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"A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Hagerty garage, not normally open to the public, and wrenching a bit on a Mustang that the employees of the company were restoring. While the Mustang was a recent addition to the collection, in the other half of the garage there was a motley but incredible collection of vehicles, including beautiful wooden boats and classic cars. Many of these were personal vehicles of the Hagerty family, including the patriarch, Frank Hagerty\u2014who loved wooden boats and classic cars.  Hagerty&amp;#039;s 1956 Ford Thunderbird is a great example of his hands-on approach. Purchased as a wreck in 1960, it was rebuilt by Hagerty, who learned how to weld while working on the car. (How many classic car owners learned how to weld while working on their first classic? Count this author among them.) Over the next 30 years, the Hagerty family put another 30,000 miles on the car before it was fully restored in the 1990s. You can see a gallery of Frank Hagerty&amp;#039;s rebuild of the T-Bird here.   While building a classic-car insurance empire, he was also building a family of car enthusiasts in his own household. Frank&amp;#039;s three children, Kim, Tammy, and McKeel, all restored their first cars in the family garage with Frank&amp;#039;s help. Respectively, the cars were a 1960 Corvair Lakewood wagon, a 1960 Porsche 356 B, and a 1967 Porsche 911S.  And that&amp;#039;s really why Hagerty is the company it is today, I think. It encourages everyone to get hands-on in the hobby, in the company, and among their customers. That&amp;#039;s Frank Hagerty&amp;#039;s legacy, and it&amp;#039;s something worth appreciating.  By the way, the &amp;quot;Dunesmobile&amp;quot; pictured above was the culmination of a lifelong dream for Frank. As a teen, he&amp;#039;d always wanted to drive one of the tourist vehicles that showed visitors around the Sleeping Bear Dunes. In 2012, the company found and restored an original &amp;quot;Dunesmobile,&amp;quot; and Frank rode in the car to accept a &amp;quot;Best of Class&amp;quot; at the 2014 Amelia Island Concours. Frank Hagerty was 79. You can read more about him at Hagerty&amp;#039;s site. READ THIS: I helped wrench on Hagerty&amp;#039;s project Mustang "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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