Orlando Auto Museum photo
ORLANDO, Fla. — When you combine the car collecting “disease” with a billionaire, some crazy things can happen. Michael Dezer is the ultimate example of that.
The business and real estate mogul based in New York and Miami has assembled what is probably the largest private collection of cars in the world, and he proudly shows them off every day at his Orlando Auto Museum. The shrine is housed in Dezerland Park — a sprawling former shopping mall that Dezer has transformed into a busy tourist attraction and fitting home for his mind-boggling fleet of some 2,000 vehicles.
Dezer’s collection includes hundreds of exotics and super cars, almost every American car imaginable from the 1950s and ’60s, and what is believed to be the largest assortment of TV and movie cars in existence, highlighted by a huge — and very valuable — group of James Bond movie cars and collectibles.
Dezer’s lofty accomplishments in the real estate world are as towering as his car collecting achievements. Together with his son Gil, they are two of the hobby’s biggest movers and shakers in Miami, having had a big hand in such projects as the Trump Grande Ocean Resort and Residences and Trump Towers, and the uber-luxury Porsche Design Tower, which includes the “Dezervator,” a fully automated car elevator patented by the Dezers that allows wealthy high-rise dwellers to take their cars up to their penthouses and luxury suites.
Dezer, as you might imagine, is a fun guy to talk with about cars. Old Cars recently caught up with him for our “10 Questions” treatment.
Orlando Auto Museum photo
Orlando Auto Museum photo
Q. OLD CARS: Do you remember the first car you bought? What was the story?
A. Michael Dezer: I was born in Israel and my first vehicle was a Vespa. A 1967 Vespa. And then after that I bought a Harley, and … then I joined the Israeli Army. One time, when I came home, my father and mother said, ‘Why are you risking your life on that Vespa, and then that Harley? Sell the two bikes, and we will lend you the rest of the money to buy a car.” And at that time, I was 18 1/2, and I said, ‘OK,’ so I found a ’49 Plymouth. It belonged to a doctor, it was really in bad shape and I made it one of the nicest hot rods in Israel!
And today I have 15 of them in my collection. I loved the ’49 Plymouth. And the Studebakers, I loved them, too. The ’49 and ’50s with the bullet nose. I have 14 of them. I buy what I like!
Q. OLD CARS: How did the collection start? Did you make a conscious decision to start accumulating vehicles?
A. MD: When I came to America in 1962, I bought a 1950 Plymouth in New York, where I went to school. And I loved it. And a few years later I bought Cadillac, but I left that outside in the snow… Then I found another one, and then another, and you know … it’s a disease! [laughs]. That’s what it is, it’s a disease. But I was still a poor student when I started. I got my BBA and my MBA, and then I started to get good jobs.
My first new car was a Dodge four-door in 1965, and then I drove Cadillacs all the time, and in the 1980s I started growing the collection into what it is now.
I bought an old Chevy dealer to put all the cars in that I had, which was about 30, 35 cars. And my friends would come over and we would have a good time, but we never thought about, you know, a collection or other things. Then I had a guy who said, ‘Hey, Michael, I want to buy the whole dealership from you. Give me a price.’ …And it was for a profit of $1 million, and I said, ‘Well, OK.’ And at that point, I bought a second building in Manhattan.
Q. OLD CARS: Eventually you moved your collection from New York to Miami. What was that big move all about?
A. MD: About 30 years ago, I auctioned a bunch of cars with Dean Kruse. I sold the ones I wanted to sell, and I sent the other ones to Miami … And I brought them to Miami, and I found a place and we made it Dezerland, a car museum. Then I said, ‘We need cars of all kinds, not just the ’50s and ’60s.’ I wanted cars of all kinds, and that’s when I started to buy collections.”
Q. OLD CARS: You don’t really enjoy selling your cars, so was it tough to sell a big chunk of your collection back then?
A. MD: Then we were happy, because we knew we were going to Miami and we were going to start something big, because we already bought the building — 250,000 square feet… Then after a number of years in Miami, we went to Orlando and the one in Orlando is a million square feet!
Orlando Auto Museum photo
Q. OLD CARS: What kind of cars have you always been most interested in? Did you have something you preferred to collect?
A. MD: I used to go to a lot of auctions with my wife and we’d specialize in American convertibles — 1945 to 1960 convertibles… I had at least one for every year and every car. [After we opened Dezerland], then I said, ‘We need cars of all kinds, not just the ’50s and ’60s.’ I wanted cars of all kinds, and that’s when I started to buy collections.
It’s not hard to buy more cars, because I know all those cars are money in the bank. All those cars go up in value, and very rarely do I sell a car. If you give me a crazy number, then I’ll sell it, but very rarely.”
Q. OLD CARS: One of the things you are most known for is your collection of James Bond cars and other collectibles. How did that all come about?
A. MD: A woman in England who finds cars for me, she said, ‘Mr. Dezer, there is a dentist here who has a nice Bond collection, and he wants to sell 2 or 3 cars.’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said his wife was divorcing him and he must have needed the money… I said, ‘Listen, I either buy everything, or nothing.’ I had some Bond cars already at the time. So she asked him and he said, ‘Yeah, I might sell everything. Everything has a price.’ I said, “What do you think it would cost?” She said it might cost $10 million sterling. And at that time it was $1.60, so in other words, $16 million.
I said, ‘The hell with it, I’m going to buy the collection.’ I called my pilot and said, ‘We’re flying to England.’ So we flew over there and I said to the guy, ‘Show me what you have, and you tell me what you want for each car.’ And he wanted $6 million sterling for the cars, so already that was $4 million less.
I said, ‘You take this to auction, you need to ship everything and pay 10 percent to the auctioneer. It’s going to be a big deal.’ I said, ‘I’ll give you $5 million sterling right now.’ And he started to shake, because he didn’t know what to do [laughs]. He had been collecting for 30 years. But he said, ‘Yes,’ and that’s now I wound up with everything. Now I have the largest collection of James Bond cars in the world, and I bought the DB5 from “Goldfinger.” I’ve got about 2,500 pieces and in addition to James Bond, we have the largest collection of movie cars and the largest collection of Vespas, because you know, I started with the Vespas. I still drive them!
Orlando Auto Museum photo
Q. OLD CARS: Do you ever just look around at your collection and museum and find it hard to comprehend? A kid from Israel who had to borrow money from his parents just to buy an old beater and now have probably the biggest car collection in the world?
A. MD: Listen, I go to Orlando every Wednesday, and I go into the museum and I look at all the beautiful, beautiful cars, and I say, ‘I can’t believe it!’ I can’t believe what I’ve built, by myself. It’s a pleasure, it is, and I keep buying more cars.
Like I found a dealer going out of business, and I talked to him and he gave me a good number, so I took 40 cars from him [laughs]. It’s a disease, it’s a sickness. You see all these cars and you like, you like, you like … It’s like when I buy cars on eBay, I buy them and sometimes I don’t even really look at them.”
Q. OLD CARS: How much do try to drive your cars, and do you worry about them deteriorating if they sit for too long?
A. MD: You wanna know the truth? When I buy something, I usually like to drive it. I buy what I like it and I want to drive it. When I buy something I usually drive it for a few weeks.
I learned not to worry. Years ago I had five or six mechanics who took care of the cars, and every time they fixed them, they broke something else. So we decided to fire all those [guys], we don’t need them. And in the 50 years of the collection, only one time I had a motor in a Pontiac seize, so we put a new motor in. Nothing else has ever really happened.
Q. OLD CARS: Do you have any upcoming plans for your cars or your museum? Anything new in the works?
A. MD: Now I’m opening a night club, a restaurant, called Al Capone. And you know how they had all those black cars they drove from the early ‘30s? I bought about 15 different ones of them and they are going to be all over the restaurant, so people can look at them.
Q. OLD CARS: You’re going to die tomorrow. You get one car to take out and enjoy today — any car in the world. What are you taking?
A. MD: At one time I collected ’59 Cadillacs. I had about 50 of them, and I was restoring them. One by one I fixed them up, and I said, when I die, I want to die inside o a ’59 Cadillac convertible. I always loved the Cadillacs and the Chryslers, ’59, ’58, ’57, and I have a lot of them now.
Orlando Car Museum Dezerland Park
5250 International Dr.
Orlando, FL 32819
321-754-1700
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
https://dezerlandpark.com/orlando-auto-museum/
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