Tour of Peter Fink's Car Museum

[UNGN]

Peter Fink founded Certified Transmission (a wholesale rebuilder of automatic transmissions) and created an empire. Over the Holidays he gave a tour of his musclecar building, which is on the Certified Transmissions campus in Omaha, NE and we got to tag along. He has about 90 cars, but some are to valuable too keep in this semi public building (like his Hemicuda convert) due to insurance reasons, but none of the cars the building were cheap.

We started on the "stock restoration" side of the building. He had a '70 GSX, a GTO Judge, a Boss 429:

an LS6 Chevelle:

and 3 winged mopars:

Having a Daytona and a Superbird side by side made it easy to check out the subtle differences:

Daytona Fender bubble (with cool air extractor vent):

Superbird Fender bubble (with bupkis):

His Daytona was a factory SE sold new in Omaha. I didn't even know they made SE Daytonas:

He also owed the finest '69 RS/Z28 in the world:

Factory Cross Ram:

Factory Rear Disc Brakes:

And Factory Firestone Sport Car 200 Tires (I have never seen these before, ever):

They weren't even "sports car", so you know they came from a simpler, more clueless time.

The Yellow 427 Yenko next to it was ho-hum by comparison. The level of preservation (before restoration) was unbelievable. Yes it was restored to perfection, but they had to have started with a near perfect car.

After the "stock" room, we went to the "modified" room.

 

[UNGN]

Peter Fink, is a regular at Barrett-Jackson. He's always wearing a "certified transmission" work shirt like he's ready to rebuild an automatic transmission at a moments notice.

He has each of the late model factory Super Stock cars ( CJ Mustang, COPO Camaro and V10 Challenger) in Black:

And 3 Ring Brothers Cars, including a ZL1 powered '69 Camaro:

and two Ring Brothers '67 Mustangs:

I was curious what he paid for these, so I looked them up online and it was north of 1/4 $ Million each. They aren't my thing and they were easily "dated" (as in "that is soooo 2010"), but I can appreciate the level of detail that went into them, which is a ton, even if they have "old tech" like 4.6 mod motors. i can't think of one sane person that would put a 4.6L mod motor in a $250K car since 2011.

A recent purchase of his was a '70 Supercamaro:

That had LS power, IRS rear suspension and a FI setup that locked like quad webers:

If you do get a chance to view the Peter Fink Collection, don't make the mistake of sitting on the Ford GT bench in the lobby:

It's actually an actually an art piece he had commissioned to go with his Ford GT... for $10K.

I didn't get a picture of it but he also had his original '73 Formula 400 Firebird that was his high school car, complete with door dings, tall front springs and traction bars. Fixing that car after breaking it from street racing was what got him into fixing transmissions.

 

[1evilregal]

to tease me with a GSX, then no pics? that's just mean!

j/k! he really does have a beautiful collection, thank you or sharing it with us!

 

[melloelky]

That's nice thanks for sharing

 

[abadwillys]

Sweet rides, i really like that split bumper 2nd gen Camaro..

 

[UNGN]

to tease me with a GSX, then no pics? that's just mean!

j/k! he really does have a beautiful collection, thank you or sharing it with us!

The problem with Yellow GSX's and '69 GTO Judges (I even think it was Carousel Red) is when you've seen one, you've pretty much seen all of them and because those were the first two cars in the building there was a huge crowd around them when he popped the hood and I couldn't get any underhood pictures (and couldn't even get through the door to the museum until he was moving to the third car).

The first thing Peter Fink tells you is he tends to collect automatics, because because that is where he made his money. The first thing you notice is that a large percentage of the cars are manuals (because those are worth more).

 

[UNGN]

Sweet rides, i really like that split bumper 2nd gen Camaro..

I agree. Early second gens where out of favor for such a long time, and nobody restored them, but now that they have pretty much all been crushed, people want them, and the days of buying a running/driving RS/SS 396 '70 for $7,500 or even $67,500 are long gone.

 

[lilbowtie]

I love auto museums and collections. If your ever in the Detroit area look up the Ted Stahl collection.

 

[Longroof79]

Thank you for sharing pics of this awesome collection. Being there in person must have been a real treat.

 

[zdeckich]

What an amazing collection!!