Production of “Applause” on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Coming up, an episode of “Applause” guaranteed to drive you wild.

As we travel from pre-war luxury to postwar imports and visit the people who keep these fine vehicles rolling.

Hi, and welcome to “Applause” I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

Now, if you're not a regular viewer of our show, what's your deal, man?

But if you are, you know that I'm not at our usual location in Playhouse Square.

I'm actually at the Foundry Social and High Voltage Indoor Karting in Medina, cruising for cars.

I'm going to go check out some of these sweet rides later in the show.

I know already we're going to see some American muscle cars.

There's a German sports coupe, maybe some British roadsters in the back, but will we see Japanese cars?

One northeast Ohio car collector, a former Porsche guy, has switched to Toyotas, Hondas and Datsuns.

I spent some time with Myron Vernis, who's detailed his passion for Japanese cars in a 1400 page book titled “A Quiet Greatness.” The book is “A Quiet Greatness” It was going to be 300 pages.

Then mission creep set in and it ended up at 1400 pages.

2200 images.

Basically a 35 pound set of four.

Box set of four.

Noted Summit County car collector Myron Vernis, along with his friend and coauthor Mark Brinker, are enthusiasts for any and all types of automobiles.

About ten years ago, they both started collecting Japanese cars.

There really wasn't a depth of knowledge in this country about the cars and the common misconception about Japanese cars, even among the enthusiast market, was that Japan never really had any cool cars.

Well, you know, we always used to say is, you know, the Japanese were like the French with their wines.

They kept the best cars for themselves.

So we set out a few years ago to write a book.

Creating the expansive four volume set was a six year project with countless hours spent writing, researching, and documenting.

But here are some of the information that we kind of gathered.

Selected alphabetical roster of the chassis numbers of all the cars in the book.

And these are the engine designations, the internal engine designations that you would know by if you if you're looking for parts for the engine, those kind of stuff that just been never been documented before.

And there's a lot of information in there.

It's not the go to for everything about a Miata or a 240Z.

Whole books have been written, Im certain, with cars like this, but we always strove to find some information that we couldn't find anywhere else, even in a model that, you know, you could get deep dives elsewhere on the list of criteria for deciding which cars would make it into the book, not what you'd expect.

That process was entirely subjective.

We spent probably 8 or 9 months just kind of making lists of cars that we thought were cool.

So it's not the greatest Japanese cars necessarily, or the best selling Japanese cars or every Japanese car.

It's not an encyclopedia about Japanese cars.

It's just cars that we found intriguing.

And we just kept discovering.

The deeper we dug, the more intriguing the more cars we found, which is how it went from 300 pages to 1400 pages.

Since many of the greatest cars that came out of Japan never made it to the United States.

A primary objective of “A Quiet Greatness” is to inform and educate interested audiences about the accomplishments of the Japanese auto industry.

Vernis knew a key factor would be thoughtful design and striking visuals.

We felt that the best way to spread the knowledge is to make it beautiful, and we contracted Richard Baron, who was the art director for Road Track magazine for 30 years, to do the layout for us, and I think we accomplished that.

We went way out of our way to make the book very special.

We had photographs from all over the world, even from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan obviously, Europe, and then all over the United States.

We commissioned photography.

We had access to all the archives of the major manufacturers.

Actually, we found photos that they didn't even know they had.

As the number of pages in the book continued to grow, so did the number of cars Vernis could count in his garage.

We say the most expensive part of the project wasnt printing the book and doing all the artwork and things like that.

It was, we discovered cars that we had to go buy.

Newer to his collection are a 1972 Mazda Cosmo and a 1973 Toyota Sprinter Trueno, both included in “A Quiet Greatness.” Neither car is well known in the United States, but they serve today as examples of Japan's innovation in the automotive industry.

One of the most notable automobiles, according to Vernis, was a Toyota featured in the 1967 James Bond film “You Only Live Twice.” 2000GT obviously is probably the standout, subjectively the most beautiful Japanese car ever made, not the world's greatest performer.

Kind of a failure as a race car, but still the iconic Japanese vintage collector car.

They made 330 cars.

They were all coupes, but Sean Connery was too tall.

So they took two, and they chopped the tops off of them so he could fit in the car for the movie.

Sure, this vast collection of Japanese car knowledge could have easily just been a website, but for the coauthors, there was a compelling reason to keep it all in a physical form.

We're old and we like books.

You know, it'll probably end up going online at some point, but there's something special about seeing these great photographs and touching them and being able to to keep them for generations and to share them.

A lot of the magazines wanted to do reviews, and we really struggled with that because they want electronic copies.

But, you know, 50% of the book, to me, the value is the tactile portion of it, and you just can't duplicate that online.

When we visited with Myron I actually managed to get a photo of both our vintage Toyota Corollas together.

I don't actually work on mine too much.

I just work on it until I break something.

Then I take it into a shop and then they actually get it running again.

But there's a whole group of volunteers at a workshop in Macedonia who actually know what they're doing under the hood.

They care for the collection at the Crawford Auto- Aviation Museum, which you can visit at the Cleveland History Center.

So now let's take a look behind the scenes inside their workshop.

I worked for Lubrizol.

I worked for 35 years there and retired in 2009, and this is my retirement job.

I'm the volunteer coordinator, so I kind of keep track of people's names, addresses, phone numbers, making sure we stay in touch with people.

We've got elderly people here and some of the people we have to check on from time to time and make sure they're okay.

You don't have to have a lot of experience, but it always helps.

And we've got a lot of people that may not be engineers and that kind of stuff, but they have a love for cars.

We just, we need people who know what they're doing.

Or willing to learn.

I'm a retired rabbi and a part time student in the auto tech program at Cuyahoga Community College.

I began helping out here at the Crawford as part of my college internship.

The vast majority of my classmates, who are admittedly somewhat younger than I am, are taking work as interns in auto shops or in auto dealerships where they're hoping to make careers, because my interests and needs are a little bit different.

Tri-C and Crawford were so wonderful in figuring out a way for me to do my college internship here at Crawford.

So I'm really learning not only the basics of automobiles, but also how these cars are cared for, how they work, how the automobiles were developed, and the history of the automobiles as well as the equipment that went into them.

My name is Larry Davis.

I'm the collection manager of the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum.

Mr.

Crawford started his collection in 1943, so he had his own facility that basically when he was looking to retire that facility, the collection, the core group of our collection, he donated them to us.

So we now have approximately 50 cars where the original group of of automobiles, and we now have almost 200.

And that's just automobiles.

And then we have aircraft and we have motorcycles, and we have a ship boat.

We have parts from the Goodyear blimp This is our restoration and preservation facility for the Crawford.

So it's 60,000 square feet.

It's really a great blessing for us.

A lot of museums do not have a facility like this, and we're able to work on our vehicles.

We have the equipment that you would find in a normal repair shop.

We have a machine shop, we have a weld shop.

Our job here is to basically make the cars safe, able to drive.

We take them the shows, we take them out to different programs.

So we have 30 vehicles that are over 100 years old, all the way up to things like the 69 Camaro right here.

I have approximately 52 volunteers who work for us of various backgrounds.

I believe I have 12 degreed engineers that work for me.

I have two dentists.

I have multiple skilled trades guys, salesmen, executives from big companies in the Cleveland, northeast Ohio area.

Almost all of them are car guys.

We get together once or twice a week.

We take care of our vehicles.

We preserve them, restore them.

If we've been given vehicles that need work.

I'm a lifelong car restorer and collector, so it became a nice retirement job.

Well, number one, it interested me.

The vehicle itself.

I have recollections of these vehicles from out at Glacier and Yellowstone.

And as a young man, I remember seeing this in the museum.

We always have a couple of fire extinguishers ready to go.

But now it runs pretty well.

Prior to that, I started volunteering.

I was a dentist practice for 45 years and I was always interested in automobiles Just a great place to volunteer.

They'll let you do just about anything that you're interested in doing, but most of the people here know what their limits are, and there's always somebody up here that knows something that you don't know.

You get in a problem, you've asked somebody and they all have ideas.

And in between maybe 6 or 8 guys, one guys right out of the bunch.

And the trick is to figure out who it is before you break something.

It just keeps me busy.

It keeps my mind going.

It keeps me active.

I love the guys that I'm working with they're just, they're tremendous Just the variety of talent that's here and the experiences they've had.

And especially when you talk to people that have been here long enough to know that.

Oh yeah.

I remember when we took that car to that show, and it has been wonderful to develop a group of friends who not only are teaching me and have wonderful patience with me, but there's a sense of camaraderie, a devotion not just to the cars, but to the mission of Crawford that is here among the volunteers.

Well, I think what I enjoy about it is the other fellows that are here that have similar interests.

The fact that I get to, for a change, restore a car, that I don't have to pay for the parts, that would be a good thing For me it's just a joy of getting to be a part of putting some of these things back to life.

One of our best asset is the group of people that we have put together.

As you can imagine, I have grown extremely close to a lot of them.

You know, my father is 75 years old.

A lot of these men here are like my dad.

They call me to make sure I'm okay.

I make sure they're okay.

I love and I think they love that they come up here and, you know, there's no shortage of carbohydrates.

So the donuts come, coffee flows, everyone gets along.

They have a great time.

We haven't really came across anything that we haven't been able to handle yet.

So I'm very blessed and very thankful to have them.

I very much envy those guys.

It takes me all day and the internet just to change the shift bushing on the Volkswagen, which I did last year for the first and last time.

But the vehicles you just saw are on view at the Cleveland History Center.

So now let's go talk to one of the car owners here in Medina.

you've got a 1964 Corvair, but its not the Corvair that most people are familiar with.

Tell us, this is a little bit special.

it's been redone.

It's got a motor behind the cab.

I wanted something different.

There's not too many of them around.

it's like a traveling piece of art.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So were you drawn to it because it was orange originally?

I like the orange.

You know, I always wanted something orange, and that's what I did In the back.

I got a bunch of orange stuff in the back.

You know, in “The Godfather” what oranges mean, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that.

Should we be careful?

Should I?

No, no, no.

I'm okay.

Okay.

Very good.

Well, thanks for sharing this with me, I love this.

No problem.

Glad I could talk to you about it.

If you're ever in Warren, you'll see the Packard name everywhere, whether it's Packard Park, the W.D.

Packard Music Hall, or even Packard Street.

They were a family of industrialists who left behind a luxury car brand, and you can see some of their best work at the National Packard Museum.

Packard Park features ball fields, a pavilion, and a test track.

The park sits next to the National Packard Museum, dedicated to the brand which was the Cadillac of automobiles before there was a Cadillac.

The museum started with a group of citizens who knew that Packard history needed to be preserved.

One individual, in fact, Terry Martin, who has since passed away, was largely responsible for that movement.

He actually came from Chester, West Virginia, and he was a car guy, restored old vehicles and he came to Warren as a cabinet maker.

And he's going around Warren seeing Packard Park, Packard Street, Packard Music Hall.

So he started looking into that history.

Martin began collecting artifacts and established the museum in 1989.

In the late 90s, he leased the city's former municipal bathhouse.

It was scheduled for demolition, but the Packard Museum Association went to the city and said, hey, we want to put a museum in there.

And so they agreed.

They signed a lease, and over the next two years they raised money to renovate it.

So in 1999, the centennial celebration for the Packard Motor car happened here in Warren.

Over 1000 Packards came here.

I actually was running a photography studio at the time, not too far from here.

And shortly after that celebration, my friend told me, hey, this little museum up the streets looking for a director.

Sounds like something you'd like, because I was really into photographic history and preservation.

As a teenager, Mary Ann Porinchak taught swimming lessons in the building, which now houses historical displays and more than two dozen cars.

Because it was international, it wasn't just local, it was international.

People that were coming here and still calling and dropping things off and helping the collection grow.

So fast forward to 2008 and we're looking at, okay, we're out of space.

The museum then lobbied the US government for support, noting Packard's contributions to the country's transportation network.

$1 million allowed the museum to expand and build a climate controlled vault for vehicles like this 1955 Caribbean convertible, which belonged to a movie producer and his actress wife.

Howard Hughes bought this before they were actually available to the general public.

He bought it for Jean Peters, who was then his fiancee.

They drove it once, didn't even put 500 miles on it.

She didn't like it.

It was too big.

So they parked it in a garage in Burbank and it never got driven again.

The vehicle's now preserved thanks to a team of volunteers that comes in every Tuesday.

This car has a lot of chrome.

It has very few miles on.

It only has 1752 miles on it.

It has dual four barrels underneath.

A lot of chrome.

It came with just about every option imaginable on it.

Jean Peters was a very small person.

She got the car as a gift when she was 29, and there were a couple of stories coming around why she didn't like the car.

And after the first drive to Malibu and back, she didn't drive it anymore.

One story was the pink stripe.

The other story is, since she was so small, she sat in the car and she couldn't barely see over the steering wheel.

And the third, 1955, was the first year Packard had air conditioning one position: on and off.

No fan controls, no blower motors or anything.

So that's blowing at you the entire time.

The volunteers get the privilege of occasionally driving the Packards.

They're big.

They're beautiful.

What more can you say?

These particular cars are so much fun to drive because you get them out on the road and you float.

You don't drive as much as you float down the highway.

I've driven that yellow one that's out front different times, and it it's a joy to drive.

Some of the cars have the torsion bar suspension on it.

It automatically adjusts if you put four people in the back or only one person in the back.

It senses it and automatically adjusts it.

You can go over railroad tracks and you don't even know you're going over it.

They're so smooth.

Packard's were smooth compared to other cars, but also unique compared to each other.

Every one of them has a different hood ornament, and sometimes they were custom to the customer.

But this one has the goddess of speed, and the goddess of speed was probably their premier hood ornament because Packard was known for not only for high quality, but also a fast automobile in their day.

That's why a lot of the gangsters used Packards because they were dependable and they were fast.

The business coupe in there has the winged hood ornament.

The wings fold back as the car goes faster, and there's a legend behind that.

We call it the wife hood ornament.

The wings are folded out.

When the car comes back.

They should be folded out.

If they're folded back, You know, she's been out racing with the boys.

Or it could be the son hood ornament Or it could be the husband hood ornament.

You can You can invert the name however you'd like.

That might be up for interpretation, but Packard's had many clear innovations.

When was the last time you thought about who developed the sun visor, or the foot pedal accelerator, or the glove compartment?

The things that we take for granted.

Were all Packard innovations and we still use them today.

So and that's the story we want to convey to our guests that, you get in your car and you turn that ignition, and there's a whole lot of things that you wouldn't be able to do without Packard Innovations.

So, you know, we're here to keep that story alive, to keep that history alive.

That includes bringing in a younger generation, including ten year old Ryan Paisley.

I asked my grandpa, can I volunteer at the Packard Museum?

And he just brought me here one day.

Then he introduced me to all the other volunteers, and whenever they move the cars around, I usually hold the wheel to keep it straight.

Whenever they take the cars outside, if they don't have any ride with, I just ride with them.

The team of seven volunteers keeps things rolling at the museum each week.

I am currently 81 years old and I'm a widower, so I don't have a lot to do at home.

This gives me something to do, a place to spend my time and energy and I so enjoy doing it.

In some ways it's a therapy and we have a good camaraderie with the young fellow guys and other workers, and we enjoy it.

Packard merged with Studebaker in October 1954 and faded away soon after, but you can get your Packard fix at two places in Ohio the National Packard Museum in Warren and a restored dealership in Dayton.

Right now, before we talk to somebody else here from Medina, here's what's happening on the next round of “Applause” Diaries open for all to see on the next “Applause.” “The American Diary Project” is preserving diaries to keep people's stories alive.

We have a handful from the 1800s.

The majority of our collection is from the 1900s and some from the 2000 as well.

And local folkies Kari & the Kabinet, share their story through song.

All that and more in the next round of “Applause.” Singing Well, that's it for this round of “Applause.” Thanks for tuning in.

And I encourage you to go check out your local cruise night, whether it's somewhere close to home or here at High Voltage Indoor Karting in Medina on Wednesdays.

Now let's go talk to some more of the car owners.

Okay, tell me what you've got here.

This is a 2002 Ford Thunderbird.

It was the first year that they came back, and it was the only year that they made this color yellow which was part of the part that I fell in love with the car.

It's so unlike me.

Ive never done anything like this in my life.

He's the car person.

He's got a ‘72 Cutlass, so he goes to shows, I rarely go Now you're a car person.

No, I'm a yellow Thunderbird person.

It's got a V8, I have a Jeep Renegade that I drive regularly, and you have to really push down to go anywhere.

And it's very unlike this car where you just tap the gas and away you go So right here we've got a 1920 Model T. Tell me, how did you find this vehicle and what drew you to it in the first place?

Well, I actually restored cars for years, so I went to appraise this car for someone.

I saw the car and I said, I can't appraise it because I'm going to end up buying it because it was a piece of history.

I have other cars and it just had to be in my shop.

So there's three pedals on the floor.

Took me a while to learn to drive it.

So you've got all four limbs moving as you're driving it.

You must really have to think as you're driving this.

Yes, and plus I'm a little large to fit in it.

People were much smaller back then.

Production of “Applause” on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.