What do Prince, the Bee Gees and the Minnesota Vikings have in common? They're all from Minnesota except the Bee Gees? No. All have done business with Hooked on Classics, Daryl Kirt's thriving collector car enterprise in Watertown, just west of the Twin Cities.
Add ZZ Top to the list, along with customers from all over the nation and the world. With foreign currency strong against the dollar, international sales are hotter than ever. Kirt routinely ships iconic American iron to Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Australia and Canada. He just sent a 1957 Mercury to Iceland.
Kirt bought his first car at 13 with money from a paper route. It was a '51 Ford two-door that he could not lawfully drive. So he picked up some wrenches, tore it apart and taught himself what lay behind and inside this machine that so captivated him. Other cars followed in rapid succession - '54 Ford two-door, '59 Ford, '35 Ford pickup, '55 Chevy two-door hardtop, '55 Nomad, '57 Olds, '57 Pontiac, '40 Ford coupe.
Time in the military put his car habit briefly on hold, but he got right back into it when he returned. In 1977, he secured a dealer's license to pursue his passion full time. He set up originally in Chanhassen near the dinner theater.
It was in Chanhassen that he met Prince, who picked up a car or two to use in his music videos. The Bee Gees got wind of his operation and bought his 1950 Cadillac to put on the cover of one of their albums. These stars didn't just send agents; they stopped by themselves to check out some amazing cars. Kirt laughs that one famous band who bought from him didn't change the registration right away - not before Kirt received a few parking tickets from the east coast. They made good, though - a mere oversight from the jet set.
Kirt says prices in some countries are two to three times what they are here, so many of the cars he ships to Europe go to resellers. Cheaper transit rates in recent years have made that option even more profitable. Kirt says it costs about $1,000 to $1,200 to get a car to either coast and about $1,000 to $1,500 to ship it across the ocean.
His many years in the game have revealed some basic market trends. "As the cycle goes up and down," he says, "true classics stay steady." A true classic would be the '57 Chevy, which Kirt calls "probably the most classic collectible, identifiable car ever built." Other Chevrolets see their time -'57s, '58s and '59s all defied skeptics by hitting values on par with the better known '57.
Almost any car seems capable of making a market run. "People used to tell me `a De Soto will never have any value.'" Kirt just smiled when a '57 De Soto convertible recently sold for $300,000. He calls the unusual models "orphan" cars - vehicles not initially embraced by collectors. A good example is the Kaiser Darrin, which has jumped from $10,000 to ten times that in the last decade. "I've sold quite a few of those over the years," Kirt remarks - an impressive and telling feat, given that only a few hundred were built.
In addition to selling classics, Kirt also moves cars on consignment for private sellers. "An owner with a Hemi 'Cuda doesn't want to sell the car himself because someone might come and take parts off of it because of their value," he notes. Consigning keeps the transaction off the seller's property and provides a measure of security against those rare callers with bad intentions.
Today, the business is in Watertown, a city that wanted Hooked on Classics to move there and has treated the business well. Kirt's son Nate is getting more involved with the operation his father started. Given Daryl's history with cars, however, friends will likely find him at Hooked on Classics for a long time to come.
