THE BOOT ST O R I E S F R O M T H E T E X A S H I L L C O U N T RY
A M A ST E R D E P I C TS T H E H I L L CO U N T RY O N C A N VA S
T H E P E AC H STA N D T H AT G R E W I N TO A G LO B A L B U S I N E SS
FO R E V E R C A R S AND THREE MEN T H AT LO V E T H E M
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2021 | ISSUE 2
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LEFT TO RIGHT: Bill Gilliland, Bob Hefner, and Gary Ford with their iconic cars.
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ICONS ON WHEELS The routes these four-wheeled trophies took to arrive at Boot Ranch.
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ost cars on the road today will have a lifespan of fifteen to twenty years. After that, the cost of keeping them running will likely exceed the value anyone places on them. Cars built decades ago had even shorter lives, their parts wearing out far quicker. Has anyone seen a Ford Pinto or Chevy Vega on the road lately? But then there are the forever cars, automobiles so revered for their beauty, performance, and place in history that they almost never end up in a scrapyard. They are icons on wheels, symbols of the best in automotive design and engineering. Three Boot Ranch members—Gary Ford, Bill Gilliland, and Bob Hefner—are collectors of such vehicles. In the pages ahead, we learn about some of the treasures in their garages.
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FORD V FORD Gary Ford started off collecting vintage British cars. His first was a 1959 MGA bought in Oklahoma City in the mid-1980s. Later, he added an MGB roadster and coupe to his collection. He not only liked the appearance of the British sports cars of the ’50s and ’60s, he also enjoyed working on them. “In the winter, some people would go skiing,” he says. “I’d drive to Michigan to attend a twoweek program put on by a British mechanic.” But then a decade ago, he fell in love with a far different kind of car. At the time, he and his wife Susan were living in Indonesia, where he worked as an oil company executive. In his idle hours, he’d surf the internet searching for rare autos that he might like to buy. “He was looking at car porn,” Susan says, laughing. His wish list included an exotic British sports car, an Ariel Atom. He found one for sale on the website of an automobile dealer in Arkansas. But after looking at it online, Gary’s attention was drawn away by another of the dealer’s cars: a 2006 Ford GT—a street-legal descendant of the GT40 that the auto company developed in the mid-1960s to compete in the 24-hour race at Le Mans, the car later showcased in the movie Ford v Ferrari. “I thought, ‘Holy cow, look at that,’” he recalls. Even its orange and light blue paint scheme resembled that of the GT40s that won Le Mans in ’68 and ’69. “It’s an iconic car,” says Gary, who’s unrelated to the Ford Motor Company family. “The ’06 is traditional, the body style everyone
Rear vents on the Ford GT.
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The 2006 Ford GT is a descendant of the GT40 of the mid-1960s.
thinks of when they think of a GT40 and the Le Mans racing heritage Ford developed in the ’60s.” He was so smitten that he bought the car long distance, without first seeing it in person. That encounter wouldn’t happen until months later, when he returned to the States for a brief visit. His first time behind the wheel, he took the car out onto a rain-slickened race track, with a professional driver in the passenger seat to coach him. The powerful, lightning-fast car scared him at first. But he loved driving it nonetheless. Now retired and living at Boot Ranch, Gary maintains a workshop in Fredericksburg, where he keeps and works on the cars in his collection. Those include his first MGA; a 2013 Caterham 7, a lightweight and quick British two-seater previously owned by Simon Cowell of American Idol and America’s Got Talent fame; and a 2012 Porsche Cayman R that Gary bought primarily to hone his driving skills. His latest addition is a 2019 Ford GT, whose styling and engineering are more space-age than that of the 2006 GT. Ford returned to Le Mans in 2016 and won its class with the redesigned car. The 2006 model remains his favorite, though. He and Susan drive it often to gatherings of Ford GT owners at race tracks around the country. “It was my first supercar. It’s become part of the family,” Gary says. He might eventually sell the other cars in his collection. But not the GTs. Those will go to the Fords’ two sons, he says. “I have two heritage cars that I can pass on to them.”
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ABOVE:
The orange and light blue paint scheme resembles that of the GT40s that won LeMans in ’68 and ’69.
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TOP: Bill Gilliland in his 1930 Dual-Cowl Packard Phaeton. BOTTOM: The steering wheel (without power steering) of the Packard Phaeton.
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The engine of the 1930 Dual-Cowl Packard Phaeton.
THE ROMANCE OF THE ROAD Bill Gilliland bought his first vintage car half a century ago. It was a black 1936 Ford sedan. “Gosh, I never should have sold it,” he says. But he’s also bought and sold about 50 other rare cars since then. Among them: a ’32 Chevy roadster, a ’41 Cadillac limousine, an early ‘50s Hudson Hornet, and a ’62 Lincoln convertible. Bill knows a lot about buying and selling cars, which was both his hobby and his business. Starting with a Chevrolet dealership in Amarillo, he went on to form a company that acquired a dozen more car dealerships there and in Denver, Las Vegas, and Oklahoma City. His dealership group was the first to go public, selling stock on the New York Stock Exchange. He later sold it to another publicly owned company, the one that became AutoNation. Now retired and in his early 80s, Bill is down to just two vintage cars in the garage of his Boot Ranch home. One is a 1952 MG TD he bought in 1970. His wife, Sandra, immediately laid claim to the sporty red two-seater, ferrying their children around Amarillo in it. The other is a butter-colored luxury model he pursued for decades before finally finding exactly what he wanted three years ago in Portland, Oregon: a 1930 Dual-Cowl Packard Phaeton. A long four-door, with a collapsible canvas top, its rear passenger compartment is separated from the driver’s compartment
by a bulkhead with its own folding windscreen. Picture golden-era Hollywood starlets like Greta Garbo arriving at movie premieres in such an automobile. Bill knows the car’s entire life story, that the original owners were a family in Boston who kept it for 25 years before selling it to a Chevrolet dealer in Portland. The dealer had three friends drive it cross-country to him. “The old car ran just fine,” Bill says. When Bill began looking for a Packard Phaeton, he was interested only in a 1930 model. Why that year? “Because it was the depths of the Great Depression,” he explains. “All the other manufacturers had pulled back, except for the Packard brothers. They kept making the luxury car and they went right on making it through the Depression. It probably wasn’t the smartest business decision. It was more of a romantic decision.” The romance of the decision is what made Bill first fall in love with the vehicle. He adores the car he bought all the more because it’s not in perfect condition. “I don’t like museum pieces,” he says. “This car, it doesn’t have any dents, but it’s got a few scuff marks on it. And that’s what I like, because I drive it.” Warm sunny evenings often find Bill motoring around Boot Ranch’s hilly, 4.25-milelong loop road with the top down, Sandra at his side, and friends, kids, grandkids, or great-grandkids in the back— all with broad smiles on their faces. Those drives make it clear why the Packard Phaeton continues to be Gilliland’s favorite among all of the rare cars he’s ever owned. The Packard Phaeton Flying Goddess of Speed hood ornament.
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MOTOR HEAD At Bob Hefner’s Boot Ranch home are two garages. One is for the cars Bob and his wife, Laura, drive every day. The second houses his vintage vehicles. Parked in the latter at present are a 1932 Ford hot rod, a ’54 MG Midget roadster, a ’58 Jaguar XK150 coupe, and a ’66 Austin Healey 3000 roadster. The garage also holds tools and equipment, such as lifts, that Bob uses to work on the cars. And work on them he does. “I’ve been a motor guy all my life,” he says, starting with the go-kart he drove and tinkered with as a boy growing up in Dallas in the 1950s. “I love to turn wrenches on cars and just play with the motors.” That was a pleasure he had to forgo for many years, constrained by the demands of raising a family and running a business investing in and developing real estate. But then, about five years ago he began carving out more time for leisure pursuits and bought the first car for his collection, the MG Midget. “That car is a joy to own,” he says. “It’s 100 percent restored.” Well almost. “It does need a little bit of mechanical work at the moment,” he confesses with a laugh. But the mechanic in him finds joy in that, too. Next came the Jaguar and Austin Healey, bought on the same day from a St. Louis dealer selling a California car buff ’s collection. Both have red leather interiors, a feature he finds particularly attractive. At first, Bob kept the cars in a warehouse in Fredericksburg. But wanting to have them closer, he added the second garage to his home. Ford won LeMans but so did Jaguar, as evidenced by the dates on the trunk emblem.
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The beautiful curved lines of the 1958 Jaguar XK150 coupe are what originally attracted Bob Hefner.
For a time, Bob also owned a 1948 Chevrolet pickup truck. But he sold it recently and plans to put the Ford hot rod on the market, too. He wants to focus on British sports cars from now on. “Growing up when I did in the ‘50s and ‘60s, these were rare cars—the Jags, the Healeys, and the MGs,” he says. “When you saw one, that was really unique and it got your attention. In that era, the British were the only ones making true sports cars. We just didn’t have any U.S. sports cars other than the Corvette and the Thunderbird, and they aren’t of the same quality or interest level.” If he could keep only one of his vintage cars, which would it be? “I’d keep the Jag,” Bob answers. “I enjoy driving the Healey more than the Jag, just because the top’s down most of the time. But the Jaguar is an absolutely stunning piece of art. What makes it so beautiful is the lines of the car.” Bob has no intention, though, of limiting himself to just one car. “My next car—the one I’m making room for—is the roadster version of the Jag. I look forward to having that opportunity at some point. It’s hard to find the right one, but we’ll get there.” In the meantime, he’s also looking for an MGA, another automobile he admires for its beauty and graceful lines. That and for the fact that it’s a car for which replacement parts are relatively easy to find. After all, Bob doesn’t want to just drive and look at his vintage cars, he wants to turn a wrench on them, too.
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TOP: Bob Hefner in front of his 1958 Jaguar XK150 coupe. BOTTOM: Bob has a penchant for red leather interiors. ISSUE 2
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