Last weekend was working on my plan to visit every diner in the state with the fiance, and on the way back noticed a car show and decided to take a look.
The car show was held at this place-

Park Place Holdings | A controlled storage facility for classic and collectible cars in Portsmouth, Rhode Island

The doors were open and we were allowed to sort of wander in a little fully supervised by an employee. Pretty amazing place, some of the cars in there were incredible. There was a showpiece looked like 20s or 30s benz in the front office area that must have been nearly 25 feet long. It was absolutely huge. The guy wouldn't allow me to take pictures unfortunately. "most of our clients prefer to remain anonymous" is what he told me.

The business concept I find interesting, I saw one sign that listed storage costs at 25 bucks a day.
If someone were to float the idea to me, I would have doubted it would be successful, as thats just over 9 grand a year storing your car. I figured someone who had the cash to blow that much money on storage might just build their own climate controlled garage, but then again, im not sure if that price reflects keeping the vehicle in tune or whatnot. The place was pretty packed, and the guy did say a lot of cars were out being driven this time of year, so I would have been proven wrong. I guess if you have a multi hundred thousand dollar vehicle, under 10 grand a year is piddling.

I counted about 15 mercedes in there, some of them really old including that monster one, and a couple AMG looking cars 80s vintage. No one was storing any 123s though.

I wish I could describe the big 20s-30s looking MB. Im wondering what it was. The biggest thing I can remember at this moment is that it had a prow shaped vertical grill that folded back towards either side, and it didn't have just one star in the middle, it had a pair of MB stars facing out from either side of the grill. I have to do research, but it was a pretty impressive car

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There is such a V-grilled Mercedes used in the Marx Brothers film 'A Night in Casablanca' when they are driving down a runway. If you freeze frame it during a sweeping turn you can see where someone compounded the German Eagle off the side of the door.

A bit more about the storage facility.... Places like this can only exist where there is an overabundance of big money types that can afford this. But oddly enough you do get what you pay for.

The cars are kept in a climate controlled building where the temp and humidity are controlled to prevent any type of decay. Engines are turned over every few days by hand to keep valve springs from losing their strength. Every ten days the cars are started and run for 15 minutes, and they are waxed with the finest wax you can buy and dusted only with feather dusters. Wiping off dust can leave a scratch.

There was once (40 years ago) one of these in Grand Prairie, Texas, in about the 2200 block of West Main. I used to hang out there a bit and helped to maintain someone's Kaiser Darrin. The cost was high then, too, but you got what you paid for.

And when you contact your insurance agent about insuring your home where you are keeping a $500,000 car you can expect your homeowners rates to jump a bit. Insurance is included in the storage cost, so it really boils down to you are getting all of the service for free.

I looked into starting one of these myself back then, but no one was interested in what I was pitching. I finally was informed that no bank in Dallas would ever loan me money for such a venture since the bigger banks all had their own parking garages and they offered storage service.

And sure enough, you could go to the parking garage of most large banks and under clear plastic tarps would be all sorts of cars but mostly Royces. The owners kept them there until they needed them for business, and the cost of parking them there was cheaper than the additional insurance they would have to cough up to keep them at home.

hadnt thought of the insurance angle, good point!

this place is not that far from newport RI, which has some serious mansions on it.

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Love to see pics of the cars under roof!

Almost sounds like a place that could charge admission to view their cars stored there too. Were there valid-owner license plates on any car, their owners would not then be 'anonymous.' So that sounds rather bogus. A multi-use facility is just that, multi-use. If one business plan doesn't work, perhaps another one will? Unless one were privy to the building's / tenant/owner's tax returns going back 5+ years on the biz/facility, it would be hard to know what the business plan was/is. -Even then, exact conclusions could not be drawn. $25 a day sounds initially like a lot of jack, what with ppl coming and going right by your car. That to me doesn't sound like a very secure environment.


RELATED:
Many ppl build and own large storage buildings for their personal collections. There is one (totally private collection - mostly Muscle Cars with NO miles on them) I've heard about in SE Nebraska, that I'm just itching to go check out one of these days. The man travels the country in his RV procuring additions to his collection. He's a manufacturer's sales agent, with numerous agents under him, and travelling the U.S. is part of what he does, so collecting rare examples is a hobby for him. None of his collection is for sale dog drat it, but, he is nearing old age, so perhaps one day his collection will be parted out / sold-off.

Great topic - always love prospecting for antique cars, etc.

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The one in GP was something that started with a C. Something like Caldwells or something like that. IIRC, they auctioned everything off in the late sixties, early seventies.

I don't really know what the deal was with the going out of business thing, but they were still there in 1973 or 1974 and not much past that. I can't remember the name, but I bet we are talking about the same place.

This place is that big metal building that is either right next to or just down the street from the Tradewinds Motel, at least I think that is the name of the place.

Say..... If you like antiques there is an antique auction held near there every Friday night. It is on one of those streets north of Main in that small industrial district, right by where the Downs Drive-In once stood.

Antique Auction Center.com - Antique Auctions every Friday at 7PM - French,English,and Argentine

Get there early, and bring a truck.

So called them and they helpfully told me that big MB was a 1927 660 SS.

I can't even find a pic on the internet of the exact model. most have a different style grill from what I saw, but there are some pretty close pics. Anyone know any info on this model out of curiosity?

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I should clarify that the car show was outside the facility with peoples antique vehicles on display and the owners there, and that my understanding was that the storage/restoration facility was the hosting ground for them, but people weren't wandering about eating ice cream and dumping it into classic cars.

They did have the door open though, so the fiance and I wandered in, and it seems to me that for 5 or 6 cars they probably had the owners permission, as they were in kind of a display area, while the majority were behind a roped off section and you couldn't get within 30 feet of them.

The others you could get about 5 feet away, like a museum.

The most I could find on that 660 is that from similar cars, its probably worth a couple million bucks

EDIT-
i did find some info here-
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1927-1932-mercedes1.htm

so according to that website, the car is a supercharged 7 liter engine with 8psi of boost, capable of a 15 second 0-60, which is pretty amazing in 1927. Also there were only 109 ever built in the SS variant. I wonder how accurate this website above is, but thats a rare car for sure.

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Hey JB3 don't want to hijack this thread, but since you're in the Massachusetts/
Rhode Island area got a similar question about a classic car place. Wife's family is from the Cape and there's a place I've heard about, I think it's near Sandwich, where a member of some wealthy family like Johnson&Johnson or the Kraft family, has a classic car collection. Ever heard of it or been there? I keep threatening my wife to go there if I can get her out of the antique stores.

I have never heard of it, but now im interested! gonna do research.

This storage place was a random stop, my real reason for being down there was an oversold omelette that failed to deliver on the golden description that was yelled into my ear.

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I totally missed it - that you were at a 'car show,' as to the reason you were in the commercial/industrial park building/warehouse area. My mistake.

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