You might say Fred Roth was born with a steering wheel in his mouth. In the early 40's, at the age of four, he would stand next to his father on the front seat of their car (no seat belts in those days) as they were traveling down the road and rattle off the year and make of every oncoming car, no matter how fast they approached.

As a teenager in the fifties, Fred had a desperate desire to own a car with the fenders all the way back. His first choice, a 1949 Ford coupe, evaded him financially, and left him frustrated. One night while reading a Floyd Clymer driver’s report on the 1951 Hudson in the latest Popular Mechanics, a spark was ignited that would change his whole life. Clymer pointed out how good Hudson dealerships were, how FAST these cars would go, how less than 1% of the Hudson owners were unhappy with their purchase, how FAST these cars would go and most important of all, how they dominated the stock car circuit, meaning they were really FAST cars! Thirty-four Hudsons and 20 years later, Fred was ready to branch out in his collecting and decided to expand his love for automobiles to encompass different American marques. Fred and his wife, Deanna, agreed that they wanted their modified collection to have a theme. Since they both loved sports cars, plus he was a definite lover of American automobiles, and since they already owned the very rare 1954 Hudson Italia, Fred and his wife decided on a collection of American sports cars from the fifties.

Since that time the Roths have collected most of the production sports cars of that era, such as an early '55 Ford T-Bird and '55 Chevy Corvette, along with lesser known marques, such as a '54 Nash Healey, '54 Kaiser Darrin, '52(Willys) Woodill Wildfire and a '52 Muntz Road Jet. Their final addition to the collection was a little known car called a Maverick Sportster, one of seven built in 1954 by Maverick Motors of Mountain View, CA.

The Roths are very proud that all the restoration work, including the faqct that all paint, mechanical and body work was done by Fred and his son Chris, plus wife, Deanna, has done the majority of the upholestry on these cars. Everything is done right there at their home in Thousand Oaks. Their restorations have won many awards, the crowning achievement being their Muntz, which came in second only to the beautiful one-off Bosley at Pebble Beach, as well as their restored Hudson Italia, winning a similar award at Pebble out of a field of 13 cars. All their restorations have won a first in class or a best of show at one time or another. The most notable being the Muntz Jet at Palm Springs in 1997, the Hudson Italia at the 2000 Muckenthaler Motor Show, the '55 Corvette, at the Red Line Corvette show in 2002,and the Maverick Sportster winning first in class in 2007 at the Amelia Island Concours in Florida, as well as a best in show at the Muckenthaler Motor Show in 2008.

Collecting these unique cars led to extensive historical research on the topic of early American Sports Cars by both Chris and Fred. Because of this, the Roths have become noted authorities on the subject and have set up this web site to share this knowledge with others.

Several additional interests have evolved over the past 30 years such as Carousel horses, Coin operated musical instruments, arcade machines and most notably pre 1950 Juke Boxes. These collectable works of art are now disbursed throughout the collection. If you have that interest also feel free to click on the button entitled Roth Music Machines.

FREDERICK J. ROTH
Copyright May 2012