintage Motorsport, and Sports Cars International.  He is the author of two best-selling books and has owned a long list of classic cars. Pete has raced vintage Alfas, he worked for Ferrari of Washington as a mechanic. He co-established the first print on demand automobile publishing house, and fourteen years ago, established the Italian and French online magazine VeloceToday.com. And all this in his spare time while working as a network engineer for AT&T and Tellabs and raising his family.