Bob Schmidt

 

   Raised in wisconsin on a farm, the youngest of 9 kids. At 5 years old his parents bought thier only new car  in thier lifetime and was with them the day they came home from the dealership like it was yesterday.  From that time on he was hooked on cars of that period.

   Between 1952 to  1973 there were 31 new chevys in his family.  He was the first one to go astray from Chevys, in 1965 when he got out of the Army, bought a new 65 bonneville and stuck with pontiacs till 1985 when he moved to Tempe Az. and got hooked on the Chrysler finned cars 1955 to 1961. Bob restored about 50 cars for a collector and one of the cars, a 1957 Desoto Adventurer Conv. , was purchased by Glenn Patch , who built the Dick Clark Theater which housed 57 Heaven, the Large Collection of 75 autos, pickups, wagons, real nascars, and lifestyles from 1957.  That was quite a project. Glenn Patch wanted this done in 5 years.  Bob had to find them, then restore them to be the best & finest of each example of  each.  Bob did not get done in 5 years but did get it done in less than 6 years!  They opened 57 Heaven in 2007 and were only open three years when the owner got in a money crunch and sold the collection at the museum and the collection brought 7 and a half million.

   After the sale Bob decided to get back to restoring cars (Smitty's Classic Cars). Every year for 30 years he has taken cars to the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale Az. and in 2011, Bob had the Top Classic Car sale out of 1300 cars, it was a 1956 Desoto Conv. which brought $368,500.00 and went to a museum in Germany!  Bob is currently doing another 56 Desoto conv. for Barrett-Jackson this year.  He doesnt know if he will get that lucky again, but we are sure it will be another Top of the line, beautiful restoration. Bob has Had had over 1,000 old cars in his 52 years of owning cars, if its a 50s car, he has probably have had one at some point or time.