ExclusiveDriven by Passion: A Car Enthusiast's Journey | Mike Hennessy

So how did you get involved with cars? I grew up, you know, I don't want to use the word poor, but we didn't have very much money. My dad left when I was five. My mother raised five boys. A lady down the street had a 56 Ford four-door, six-cylinder. She said I could have it if I cleaned up the side of the yard. And I was about 11, maybe 12 years old. Tires were all flat. Back then, we didn't have an air compressor. So I took each tire off individually, put it in a wheelbarrow, took it to the gas station, and aired up each tire. Took all day. And got it so we could roll the car out. And she finally came out and said, you're not old enough for a driver's license. I said, no, I'm building this for a surprise for my older brother. So I don't want to go on air. That's probably one of my first big lies. But yes, it was a big lie. Got the car back to the house. I finished the job for her. And I got that old turd running. It was great. Last year, you won the Santa Clara Businessman of the Year Award. What motivated you to keep going? If everybody that watched your show, any other show, if everybody did a little something, I mean a little, it could be a $5 thing, we really wouldn't have a lot of problems that we do. I do a toy drive every year on the corner of Union and Camden. I bring some of them a vintage truck. We fill it up with toys, food. And I pulled up to the church, and these four guys are coming over to the truck. They're, you know, wearing, they call the wife beater t-shirt, you know, and maybe three teeth. And I'm thinking, oh crap, they're gonna come over and there's gonna be a problem. I was so wrong. I'm embarrassed to say it on your show. I almost cried. They came over, wanted my autograph, helped unload the truck. They were the nicest guys in the world. I read it wrong. And I was wrong. And the more I thought about it, I'm gonna help you. Hello and welcome to another episode of Bay Area Innovators. I'm your host, Steve Esposito. Our guest today is Mike Hennessey. Mike has followed his passion for cars pretty much his entire life. He fixes cars, builds them, restores cars, talks about cars, has a car TV channel, and organizes car shows such as the 2007 San Jose Grand Prix which was the largest event San Jose ever had. He's a very successful businessman and he's won numerous awards and he's also been part of the community for many years. Today, we'll talk to Mike about his passion for cars as well as his latest endeavor. Mike, welcome to our program. Welcome to be here. Thank you. So I wanna ask you about your passion for cars. So you've been involved with cars your whole life. Please tell us how does it feel to be able to follow your passion and do what you like like the most? I always thought if you do what you like, you don't work a day in your life. And I grew up, you know, I don't wanna use the word poor, but we didn't have very much money. My dad left when I was five. My mother raised five boys, rented a house, moved around quite a bit. And if there was a lawnmower, I'd be working on it. My job is outdoor stuff. The other guys had jobs inside the house and I was always mechanical hands-on, working on bicycles. Then I got a job at a bike shop doing some bicycle repairs, a pretty young kid. And I just really, you know, finishing a project, finishing a car, I don't know how to explain it to you that when you drive it down the street, I get goosebumps to this day finishing a car that I do. And to answer your question, even if I get a really good buy on a car, which I really like, and of course, it'd give you a great sale if you sell it. And I like doing it, moving on to the next one. I always look forward to the next project and I'm just as excited about the new project that I just get. So it's a great question and it's a tough answer, but God, I just really like it. I like it every day. So how did you get involved with cars? You mentioned, was it like around, you were very young when you started working on cars. Oh yeah, really young. Well, you'd start, like I said, bicycles, mini bikes, and anything that had a motor to it, you know, you got a mini bike and then a go-kart. And my older brother was a pretty savvy guy and he'd help get some parts and things we would need. A lady down the street, she needed the side yard cleaned out because I would, again, like I said, we didn't have money and we all pitched in to help support my mom with the rent and make the house work. So we did both lawns, we washed cars, whatever we could do in the neighborhood to really generate some money. So this lady had a 56 Ford, four-door, six-cylinder. It was a POS. And I'll have, I can't say what POS means on the show, but peace of figure out the end. And the car was a pretty rough car. Well, she said I could have it if I cleaned up the side of the yard. And I was about 11, maybe 12 years old. Tires were all flat, so I had to get the car out. But back then, we didn't have an air compressor. So I took each tire off individually, put it in a wheelbarrow, took it to the gas station, aired up each tire, took all day, and got it so we could roll the car out. And she finally came out and said, you're not old enough for a driver's license. I said, no, I'm building this for a surprise for my older brother. So I don't want to go on air. That's probably one of my first big lies, but yes, it was a big lie. Got the car back to the house. I finished the job for her on the side yard. Did all sorts of things for her as the years went on, but I got the car running. It wasn't easy. Made a lot of mistakes, a lot of mistakes. Got some help, got advice. Wasn't afraid to ask somebody questions. And I got that old turd running. It was great, a lot of fun. Now, as you moved along, you start collecting cars, you started getting into the business of cars. And you actually, last year, you won the Santa Clara Businessman of the Year Award. Tell us, how did you get into the business, and what motivated you to keep going? Oh, getting into the business, to me, I don't think I ever got into the business. I think I always was in the business, from the day I got that 56 Ford when I was 12 years old. So, working at Dabbling, working a neighbor's car, got a driveshaft to go out and look at it, a bad U-joint, put a U-joint in it. I found out I could make money. And money was important to me because we had none. And that's probably what my biggest drive in life is, to make sure that my wife and I are well taken care of. And Susan is just a fantastic person, and behind me all the way. So, when I get car projects and stuff, she never gets involved with them. So, you start these projects and you move on, and I just don't think it ever left me. It's something I always liked doing. She said, starting it. And we started like that car there, and then find another one. Then you learn about breeds, what cars are worth money, what cars are not worth money. I wouldn't be doing a station wagon at that time, there was no value on them. If there was a convertible, or a certain popular car, a 57 Chevy, or a 55 Ford, or whatever it may be, those were cars were valuable to get. Fix them up a little bit, sell them, and turn them into money. You got involved with events, and you got several awards, including Hall of Fame, and charity awards, but tell us about the 2007 San Jose Grand Prix. I know you wanna go there, and I think it's a great topic. And the San Jose Grand Prix, I think was won, and it was, in a book that Dennis Maddox wrote, and the very first chapter's all about the San Jose Grand Prix. It was, even till today, it's the largest event that San Jose has ever had in its life. No one has ever, San Jose has never covered an event of any type, even till today, of how many people came to it. It was the success of the event was phenomenal. About 100,000? Maybe more, maybe more. And it was, CART was the company, they were Indy cars, and CART was the sponsor of them to bring their cars there and run. CART had a, too many people had a contract, and the problem was the problem. CART was involved because they were bringing the Indy cars there, the city of San Jose. People had leases on pieces of property. Getting into the Grand Prix was kind of a fluke and a mistake, because they wanted a cruise auctions to come in and run an auction. And I was kind of a sponsor for cruise auctions. I'd put cars in their sale, I'd buy some and sell some at their auctions. And it was one of those things that was so popular with the auction world, like it is even today, they wanted to have that at the San Jose Grand Prix. They got ahold of me being a sponsor for cruise auctions. I said, yeah, I'd like to do it. Well, the city fire department and other people, I don't want to pick on anybody, but some people that just had an ego, I'm guessing, but wouldn't let the auction come in. I think it was wrong. So they had an empty building, which the McHenry Center was completely empty. And the guy, Neil, Neil Fardy, looked at me and said, Mike, I don't know what to do. I got an empty building. I said, I have an idea. Why don't we bring a bunch of cars and display them? Not driving in and out. They display this, it becomes like a car show. And so we put a show on. They named the show after myself, but it was still, because it's business for me, and I wasn't paid to do it. And so we put the show on and the second year it came along, we did the same thing, but I was paid to do it. I said, that's a lot of money to be making here. And after the Grand Prix had its problems with egos and other things, it finally had to fizzle out and go, which was really sad that how that happened, because the ego's gotten away. And that's really when Hot Sentence Unites was created. We thought, well, geez, there's a lot of money in the car business, in the car shows and whatnot. I decided I was gonna go ahead and attack that and go through car show and events called Class 101. We're off the seat of our pants, learning really how to run an event, do the event, get vendors, rent the facility. I don't know if how many people really know how much work, it's a lot of work. And we did it after the San Jose Grand Prix, we did three events downtown San Jose, we did three events over at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds, and it's all because of cost. As unfortunately, the cost kind of puts things out. And with one of the events, that's actually how I met Senator Cortese. He's a car guy and happened to come into the event looking around and we just struck up as friends, we talked and he's a car guy, that's one thing led to another. That's what happened to the San Jose Grand Prix, it's just too bad, egos got in the way and it fizzled out. Just for our audience to clarify, so basically we had a track in downtown San Jose, it was on Almaden, was it a mile, about a mile? It was a little over a mile, it went over the train tracks, which had an issue. They had to weld up all the manhole covers, that's part of the cart had some rules for the cars to go around the tracks, they had to weld up the manhole covers. Now they do the same type of race, Molson Golden has a race, the Molson Beer Company, and they have a race similar to the same thing that we did in San Jose. All of them are very much a success all over the, they're a success all over the world. And these are Formula One cars. Formula Ones, yeah. And watch them. And they're fast. They're going over railroad tracks, they had problems, some of them broke links on the cars, they had problems with the cars, so they had to do a lot of repairs, a lot of emergency repairs had to be done while the race was going on. There was an overnight deal, it was like a 24 hour seven. These guys are repairing tracks out there. A lot of work. I know you collect a lot of cars, you're involved with a lot of cars, but talk to us about some of your favorite cars. We would like our audience to at least get a sense of what are some of the cars that you like most. And I know it's not easy because you have so many, but. Yeah, no, it's not that I have many today, it's my favorite car, you know, when you, I look at it, they always say the one that got away. To me, that's my favorite car. That means I had emotion to it. I felt bad about it. I go, geez, I wish I had it back, or those are the cars I made the most money on, to tell you the truth. Because if they didn't give me what I wanted, I'm okay by keeping it. I happen to work out, it was really to my benefit because a guy says I gotta have it, winds up buying it. It happens to be a 67 Corvette. Happens to be my favorite year of cars. But I like, again, unique cars. I don't want a vanilla car, a white one with a four speed and, you know, standard 327 in those cars. And a simple car, and I would want one that the special edition, the lower built cars, would be a 435 horse, it'd be a tripower, which means 435, like a big 427, 435 horsepower. Three carburetors on them. They did make those. There are very few of them, not very many of them. So that's the special of that special car. So those always stuck in my heart, but oh, some, nowadays they call cars lanyards. And I kind of enjoy some of the lanyards, big cars. Some of the big old vintage Cadillacs, vintage Pontiacs. There's just something cool about driving one of those. It's a different ride. It's not a performance type ride. But back then in 57s and 58s, Cadillac and Pontiac, they were putting fuel injection, they were putting tripowers and big four barrel carburetors on big body cars to sell them. They kind of stopped that in 1960 on up to do the performance, and they were more into the nice ride, the Cadillac ride, the Lincoln ride and all that. But I happen to appreciate all makes and models of cars. And again, I like unique bodies, so unique cars that were just not one of the very rare, interesting type cars. The only problem is some of the rare, interesting cars don't have a lot of value. What has value is the popular cars. Mustangs, Camaros, the Corvette type thing. We're building a car that I'm kind of excited about finishing as a Pontiac GTO. And I would ask you what a GTO stands for if I interviewed you, but would you know? No. It means Gran Turismo Obligato. And anybody watching this show is gonna go, geez, I better take notes or write that one down. But yes, Gran Turismo Obligato. They actually stole the name from Ferrari because Ferrari didn't have the licensing on the name of GTO. And a Ferrari GTO is probably one of the most popular cars that Ferrari ever built, so pretty cool car. Mike, next I'd like to ask you about this book you put together and this event you had for Carroll Shelby. Tell us what you did and who was Carroll Shelby and what this was about. Well, the book is about cancer and it's a covering book for children. The cover picture of it is the cover of the people who know the Bay Area pretty well was the front lawn of the San Jose Mercury News. And they would never allow cars on the grass of the Mercury News, believe me. I go into the office and meet with Rick Scheller. It took me about an hour, but I got him convinced that we could put cars on the lawn. Rick Scheller, the Mercury News president. Mercury News CEO. And he said, there's no way I want cars in the front lawn. I told him Carroll Shelby died. Carroll Shelby, he's the godfather of the automotive industry, especially the Ford cars. Even though he was involved with Dodge Viper, he was involved with quite a few cars that people never really know that were ever built on the market. When he built the first Shelby, he went to Sunbeam Alpine and they never were able to buy the body from them. It wouldn't work. They didn't sell it to him. So he found a body called the AC Bristol. If people know what an AC Bristol is, very unique automobile. They came to six sellers, but that's the body of the original Cobra. When Shelby built that, of course, he built a lot of these and then turned it into just a Mecca, a Mecca car. The Ford dealerships were selling them and it was a big deal. So Carroll Shelby, to me, go down in history, it's like the movie that's out called Ford versus Ferrari. A lot of viewers that are probably watching the show have seen the show. And it's a big story about Carroll Shelby and how he built the car and worked with Ford and had the problems he had with Ford and how it went on and off. Then he went to Chrysler and whatnot. But when he died, I felt there needed to be a tribute on this. And so we did the tribute of Carroll Shelby on the front yard. We had 500 cars. People that watched the show were their car orientated. Carroll Shelby's famous car was the GT 500, the KR. KR stood for King of the Road. But the GT 500 KR was one of the most famous Shelby cars, not the actual Cobra, but the Shelby cars that were built. Cobra's a different automobile. So the Shelby cars were all Mustangs. And he did all these special adaptations to them, not to get too detailed on it. So when I wanted 500 cars there and we had a, when the rumor got out we're doing it, Biggie Crane called us. That's how that shot came. I put one of my best buddies in a crane, Dennis Maddich and Rich Sieve, that put him up in a crane and they took pictures of this whole event. You're seeing a full pamagranate view. And they kind of, the cool thing is, Bill Cosby, before he ran into some of his issues, I called him. And getting through his agent was a little bit of pulling teeth. But Bill Cosby did an album called 200 Mile an Hour. Famous album and funny. It's how he tells a story, how him and Carol Shelby met at a grocery store. I mean, could you picture Bill Cosby and Carol Shelby in a Walgreens or something, you know? So he tells the story and it's rather kind of funny. And it's a neat up to. I don't know how true it is. Carol's not around and Bill Cosby's not gonna talk about it, but it was this comedy album. And so Bill Cosby was kind of a Ferrari guy. Lamborghini, Maserati, Ferrari guy. And so Carol says, hey, you need to own a Shelby. You need to own a real Cobra. Well, in reality, the real part of the story was, Carol Shelby built a Cobra for Carol himself and Bill Cosby and gave the cars a gift. And the car has an automatic transmission, which is only two Cobras ever built with an automatic. Real Cobras. And it was a twin turbocharged motor with an automatic. And so he gave one to Bill Cosby and Bill drove the car. He wound up getting rid of the car. He gave the car to George Wallace, which was a comedian at the time. And the story goes on, but viewers watch it. It's a funny album. It's on the internet. But Bill Cosby called in to the event. At the time, XYZ, we set up. And so we talked to Bill through the speakers and people that brought their cars, very quiet, listen to them. And Bill wanted a moment of silence. And I said, I think that's great. So we did a moment of silence for 30 seconds. I said, Mr. Cosby, if you can stay on the line, I'd like to do something for Carol called a moment of noise. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. And- 500 cars. On Highway 17, people were pulling over thinking there was an earthquake because all these cars started up. It's on the internet. People that want to look it up, it's called Tribute to Carol Shelby at San Jose Mercury News. And it was probably one of the, I think to this day, at whatever event I put on to the San Jose Grand Prix, to whatever, I think it was the most spectacular automotive event that we've ever had in San Jose that was geared to these type of cars. And it's still talked about today. So I wanted that on the front cover of the coloring book that I decided to do for charity. And the proceeds of the book go to children's fund, Lucille Packard. Awesome. Mike, you had a bout with cancer and you won. How did it change your perspective on life? 100%. I mean, how could it not? I mean, if you're human and you care about other people, my caring for other people became stronger than myself. And not that I'm a self-centered person. I don't gear myself to be that way. I really don't. But it makes me want to do good. When I did the coloring book, there's a young man that was in a room next to me. And we're both bald, you know, and here for my chemo. And they removed a kidney, they removed an appendix. The tumor was three and a half pounds. And I really thought that we should name this thing. So they removed the kidney, moved the tumor, removed the appendix. And the doctor's really a funny guy. And so, but they get you walking really the next day. Stanford, on the air, fantastic people. So I walk you down the hallway and the nurse walking with me said, this little boy in the next room would like to meet you. And he said, geez, a senator came to visit you and you have a TV show. I said, hey, it's not like what you think it is. Dave's just a friend. And the TV show is not a big deal. I hate to say that. It's Comcast. I've won five awards with it, but it's still pretty cool. But he wanted to meet me, so I did. Go in there and I felt like crap. But I wanted to, you know, he asked to meet me. So I would go in there and we're talking. So we talked about cars a little bit. And we talked about his, I wanted to talk about him more so than me. And so he told me about video thing he's looking at. We'd like to learn about cars someday. He doesn't know enough about them. And I found out he didn't make it. And it broke my heart. I'm hard to tell him the story, but he didn't make it. And I decided to do a coloring book in his honor. So I put the word out that at my shop, which you guys have all been there, I got some B-roll on the shop, but we had people come in with a lot of their cars and cars that I built for them and cars that are out of my collection. We took pictures of Dennis Maddox. You just don't meet a nicer guy. Dennis set up a booth and he said, we're gonna take pictures of these cars. And he took a picture of all the cars and put them in the book. And so we have that coloring book for people and a lot of people bought them. And I think it's kind of neat. People that have cancer have insurance. Some, I mean, have insurance with it. Some don't, but the ones that even who have insurance have trouble getting rides to and from their chemo, their doctor's appointments, things that they need help on. And I thought, how could I, can't throw money at somebody who already has insurance, but throwing money at somebody who don't have money to get a ride to and from. I call it insurance poor. It's like a lot of people in California, we're property poor, you know? But you own a great piece of property, but you're paying the property taxes to keep it alive. But so a lot of our money goes to ride shares for people that have cancer. Any other money we get from events we do, we'll go to Lucille Packard Children's. I don't know, I feel pretty proud of the book. I like doing the cars I've done all these years. And I thought the coloring book was a... Good way to put them all together, all the colors in there. I thought it was kind of cool, yeah. Proud of it, kind of proud of the book. Only thing I'm proud of, I didn't make any money off it. No. I want to change gears a little bit and talk about your endeavors for the future. What do you have in mind? Well, I'd like to lose 20 more pounds. Is that okay? Absolutely. I'm with you on that one. Well, I like, oh, you look great. I'd like to lose 20 more pounds. But I do want to run for a city council, District 9. That's my goal. And I kind of feel that there's room for me. San Jose. San Jose, there's room for me. We'll start the campaign probably when I'm allowed to, by the date I want the word out there ahead of time so people know that I am running. I have a few topics I like to work on with people, but that is the thing I want to do. I want to kind of get into the retirement mode of what I do down here in Santa Clara. But I still like my cars. I have a great staff. The shop can be self-operatable with my people. And I still have cars. You know, when I took cars to an auction, when I thought I had cancer, I had to sell, not that I had to, but I sold 14 cars at an Amicum auction. And that was, not to get off topic, but it's rather funny, but cars are running through the line. And one car, and I'm selling them all no reserve. Whatever it got, whatever it got, I sold it. Which sounds like crazy gambling, but it wasn't. It did really well. One car I had was not a very good car. I'm going to use that word POS again. You got to figure out what that word is. And it was running through, just looked really nice. And I'm standing next to a buddy of mine, Hugh O'Neill, that's writing down the prices of the cars as it goes through. And the car's coming through, and I'm going, man, I hope I get at least 18 or 19 grand for this thing. It pulls $29,000. Now, I leaned over to my friend, and the word I used, I said, boy, somebody got screwed. But it wasn't me, I mean, it was as is. I mean, they know that. They should have looked the car over, is what they should have done, but they didn't. And my wife texts me on the phone, says, watch what you say, because we can read your lips. So I used the other word, and so I did, I watched it. But that's how I got rid of some of my cars. But that kind of started putting my money in a pot, saying, you know, I do want to go into politics. I think I have a lot to offer for politics. I don't want to say our whole, I'm a little guy. I can't change a lot of the area. I can help support things that need change. And I don't want to be endorsed by any politician. I want to earn my endorsement. If they want to take me on, great. You know, I call myself a Democrat with an attitude. You know, I think both sides have a lot going on, and I do feel that, I do think I can bring a lot to the party, and I have support. I get, like I mentioned, Senator Dave Cortese, which is, he's a great man, great human being. He's a good friend. I'm on most of the politics and most of the side of things. Some things I'm not, but that's everybody. You know, I couldn't go out there and bang on the door and say I'm used to everything. And usually when we get together and stuff, we don't talk about politics, talk about cars. Well, it's obviously a big change from what you've been involved with the cars so far. And actually, I had at least four or five people on this show who never talk about running into politics, but they have, they wanted to make a difference. What would you say are the things that you want to change, or you want to improve society on when you're running? That's probably, somebody in your line of work, I'm gonna be honest with you. I've been interviewed before. That's the best question I've ever had, to be very honest with you. Not to kiss your rear end, but that is probably the best question, because I do. I kinda, we gotta go back to basics somewhere, you know? I don't know, the film crew and yourself have children or whatnot. The only reason why that people like myself and others that live here in the Bay Area are multimillionaires is because of our school districts. Let's face it, that's the truth. If we were in the middle of the desert with the same house, same housing tract, it'd be worth a fraction of where our houses were. So if you got a house like my home, I mean, my house is probably $2 million, and I own it outright. That's a great, great thing to say, right? It's because of the school districts. So why would we not wanna, you know, why do teachers have to go on strike? We should be kissing their rear ends and making sure they're taken care of. Priorities really should be our education. I think our priority should be the police, should be the fire department. That's what's making us, this whole thing work. We should never have, they should be taken care of all the way through, 100%. And I know we got the homeless situations, and I know we got this, this. I just don't think it should be the number one priority. My priority is, you have children, I think. I think we should have, take care of these kids, get our education going. If we're doing that, we probably wouldn't have a homeless problem, you know? But that needs to be taken care of and upfront at first, instead of cleaning it up after a lot of the homeless people are making messes everywhere. That's not teaching our kids anything. And I think of putting our money into the right areas is where I kinda feel I would like to start with my politics and gear it down to the education, what people need for the area. District nine is Cambrian, parts of Willow Glen, little parts of Los Gatos, maybe. Yeah, that's a nice area. And they don't have that difficult problems. And Pam Foley, who's the council gal there, and Pam's doing a good job. She's voted in twice. I think she did a really nice job. Matt Mahan, the mayor, I think he's doing, he's the only mayor that's ever, he was really an unheard of name. He got into city council. People didn't really know who Matt Mahan was. All of a sudden, he says, you know, I'm gonna run for mayor, I think I can do it. I'm proud of him, I think he did a great job. He runs in for mayor. No, I know Matt just a little bit. He's the only one that's done anything in such a short term of doing things for education, for the, he has to do the homeless thing. He's screwed, he has to deal with that stuff. But I've been dealing with politics by working with the military, like I have been for the last 10 plus years. So we talk about homelessness. Tell me your thoughts about crime that we have a lot of, unfortunately, in different cities. I'm sick of crime, and I hope everybody I know is. It's a topic, it is the number one topic. I think it's more topic than the homeless situation. I feel, the district that I'm running for, I feel that there is somebody that does a crime, breaks into your car, breaks into whatever you got, sideshows that are going on. The reason why they're happening is because they're doing nothing about it. See, I feel that the car should be taken away and crushed, but I don't know if anybody's gonna jump on board with me on that. That car needs to be crushed, taken away. And that person that did the crime, he should watch his car getting crushed. It should be treated as a DUI. The reason why they're gonna continue doing it is because they can. And they always say that, why does a dog lick himself between the legs? Because he can. Well, these people here are getting away with it. And they give a citation. My office, if I win, my office, I want a person on staff. Anybody that does a crime in District 9, to me, should do time. And I think that these people here need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent on any type of crime that goes on. I don't want someone to sit back, oh, little Johnny, he's a real good boy, you made a mistake. That's too damn bad. Somebody's graffitiing and causing that type of trouble, under 18 years old, you start sending a bill to mom and dad, things are gonna slow down a little bit. And the problem we've got today is because we have so many people, you know, back in the old days, was handled a little bit differently, you know? Maybe you could handle little Johnny making a little mistake. We got too many people, we're letting people go, there's less penalty with more people. Before, there was high penalty, little bit of people. Something's wrong here. We need to come to a happy medium. People need to be prosecuted for crimes that they're doing. Stealing in stores, and there's probably a lot, stores are revamping and remodeling themselves for this. Maybe they do have to hire security. I do think they need to loosen a little bit of some of these rules up. Might not sound like it's the right thing to do, it's out of hand. Stores are moving out everywhere. San Francisco, I don't really wanna say what I really wanna say, but, you know, I don't wanna go to San Francisco. I don't wanna go to San Francisco for anything, unless I had to, unless I was gonna be on your show. But going there because the crime goes on, parking your car over there, so I figured crime would be something, I wanna make it really on my top four list, because, of course, I wanna work with education. I don't wanna say, I think it's priorities. And I think when I pick, I wasn't picking on homeless. It's a priority, it's just not number one. You know, we got education, and we got police, fire, we got crime. That's kind of one, that's what keeps, hate to say it, all this boils down to money. And if you and I start losing money because of our house, because of all this crime stuff, things would change, wouldn't they? Well, I kind of feel that I don't wanna lose any money, and I wanna live in a safe environment. I want my wife to be able to go the safe way in Costco, and not worry about someone breaking the windows to her car. You know, same with anybody I know, they don't want that. You can live in certain cities, in other states, some of them are not having the problems we're having here, because they're not putting up with the bullcrap. Sounds bold, but I think it's time somebody put their foot down on this one. That's my take. Please tell us more about that, about your involvement with the veterans. I think veterans kind of turned my thinking around that some of these guys need some darn help out there. They really do. And met a guy named Ray Watts, retired Colonel Ray Watts, and a fantastic human being. He turned out to really be a very, very good friend for me, and spiritual guy too, and he's impossible not to like. So Ray needed some help doing a Veterans Day parade. Well, Ray and I put on a parade. I mean, it was huge, downtown San Jose, and then the next year, we got Mark Ibanez from Channel 2. Mark Ibanez shows up, he's incorporating the parade. We had our sound booth of our camera crew at one end of it, as the cars came down, we announced who's in it and whatnot. And working with them, and then you work with a lot of politicians, and seeing how things go, and you gotta bite your tongue. And even yourself running the family, or running the business, you know, you gotta bite your tongue sometimes. I'm not good at that. And I know, I know my biggest problem will be my mouth. And I know that. Mike, anything else you'd like to add? There's just so much, I mean, running for office to me is really gonna be a new, important venture for myself. I think it's pretty cool that Susan's behind me about it. You know, I really had a long talk with her, yeah. I had a long talk with her. I've only had a talk with Susan really about a few things, you know, business-wise. She's always on board. I feel she trusts me. She knows that I'm very tight with my money and a lot of things, so she knows I'm not gonna go out and do something stupid, buy a Bugatti, you know, or something like that, that might not go up in value. But I bought a car collection from somebody, and it had 16 MGs. And... What is the last one that is? Pardon me? What's an MG? MG, it's a small car. You know, it's a European. Oh, okay, okay, okay, yeah. There were MGs in the pile, and they were very nice. And the lady that wanted to sell them, she didn't want to sell one. She wanted to sell them all. Because otherwise, she'd be onesies, twosies, and whatnot, whatnot. And, you know, it really means Morris Garage for people that like to know what MG stands for. I hate to put everybody through my class, automotive historian. But, so I went ahead and made her an offer on the cars. And I saw them all. But I did talk to Susan first. I never talked to her about when I buy a car. I said, hey, I picked up a blah, blah, blah, you know. Oh, great. You know, I didn't want to say careless, but she's just trying to be like she knows about it, but she doesn't. She does a great job of that. I'm like, oh, yeah, that sounds nice. I said, I'm gonna be pulling a little bit of money of an account we got. And so, she said, well, do you think it's a good time to buy them, huh? And I said, no, horrible time. Where am I gonna get a chance to buy a full collection of some of the rarest MGs on the planet? And she said, well, you know best. I said, well, I want you to go to the house with me when I make the lady my offer. So, I go to the house and I write a check. Write the number in the check. And I didn't sign the check. And I slid it over to her. I got it from the chair and stood back. She said, what's wrong? I said, well, when you look at the number, I don't want you to take a swing at me. So, she was really a lot of fun. And she goes, I'll call you in the morning. And she called me in the morning and said, you own the cars. And so, this was the day COVID hit. March 5th is when it actually hit, when everybody had trouble getting lunches for my guys, you know, that were pulling all the tow trucks, pulling all the cars out. So, pulled all the cars out and they did an article in the Mercury News about it. It was a pretty rare find. And I'm on the phone selling, you know, so I get the cars in, because there's one called the Twin Cam, which is not too many people know what that is. But again, owning unique cars, that's a unique part of the MG. So, I went ahead and got a guy on the phone, sold him that car immediately. Sold that car quickly. Because I wanted 80 grand for it and it's worth a lot of money. So, I got that sold off, you know, get some of the money paid back, put back in the account. And that was a really good business adventure and kind of the second thing I've ever, the first thing I've ever really talked to Sue about money-wise. Second thing, of course, running for office. So, running for office is exciting. If, let's say, you were gonna run for office, I think you'd talk to your wife, say, I'm thinking about running for office. And it's not the money. The money's not that big of a paycheck. I mean, taking a hit and pay, but it's something I kind of want to do. Making a difference. I think making a difference, I think everybody out there, do you know if everybody that watched your show, any other show, if everybody did a little something, I mean a little, it could be a $5 thing. If you add up how many people, my district would have well over 100,000 people. That's the district. Now, they don't really realize where would they send the $5 to. But if they just sent $5 to this particular thing, we really wouldn't have a lot of problems that we do. I do a toy drive every year on the corner of Union and Camden. I bring some of them a vintage truck. We fill it up with toys, food. We're known for it. It's a big deal. People pull up in their hot rods, classic cars, and they load us up with food. The feeling you get when you deliver that truckload of food is pretty phenomenal. It is really phenomenal. And I pulled up to the church, and these four guys are coming over to the truck. They're wearing, they call the wife beater t-shirt, and maybe three teeth. And I'm thinking, oh, crap. They're gonna come over, and there's gonna be a problem. I was so wrong. I'm embarrassed to say it on your show. I almost cried. They came over, wanted my autograph, helped unload the truck. They were the nicest guys in the world. I read it wrong. And I was wrong. And the more I thought about it, I'm gonna help people. So, I hope that answers your question. Mike, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. I'm gonna ask you one last tough question. You're wearing a Ferrari t-shirt. Does it mean that's one of your favorite brands? I like them. And the answer to the question is, it's the car that I made the most money on. And I have a Testarossa in my garage. And it's a fun car. Bought it for price X, and today it's worth price Y. I do enjoy the product of it. I would never be in a club of any individual car. Certain clubs have a, oh, how do I say it? There's a stigma, there's an ego to certain clubs of certain types of cars. The Volkswagen Club to the Rolls Royce Club, the Jaguar Club. And I've been to a lot of those meetings and a lot of stuff. But Ferrari Club is one I would not get into neither. But I enjoy the product. I think it's a good investment product. I wouldn't be wearing a t-shirt or a shirt that had Rambler. No offense to Rambler. I don't want any Rambler collectors calling your show with a cup of beef crap out of it. But it's because I never really made a lot of money on a Rambler. But I made a lot of money on the Ferrari stuff. I really enjoyed the history of them. They're hand-built cars. They're hanging in there in the world of still trying to be a very elite automobile. So I think the history behind them is a lot more than just the car itself. They try to stay in tune. They stay on top of the market. I think for the product that they produce, they sell a good product. Thank you so much for your time. Well, thank you for having me on. Hope I didn't carry on too much.