Shhhhh, it is a secret. . . . (and NOT a solicitation for business etc)

My name is John Crispeno and I am the marketing manager at the Manheim Auto Auction in Pennsylvania. We are the founding and namesake auction of the much larger Manheim Auto Auction and Cox Automotive Inc with sister companies such as Autotrader.com and KBB.com to name a few.

My auction has partnered with the Make-A-Wish chapter here in south-east PA to host their Annual Mother's Day Truck Convoy featuring nearly 600 tractor-trailers, fire companies, etc. This event is their major fundraiser of the year that brings in over 75% of their wish funding in one-day!!! We are their new host after their original host backed out after 31 years and we couldn't be more excited. We definitely have the room for it all!

As the hosting location for their event, we also wanted to join in on the fundraising "fun" with an original and very unique idea for our wholesale auto auction industry. Build a Factory Five Type 65 Coupe and then auction it off with all the money going to Make-A-Wish. I know this is not the first time that a charity auction has been done with a factory-five vehicle but it will be our first time.

We contacted Dave Smith and his team about our idea and they have been super helpful. Our kit order has been placed and expected finish date is November 8th. The working idea is to build this car right in the middle of our auction lobby for all of our dealer clients to see our progress. We have a staff of over 1,300 people working with over 500,000 wholesale vehicles per year. We have mechanics and body shops and truckers on CB so we hope to use our industry talents to build this coupe and raise lots of money for Make-A-Wish.

In order to satisfy our concerns about creating a safe and fun vehicle, we have contracted with the fabulous Traveling Builder, Mark. Heck, he lives only 20 minutes away from us, how could we not tap into that knowledge base?

So in the meantime, I have been busy purchasing all of our tools, jack stands, etc that we will be using during our build. Yes, our mechanics have their own tools but their shop is a mile away on the other side of our lot. (Yes this place is huge) AND, we are going to auction off all these tools for Make-A-Wish as well!!!

We hope to document our build on this forum as well as some blog posting on our sister sites Autotrader.com and KBB.com. We will also host some facebook live videos and perhaps some youtube.

We hope you join us on our journey from delivery to auction day, which will be NO LATER than May 8, 2020.

Until the next update, Thank you.

John Crispeno

https://www.facebook.com/ManheimPenn...?ref=bookmarks