Photos by Nicole James and Larry Edsall
Call it the Parade d’Pratte.
It took 10 trucks, most of them big Reliable rigs supplemented by a few smaller flatbeds, as well as a police escort up the 101 freeway from Chandler to Scottsdale, to deliver the creme of Ron Pratte’s car collection WestWorld. There, the cars were off-loaded in anticipation of the 44th annual Barrett-Jackson collector car auction, where the collection will be dispersed by auction. to the highest bidders.
It was sort of bittersweet, peeking inside the nearly empty building that had housed Pratte’s amazing collection of cars and automobilia, including perhaps the world’s finest assortment of neon signs, gas globes and pedal cars.
The rest of his cars already had been transported to Scottsdale. Monday, the best of them also made the 30-mile trip in caravan, most of them in enclosed Reliable trailers.
One open Reliable car transporter was filled with an amazing array of muscle cars while the Shelby Super Snake, the Tupolev N007 gullwing boat, the Pontiac Bonneville Motorama concept car, the stunning Blastolene B-702 roadster and the gigantic GM Futurliner each rode like a parade float atop its own flatbed.
