Car chaser, restorer becomes TV star

Projo.com: Car chaser, restorer becomes TV star
PORTLAND, Conn. — Wayne Carini was mystified when Essex Television approached him four years ago about creating a reality TV show. It would follow him as he tracked down classic cars, fixed them up and sold them.

“How could this be interesting?” he asked.

“It is, it is, it’s really cool, don’t worry,” he said the TV production company told him.

With the okay from his wife, Laurie, and a commitment from Essex not to get in his way, he signed up, figuring “it’s what I do anyway.”

Two specials and a season later and the show, “Chasing Classic Cars,” is a hit. Just last week, he and Essex signed with Discovery HD Theater for an additional 96 episodes over four years.

And he is a star. His trademark white hair and moustache are recognized at car events nationwide. And his shop is regularly visited by fans who want to meet the “Indiana Jones of the collector car world.”

He said he was warned that his life was going to change forever, but “I had no concept of the power of television.”

“It’s all dependent on the host,” Jim Astrausky, owner of Lyme, Conn.-based Essex, said of TV shows. “Wayne’s strength is it’s not forced. (He’s) real and people can sense that.”

“I’m Wayne Carini and I chase cars,” Carini says the start of the show. “Rare cars are my obsession. Finding, restoring and selling them my mission.”

The show is broken into three parts — the Chase, the Fix and the Deal — and it follows him as he sets off to check out an old car that he’s heard about through his network of friends and contacts. Sometimes the deal does not work out — the car is not for sale or does not sell after being fixed — but the show aims to be “entertaining and informative,” according to Astrausky.

“It’s not just about the engine size and technical details,” he said, noting it’s as much about characters as cars. “It’s a story.”

Carini was born into the business. His father, Bob, restored cars and had his son working in his shop in Glastonbury, Conn., from a young age. Carini cited a third-grade project in which he took a Ford Model A engine apart, put it back together and started it.

He got the bug for exotic cars, and Ferraris in particular, after visiting a collector in upstate New York with his father when he was 9. The collector took him for a ride in his 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB, the last of the Italian automaker’s dual purpose race track and road cars.

After graduating from Central Connecticut State University, he started working with his father and focused on Ferraris with the help of former Ferrari racing mechanic François Sicard and U.S. Ferrari dealer Luigi Chinetti Jr.

Carini, 59, moved his business to Portland in the early 1990s. He has two daughters and the family is very involved with “Autism Speaks” on behalf of his younger daughter who has the disorder.

His business is now composed of three separate but related shops. F40 Motorsports (named after the Ferrari F40, which was the last car launched by founder Enzo Ferrari before his death in 1988), which buys and sells vintage classics; Carini Carozzeria (coachbuilder) which restores cars; and Continental Auto, which repairs cars.

The main showroom was crammed with exotic cars during a recent visit, while additional classics lined the lot outside. Examples inside included: a powder blue replica of a 1937 Bugatti Type 57; a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4; a 1957 Mercedes Benz Gullwing (“the cornerstone of any good collection”); and a blue with tobacco interior 1973 Ferrari Dino G46 GT. All were immaculate.

Classics outside included a 1937 Ford Woody that his father restored “when I was16 years old.” He said he bought it back five ago, sold it and bought it again two years ago.

“Sold but not forgotten,” he said.

As for the fame, it continues to mystify him. He said he recently met a hero of his, former drag racer Don “The Snake” Prudhomme. But before he could introduce himself, Prudhomme recognized him and cried out: “Oh my God, you’re Wayne Carini! Can I shake your hand?”

“I still don’t get it,” he said.

“Chasing Classic Cars” airs on Discovery Channel’s HD Theater (Cox 24, FiOS 120 and Full Channel 56) Tuesdays at 10 p.m.