By Ronald Ahrens
Nine years ago, TV/film producer Jim Astrausky read about Wayne Carini in The New York Times and approached him, saying, “I’d like to do a show about you and the cars you pursue.” Carini, who restored and sold cars in the same Connecticut shop that his father worked at, told Astrausky, “I’m not going to be someone that you want me to be. I’ll be myself.”
We see the results on Velocity’s “Chasing Classic Cars,” which reaches 64 million homes in the United States and more than 300 million in 37 countries. It has a simple premise: Carini hunts down unrestored original cars, fixes them up and offers them for sale.
“It’s grown by fantastic measures,” says Carini, who will serve as grand marshal of the 10th annual Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance, which takes place February 19-21. In the episodes, Carini’s frank way of handling the deals frustrates some viewers, who find him rather stolid. His mechanic, Roger Barr, provides the levity. “Wish I knew what all those wires were for,” Barr says, probing inside a long-dormant Triumph TR4 sports car. “There’s a whole gamut of stuff here. Edison died, but he left one last project.”
Carini isn’t flashy; he is decent and honest. Viewers know if a car sells at a loss. “It’s easy to tell the truth—not so easy to tell a lie,” Carini says. “Tell the truth every time, and you have no problem in life.”
An incident from the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the most important car show in the United States, illustrates Carini’s basic humanity. Car enthusiast Steve Yeager, a regular viewer of “Chasing Classic Cars,” recognized Carini and his wife, Laurie, as they approached a luxury car manufacturer’s hospitality area. All the tables were full, so Yeager offered to hold his party’s own for Carini. In return, the star said, “Stay put! Will you guys join us for lunch?” For the next 45 minutes, they talked about cars, their values and the TV show.
“I told him my favorite thing about his show was how he is always respectful of the seller’s feelings in emotional sales,” Yeager says. “If it’s not time, he’ll tell a widow not to stress—just call him when the time is right. And he never discloses what he pays for a car, respecting a seller’s privacy.”
Lunching with Carini brought Yeager to a great realization: “Wayne Carini’s success in life is attributable more to his people skills and decency than to his knowledge of cars.”
And that’s saying a lot. Carini could tear down and rebuild a Ford Model A engine when he was in the third grade. He says he can’t even estimate how many cars he’s been in.
So what was hardest car for him to drive? “The most difficult car to drive wasn’t a car,” he replies. “It was a tank. I drove a tank—got in and thought I could just sit in the seat and do it. Little did I know that there were many more things about driving a tank. A car’s pretty easy to take on.”
Evidently, the same can be said for stepping onto a TV show.
Originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue.
