Scrapbook: A Vroom of His Own

September/October 2015

Like a cross between American Graffiti and Field of Dreams, Toby Shine’s tribute to classic cars and small-town life is a little bit of heaven in the middle of Iowa. 

By Cynthia G. Wagner

In West Okoboji, Iowa, you’ll find a 65,000-square-foot classic-car restoration shop and showroom for dozens of restored collectible vehicles. Okoboji Classic Cars represents a dream come true for Toby Shine, the third-generation owner and president of recycling firm Shine Bros. Corp. (Spencer, Iowa). The display area re-creates two of the 1960s-era landscapes of Shine’s youth: the thriving business district of his hometown of Spencer, Iowa (seen above and at left), and Arnolds Park, the amusement park in nearby Okoboji.

Just don’t call it a museum. “It’s not a museum,” Shine quickly corrects you. “It’s a man cave.” Admirers like ReMA member Bruce Bacon of ShearCore (Superior, Wis.) just call it incredible. It also is a successful business enterprise—perhaps surprisingly so, considering it started out as a hobby that “got a little out of hand,” Shine says.

Shine says his first car was a 1947 Dodge business coupe, but the machine that hooked him back in high school on restoring and collecting cars was a 1955 Plymouth, in which he installed a Chrysler block engine. “It was just a fun car for a kid,” he says, and he paid for it himself “through hard work.” He continued to keep and work on as many cars as he could while working at Shine Bros., where he began full time in 1960. Though Shine no longer has time to do hands-on restoration work, he says he keeps an eye out “for a good car or engine that comes in” to the scrapyard that might find a place in his collection or a project.

Shine doesn’t seem to play favorites with the cars in his collection. He will admit to being partial to the Chevrolet 409, “the Beach Boys’ car—‘My four-speed dual-quad posi-traction 409’”—Shine almost literally sings the car’s praises. When it comes to taking a road trip, however, he says he prefers his Harley. And his wife, Sylvia, would like him to keep a particular Buick Reatta for her.

He Built It—and They Came
Okoboji Classic Cars began life as a restoration shop at another location. As Shine needed space to store his growing collection, he began working in November 2012 with a local construction contractor, an architect, an artist, and other contributors to create a new facility that would ultimately provide space for both of his hobbies—restoring and collecting.

“We weren’t going to open to the public, but demand got so big for it, we finally did,” Shine told Scrap Publisher Kent Kiser in a recent interview for ScrapTV. An admission charge of $10 a visitor (redeemable as credit in the gift shop) “pays for the security people to watch the cars,” he explains. Since opening in summer 2013, the exhibit area attracts visitors from coast to coast to the U.S. heartland—as many as 25,000 people a season. (Though the museum is open in the winter, far fewer tourists seem willing to face the frigid Iowa weather.)

Shine is hard-pressed to identify the most popular car on display; he says it’s the size and variety of the collection that makes people go “Wow.” Okoboji Classic Cars’ current inventory lists 59 of Shine’s vehicles on display and for sale at the facility. And “classic” does not necessarily mean old. The age range is exactly a century, with a 1915 Studebaker and a 2015 Chevrolet Corvette both up for grabs. In between, look for a gleaming blue 1956 Ford F-100 (priced at $199,000), a 1969 Pontiac GTO ($158,500), and a 1975 Chevrolet Bel Air ($125,000).

Shine has no need to go looking for cars to collect or restore. “Lots of people bring their cars [to me] to sell,” he says, and he buys perhaps half a dozen a month. About 95 percent of the cars on display belong to Shine, while others belong to his restoration customers, showcasing the shop team’s skills. The restoration side of the facility now offers top-of-the-line custom work for people like Bacon, who has entrusted Shine with restoring his beloved 1932 Ford 3-window coupe.

“I’ve known Toby for probably 20 years as our paths crossed at ReMA events and at his scrapyard in Spencer,” Bacon says. At an ReMA Northwest Chapter meeting a couple of years ago, they “talked about his museum and classic car restoration facility.”

Bacon had begun his working life as an automobile dealer, so he considers himself a “very discerning car guy.” When he and his son, brother, and nephew toured Shine’s car collection last year, “I was highly impressed with his collection and the workmanship that I saw,” Bacon says.

One of the vehicles that specifically caught his eye was the 1959 Jaguar XK150 “S” roadster belonging to fellow ReMA member Kendig Kneen of Al-jon Manufacturing (Ottumwa, Iowa). “This is a very valuable car and a difficult one to restore, as there are virtually no parts available and most everything has to be handmade,” Bacon says.

Kneen explains that the Jaguar belonged to an elderly aunt, who had put this high-performance vehicle through enough harsh Midwestern winters that much of the body was gone by the time he rescued it. But the work at Okoboji restored the car to “driver” status. “What [Shine] really did there was give a blank piece of canvas to true artists and allow them to do what they do best,” Kneen says. He presented the Jaguar to his daughter.

“The car blew me away,” Bacon says. “The quality of the workmanship and level of quality and detail were absolutely world-class. … That was the moment that I knew I wanted Toby to build my ‘baby.’ I simply told Toby and his experts that I wanted the nicest and best classic ‘old-school hot rod’ ’32 Ford 3-window coupe in the world, and I know that is what will be delivered.”

Perfection Takes Time
Restoration work at Okoboji Classic Cars is painstaking, time consuming, and in demand. With 11 full-time workers in the restoration shop and perhaps 20 to 25 projects ongoing at any one time, each with different needs, the shop stays busy. New projects might have to wait a year or two. Kneen says his Jaguar project “was not a conventional restoration,” so the build time was not relevant to him. “It was a stretched-out process, as there were no time constraints,” he says. “Once the project became focused, it was a little under eight months.”

Shine says one of the restoration shop’s projects proved particularly gratifying to him: “Two years ago, we partnered with Cessna Aircraft [Wichita, Kan.] for the benefit of the Armed Forces Foundation [Washington, D.C.],” Shine says. “We redid an old M37 [Army] truck, and Cessna redid an L-19 airplane.” They auctioned off both at Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction (Scottsdale, Ariz.), raising more than $1 million. “It was really kind of a neat project,” he adds.

Another neat project for the showroom—what became Shine’s “ultimate man cave”—is the 28,000 square feet of hand-painted murals and dioramas by Iowa artist Jack Rees, who drew on memories of Spencer and Okoboji locals for his designs. When the museum opened, Rees was still painting; it took more than two years to complete all the artwork. When he was done, he had covered about a third of the building’s interior with his meticulous renderings of boat docks, dance halls, and busy streets.

In one of the dioramas, Rees even depicted Toby Shine joining some friends at a bar, enjoying the good life at the end of the day.

Cynthia G. Wagner is senior editor of Scrap.