Classic car collection that was the pride of Oregon businessman goes up for auction on Saturday

OregonLive.com: Classic car collection that was the pride of Oregon businessman goes up for auction on Saturday
Wallace Lewis was so thrifty that when he was running his business, he would tell employees to use the backside of old envelopes to save on paper costs. A born saver, the man had but one weakness -- classic cars.

"He always bought the best of the best," said Elan Davis, general manager of Southeast Portland's Memory Lane Motors, a classic car dealer. "When you have the money he had, there was no reason to buy junk."

Over the years, Lewis -- who moved to Portland from Seattle in 1970 -- amassed a stunning 85-car collection that will be auctioned off Saturday at 2705 N.E. Argyle St.

An international auction house is handling the sale, and the collection is expected to bring as much as $4 million or more with bidders from around the world anxiously waiting the gavel to fall at 10 a.m. The collection is open to the public at no charge today and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance on Saturday -- where visitors can watch people spend money like it comes from a Monopoly game -- requires visitors to buy a $35 catalog for sale at the door.

"Those cars meant the world to my father," said Margo Lewis. "It's difficult to see them go, but it's time to sell. Dad has Alzheimer's disease.

His daughter said the 73-year-old Lewis, who worked odd jobs all through elementary and high school, was extremely proud of his business success because he only had one year of community college.

But he made up for his lack of education, she said, because "he as born with a business mind."

In fact, Lewis was such a saver that he was able to pay cash for a 1959 Chevrolet Corvette when he turned 18.

In 1962, he sold that car to start a small business in Washington state that sold trailer parts. The company grew and is now called NTP Distribution. Headquartered in Wilsonville, the company has five warehouses and sells parts to dealers across the country. Lewis sold the company, his daughter said, 10 years ago.

"He bought what he wanted to have," said Eric Minoff, the auction house specialist in cars and motorcycles. "All of them are nice, and he kept them in meticulous shape."

Minoff, who arrived in town Wednesday, said the cars in the collection evoke a certain time in American culture. Everyone who sees the catalog remembers a parent, grandparent, neighbor or friend who had a car "just like that one." That's immediately followed by the car that got away from us, the one we wish we hadn't sold. It was an era when cars had souls and spirits, and plenty of chrome. No one thought about fuel efficiency.

Dale Matthews, the owner of Memory Lane Motors, sold 43 cars to Lewis.

"To think a guy had the disease that bad," Matthews said with a laugh. "You look at those cars and each one has a story and memory. That's why people like old cars."

What makes the cars in the Lewis collection unique, Minoff said, is that they are more than old cars.

"It was possible to get a bargain basement Impala when it came out," he said. "You could get one without a heater. Even radios and seatbelts were options. The cars in the Lewis collection have all the features and options you'd want. That makes them rare and collectable. He has a Bel Air convertible that has 37 options."

That car, by the way, is expected to bring $70,000 at Saturday's auction.

But that's a deal compared to a 1957 Chevrolet Corvette roadster with fuel injection. That car is expected to sell for $115,000.

Lewis built his collection slowly. Later in life, he was able to find the one car that got away -- the 1959 Corvette he sold to start the company that became an empire. It was not his car, his daughter said, but one exactly like it.

Her son, Tye Lewis, 21, pulled that car out of the auction. He wants to keep it in memory of his grandfather, who took him to the car warehouse on Saturdays when he was growing up and let him start the cars and get behind the wheel.

Margo Lewis, 50, and her 18-year-old daughter, have no interest in old cars. She drives a 2000 Dodge van.

A few weeks ago, when the family was preparing for Saturday's auction, Margo Lewis brought her father to the warehouse.

"We were all having a meeting about the auction," she said. "My dad disappeared. We went looking for him and found him in one of the cars. He was listening to the radio."