The Monkeemobile.
The Scooby Doo Mystery Machine.
The Batmobile.
These are some of the most iconic cars in pop culture – and are available for rent thanks to two Livonia men who are ecstatic about collecting.
On Sunday, they’ll be showing off these and a hoard of other finds on the debut of
“Collector’s Call,” a new show on the cable network MeTV. The episode will feature many of their cars’ history and an appraisal.
Mel Gutherie and Michael Knight have been scouring America for classic cars and auto memorabilia for years.
“This is a disease,” Knight joked. “Run while you can. Don’t start. Once you go down that rabbit hole, you’re done, man.”
Added Gutherie: “We’ve had to be very creative, because every time we buy a car, we’ve got to figure out how to shoehorn it in and rearrange everything.”
The pair started small – building model vehicles and later collecting full-sized Hollywood cars.
“I was on a weird kick for a long time, for about two years, where I was trying to build every Hollywood car – movie or TV – in model car form,” said Knight. “Whether it was an actual release kit or whether I had to customize it, it didn’t matter.”
Soon, Knight and Gutherie decided to share storage space and the collection began to grow because they were requested to do many collector shows but didn’t have enough cars to talk about.
“You can only do so much with a couple of cars, so we decided to do more,” said Knight.
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Knight has built over 130 model vehicles, both from release kits and customization, and they can be seen on the show.
“I actually had to stop because I ran out of places in the showcases to put them,” he said. “So I either had to buy another showcase and keep building or just stop.”
Gutherie began to collect hot rods in 2000. He was able to retrieve one of the two original Monkeemobiles from the 1960s
TV show “The Monkees.” The vehicle has autographs from the cast, the vehicle’s creator and many others.
“It was my favorite car as a kid,” said Gutherie. “I would come home from school and watch reruns of ‘The Monkees.’ I was watching the 4th of July parade and I saw a Batmobile go by.”
He said even though there were many replicas of the Batmobile, it made him think about scoring one of the Monkeemobiles. He found his dream car in an Arizona auction catalog and he won by bidding $360,000. The car was appraised in the show for being worth about $500,000.
Today, Knight and Gutherie have a Facebook account called Motor City Reel Rides where page viewers can see the vehicles and even rent them out for events.
