While he didn’t grow up in a car-centric family, Jim Zanardi said his passion for cars is something that he has felt strongly since his youth. “I’ve always liked cars ever since I was a little kid,” he said. “My dad wasn’t a car collector, I just always liked cars.” Zanardi first started collecting cars in his mid to late 20s, sometime around the early 1970s. “I’ve just always collected cars for years,” he said. “And then, when I retired, I collected more cars. I bought one, and then redid it, then I bought another one, and it just kind of mushroomed from there.” A fan of Cadillacs, Zanardi’s first purchase to kick off his collection was a 1937 Cadillac Sedan V-12, a rarity as the company only originally built somewhere around 12 or 13 examples. While, like many collectors, his interests would change and evolve over the years, Zanardi said one thing was constant. “I always kind of bought stuff that nobody else wanted, different stuff,” he said, noting that at times, it seemed like everyone had muscle cars and Ferraris. “I don’t have any muscle cars; my cars are all older. Most everything is in the ‘40s or ‘50s, with some from the ‘30s.” Over the past 50 years, Zanardi has amassed a collection of around 25 cars, and in most cases, once he’s welcomed a new addition to the bunch, it’s there to stay. “They check in but they don’t check out too often,” he said. “I have sold a couple though. Somebody wanted them more than I did.” Among his favorites in the collection are a 1953 Cadillac Eldorado, an eight-door 1937 Cadillac Yosemite Bus and a 1939 Cadillac 5-Door Woody that was one of about four or five on display at the historic Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, California, and is believed to be the only one remaining. “I always collected the ones I wanted,” he said. “There’s cars I could have bought that might have been a better investment, but I bought cars because I liked them, not because I was trying to make an investment and make money.”
