Grandcolas had better insight, having been a member of the Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday in Mexico, which had designed projects that were awarded global grants. Grandcolas formed a global grants enthusiast group for District 5230 and challenged members to come up with a new idea. That is when Masten thought about classic car repair.
Masten’s first car, a 1938 Pontiac Eight Cabriolet convertible with a rumble seat that he bought for $200 when he turned 16, gave him trouble, so he learned to take apart the engine. It is a practical skill that used to be commonly taught in high school shop classes. The decline of vocational training in high schools is one of the reasons Masten thought about an automotive training program. The other was the need. As the owner of two classic Bentleys, a 1937 and a 1954, and a member of multiple classic car clubs, Masten knows that the mechanics who serve those cars are fast disappearing. “There’s nobody to do it,” Masten says. “They’re retiring and dying.”
The exact definition of classic cars varies. Grandcolas includes anything made before 1983; others say 1975 or even anything more than 20 years old. Then there are the subcategories of vintage, antique, and collector cars. What’s not up for debate is that mechanics trained to work on modern cars can’t simply switch over to classic auto repair; it’s an entirely different craft. By the 1980s the automotive industry was rapidly transitioning from mechanical to electronic components, explains Grandcolas. No more carburetors, no more distributors. “To fix a modern car today you need a computer to run diagnostics,” says Grandcolas. “That computer would be of no use in a classic car.” For older cars, he explains, “you need somebody with an ear and with eyes.”
It isn’t just the inside of a classic car that is different. Unlike modern cars that use various plastic parts on the frame and body, the exteriors of most classic cars are made entirely of metal, which is more difficult to repair and replace. Although those trained to repair the cars may be dying out, classic cars are not. In the U.S. alone there are around 31 million collector vehicles, according to research conducted by Hagerty, a provider of specialty insurance for classic cars.
The Rotarians knew the demand was there and that the training could offer a path to college and well-paying careers for young people. They just needed a place to host the program. For that, they turned to Rancho Cielo.
The ranch was the unlikely dream of retired Judge John Phillips. A slim, tall man of 81 who plays racquetball on Wednesdays, Phillips served as Monterey County’s assistant district attorney in his younger years. His job was to put people away. In 1984 he was appointed to the Monterey County Superior Court. In both roles he watched as gangs became more prevalent in the county. Toward the end of his career, he found himself sending teenagers to prison for life. “Most of these kids had lost hope for the future,” he says. “It’s really easy to pull the trigger if you don’t have any hopes or dreams or anything.”
In 2000 Phillips founded Rancho Cielo, a program designed to offer young people who committed first-time offenses an alternative to incarceration, along with a fresh start. He built the program on a rural site that had once been a juvenile incarceration facility. Phillips leased the land from the government and got to work. With an operating budget of $75,000 and a staff of almost none, besides his wife, Patti, he welcomed the first class of about a dozen youths in 2004, the same year he retired. From there Rancho Cielo grew to what it is today, a nonprofit organization with a budget of over $5 million and a staff of almost 50.
