The Ashtray and Lighter: A Conversation with Adam Crowell

As we sat down to chat, Adam Crowell pulled out his trusty lighter and placed it on the ashtray, a ritualistic gesture that seemed almost nostalgic. "We'll have an extra lighter auxiliary lighter in the trunk, just in case you break one," he said with a chuckle. It was clear that this car had been around the block a few times, and Adam had a story or two to share about its past.

Just then, his wife walked into the room, concern etched on her face. "Adam, where's the car?" she asked, eyeing him warily. He smiled, unfazed. "I think I'll take it for a spin," he said, patting the dashboard affectionately. The conversation turned to the topic of cars, and Adam regaled us with stories of his time working at Foreign Motors in Boston. "We sold that convertible 275 for $7,500," he reminisced, shaking his head in amazement.

Adam's love affair with classic Ferraris began early on. He recalled the thrill of driving a Cobra, bought by none other than racing legend Bob Bondurant. The car had been purchased for a mere $5,000, but it would later fetch a staggering $7 million at auction. As we chatted, Adam couldn't help but wax poetic about the joys of owning a car like this. "It's not just about speed or acceleration," he said, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. "It's about the mechanicalness of it all – the sound of the engine, the feel of the clutch beneath your foot."

We took a closer look at the interior of the car, marveling at the simplicity and elegance of its design. Adam pointed out various features, including the speedometer, which was adorned with a cleverly designed tachometer. As we examined the dashboard, he began to explain the intricacies of the car's mechanical systems. "The oil temperature is about 50 degrees hotter than your actual engine temperature," he said, chuckling wryly at his own mistake.

As we drove through the streets, Adam pointed out various features of the car, from the exhaust system (which was remarkably quiet for a Ferrari) to the pedals and controls. He regaled us with stories of other owners who had modified their cars over the years – some for better, some for worse. "It's like having an old friend," he said, grinning at the car as if it were a person.

But even the most seasoned car enthusiast can't escape the occasional mishap. As we drove, Adam mentioned that they'd run out of gas (a small oversight, but one that would require careful planning to rectify). The speedometer cable also proved to be a bit temperamental, vibrating so violently that it knocked the needle off its dial. Yet despite these minor setbacks, Adam remained unfazed, confident in his ability to fix any problem that arose.

As our conversation drew to a close, Adam thanked us for joining him on this impromptu drive. "It's not every day you get to take a Ferrari out for a spin," he said with a smile. And as we parted ways, it was clear that this was more than just a car – it was a connection to the past, a symbol of freedom and adventure.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the episode of jay leno's garage today one of the most iconic sports cars of all time but this is not my car now to those of you that are watching this united states you know this gentleman those are watching outside the united states he's a comedian he has uh his own uh carcass show it's called acecarcast.com or you can go to adamkroller.com big car guy very funny guy movie star author adam corolla adam come on in here great to see you good to see you adam for the free pizza i got pizza now i i said adam hey i'd love to do one of your cars show up with something but you wouldn't tell me what it was so this is what he brought today this is a 1966 ferrari yeah 330 gt uh two plus two uh it's got a four liter and we can uh get into the engine in a second i uh it's funny because ten minutes ago we were eating pizza and someone said to jay what do you think of the ferrari 458 and he said yeah i'm not a ferrari guy i'm not a ferrari guy thank you in front of this forum but i am an early ferrari guy one of my favorite cars was the coupe version of this car it is still my all-time favorite ferrari with the long nose and the whole deal uh i just like how accessible these are and easy to work on oh yeah the modern ferraris to me are just way too complicated you can't do anything in your home garage anymore yeah everything has to be done by authorized dealer blah blah blah and i guess that's okay but it's it's just to me this is a car you can become intimately involved with how many guys who own a 430 ferrari would be down in their garage honey don't worry about the pot roast i'm wrenching on the 430. well that's what we need that's what you need more of i mean to me you know i'm amazed at the number of guys i know that flip exotic cars whether it's ferrari or lamborghini or audi or whatever because they drive them for a while but they're not intimately involved they haven't fixed the car they haven't worked on the car so when the latest thing comes along they sell it and they get something else how many guys do you meet first off half the guys who work for me younger guys who work for me don't know how to drive a stick well that's true scary number two how many times do you talk to somebody and they go i got the civic or i got the audi or i got the whatever and you go uh what do you got the turbo four or the six v6 and they go listen i don't own the dealership and you go wait a minute you don't know how many cylinders are under the hood of your car and they go listen i don't build them i just draw and they're like yeah yes come undone i mean when i drive my steam cars my 1907 steam car someone says i mean now this doesn't have an airbag right i don't know no it's it's a steam car it doesn't it does not have an airbag no it doesn't but let's get back to this let's get back to it because this comes from the classic era mid 60s 1960s i love i love this whole era the super america i love from the 50s right up until uh all the fun ended around the 70s yeah early 70s and these are still this model is still fairly reasonable as ferraris go yes price wise it's it's it's they're on the move and the ones before these i think the 250 two plus two anything that has a two plus two everything that says ferrari and then says two plus two you can just go ahead and lop 300 grand off the price tag this car i i think it's a 275 the you know brother of this car that has just a has a shelf in the back for golf clubs right that thing is probably 375 450 k this because it has an extra back seats probably 150 000 something you know what's so funny when i was a kid these seem so complicated when you open the hood you're on oh my god and now it seems so simple i mean let's open the hood of this car and take a look here as you can see the air was much cleaner back in the 60s you didn't need an air filter i just put those on because they were cool no they look cool they look cool and it's just a nice clean engine bay i always thought this was very sexy when i was a kid yeah me too oil filters it seemed it seemed so european yeah and slightly unnecessary but still so european you have it but your car just ran extra clean four liter motor and you just but it is nice when they put the i mean we all know that thing where you're underneath the car and it's underneath the exhaust manifold and you're stabbing it with a phillips head screwdriver because you can't get a grip on it it's nice to have them right there although that trick where they tell you to fill the oil filter before you put it on yeah i don't know how you do it with yeah yeah i'm not sure i think you have to tip the car sideways or something yeah but anyway as you can see it's it's it's fairly straightforward distributors are right here two distributors that seemed incredibly sexy back in the day yeah and i remember these cars were pretty reasonable secondhand i remember back in the mid 80s early 80s i looked at the coupe version of this the guy wanted twenty eight thousand five hundred dollars well that's ridiculous right not paying that and now that same car is 400 500 000 so to me i don't know anything about the stock market i know nothing about investments but i know if you buy what you like chances are other car guys like it and that will go up in value so absolutely this is a better return than anything on the stock you know if people want to know where cars are going you can go to those auction websites and you can just basically hit past auctions and see where stuff was going in 2002 and 2005 you get a pretty good idea of what a car is doing you know 66 is about my favorite year i have two favorite years 1932 because by 1932 cars were here to stay so they come out with v12s and v16s and four wheel brakes and all kinds of stuff and 1966 because 1966 was the last year a car manufacturer can make whatever they want and send it here and really weren't a lot of government regulations there's no big rubber bumpers on this right there's no padded steering wheel right uh there's no headrest it's just pure like the mirror pure design that's that's the thing when they say you know whenever someone looks at this car when lay people look at this car they go why don't we just do it this way this is so beautiful it's like well they don't let you have these knock-offs would be legal steering wheel's got to have an airbag and it's not going to be contained in that little piece of aluminum padded steering wheel these bumpers would not cut it there's no crush zones there's no side impact then we start getting into you know the aqmd and you start getting into smog and stuff like that so your question to why can't they do it just like that is there's so many regulations then you have to all the stickers do not drink contents of battery you know because oh my gosh right you're not replacing rectum on every calf yeah yeah yeah yeah i know they they can't do it this way anymore and that's i think why we love these cars and you'll see right about the era in the early 70s when the government got involved and said you can no longer do it the way you want to do it how car and car design took a real nose yeah and this is just just pure pinna farina look at that just a nice simple elegant design look at this dashboard let's take a look inside the car i mean exactly what i like two big gauges tack speedometer yeah everything's laid out very legibly yeah very luxurious comfortable seats and i like the idea that they built the entire car around the ash tray yeah yeah look at that i mean that ashtray that's some serious smoking oh yeah and it's metal and that have one in the back for the kids yeah because they like to light up you know in europe it's a different scene yeah yeah yeah i i love it yeah and it has electric windows which is pretty rare for uh yeah it has it has the power windows and the thing that's funny and kind of interesting and you may know this from your mirror and other vehicles that have electric windows back before they really trust them they'll have a little knockout yes with an emergency crank just in case you can't pay the toll and the window's gone they don't really come up electric windows from the 60s and early 70s make a sound like you know we're not supposed to be doing this quite yet this is ten years not so funny a buddy of mine was here with his kids who were like seven and eight and they got in my 65 uh shelby mustang and said dad look at this they cranked the window and up then he cranked and went down then the other one said let me try and they spent the whole day just cranking these windows that was the greatest thing ever just cranking these windows up and down well let's go around the back of the car here as well all right very pretty rear end on this car yeah or just classic dual exhaust yeah yeah it's there's something so clean so simple and so elegant and you know the exact opposite of all the fins and all the tails this rear window here pops out right proper leather interior just nicely done yeah you know what i like i like a thin door like on the early uh s-class mercedes you know modern cars the doors are this thick because they've got airbags in them and they've got that steel but so even though the car looks big yeah also i i like the again these cars were built for smokers as you get in a modern camaro or something and the door sill or the door things up here there's no hanging i like the i like the yeah yeah the guy this car they basically went all right the average guy holds his cigarette where and would need to hold this thing and then signal with the cigarette and then we'll put the ashtray here and the lighter will be here we'll have an extra lighter auxiliary lighter in the trunk in case you break and then the good thing is when he gets emphysema you buy the car from the widow for like nothing yeah that's fantastic well i think it's about time to take this car for a ride well i haven't driven one of these in a long time i used to work at a place called foreign motors in boston and we took a convertible 275 in i think we gave the guy six grand for it in a trade-in we sold it for 7 500. i love those stores yeah i love when uh you know bob bondurant had the daytona cobra he bought it for five grand and he said i sold it for ten and then it sold later for seven million yeah of course boy this is a mechanically very heavy car but i don't think it's heavy if you drove it every day but after driving a modern car i mean this clutch will really work your leg and the steering wheel this is the ferrari of my youth this is what i love big easy to read gauges nice click in there great sound great sound let's take it for a spin oh it pulls very nicely yeah it does ah what a noise call me crazy but i prefer these older ferraris to the modern ones again just the mechanicalness of it you know it's very you move the gear lever and click it clicks right in plus i like the pain and sacrifice that goes with having to own a car like this yes like people say to me you know you get those things and they own you yes yes exactly i'm assuming this is a stock exhaust system because it it's it's not overly loud but just a nice sound to it this is just a nicely balanced nice driving car i have you know i bet you a lot of ferrari guys that think this was more fun than driving a modern one and all the modern ones are faster and all that kind of stuff yeah sure as you can see the interior is a very pleasant place to be uh there's your speedometer right there one of my favorite things is i don't care who the car guy is whatever number the speedometer says that's what they think the car does you ever under people oh this car goes 300. yeah yeah that's right it goes 300. yeah in fact it's kilometers doesn't make any difference right right when you got your oil temperature notice oil temperature is about uh 50 degrees hotter than your uh oh it's like it's starting to break down a little bit again it's a dime yeah i filled it up i think we are out of gas i filled the thing up last time yeah that's what it is i ran out of gas this sticker on the thing said i filled it up well here's a nice thing adam look you're now full oh good at least nothing was damaged yeah just my ego jay just my fragile ego what a wonderful car to drive i don't know what that is but i'm gonna drive feel it put your hands on the speedometer drive speedometer oh yeah cable needs to be lubricated i should have brought some fuel and some speedo to drive cable lube with me exactly exactly it's just when the wife sees you leave the house with the speedo loop yeah they ask questions yeah well see it's at this point you crank up the bogner or the puccini right and it drowns it out basically now we both know what it's like to have tinnitus this is the larry curly option look wow the needle with the actual needle came off actually came off well it's been an adventure we ran out of gas and the speedo cable broke and look it vibrated so violently it knocked the needle off but see the great thing about these kind of cars is you can fix it any watchmaker could fix this for you it's an analog gauge so it's easy enough if it was the electronic thing that went through a black box you'd be screwed well the joys of ferrari ownership we ran out of gas and we uh speedo cable broke and popped the needle off but that's okay this is a great car and uh nice thing about these old cars is they're easy to fix i want to thank adam crowell for bringing the car that's humiliating yeah there you go okay we'll get it fixed i know right now i know what you're thinking that guy's never coming on the tonight show again i'm sorry my my people told me it was full i mean i know you know i'm gonna pick a little fan i know i'm gonna have another wolf coming out soon i just need it's it's a nice springboard to sell stuff i just we're going to fix the speedo cable we'll see you next week\n"