Everett Pauls, President of the National Rolls-Royce Owners Club and charter club member, talks about what it means to be an old car enthusiast. Through the years Pauls' enthusiasm and devotion to the "preservation of the marque" has remained strong. When not driving a vintage Rolls-Royce or Bentley, the hunt for elusive bits and pieces fills his waking hours -- and dreams.

"ln the late '30s Rolls-Royces had no value at all," Pauls said. "An automobile that cost $18,000 in 1931 could be purchased for $500 in 1934 - just three years later. Their values went down so low that they could be bought for little of nothing."

"When the war came along the scrap drives began," Pauls said. "Ford Motor Company was buying Roils-Royces, taking them back to their plant, cutting them up, analyzing the metallurgy and design. So we don't know how many were lost in that respect."

"Then we went through five years of war," Pauls said. "Luxury cars were still in existence at that time, in the hands of the original owners, socked away in garages because, when the ears became unpopular to drive, they went out and bought Chevrolets and Fords so that they wouldn't appear ostentatious."

"About 1944/45, when the war was over, Rolls-Royces and an interest in them began to resurface," Pauls said. "I bought my first one in 1943 for $165. You can't beat that. One day I was at a meet in Seattle and saw a horn for that car lying on the table at $165. 'Man, you have been in this hobby too long!' I said. 'When you can remember buying a complete car for what a horn cost.'"

"I wrecked that $165 Rolls in October of I 947," Pauls said. "1 was alive and very glad to be alive, but no more car. But I was still interested in the cars."

"ln the mid-40s somebody came up with the idea that they ought to do something about preserving these cars," Pauls said, "and suggested that there ought to be an organization formed for the preservation of the Rolls-Royce in America. Slowly, by letter, by visiting, by osmosis, by word-of-mouth a little group of people began to kind of get interested all around the country."

"I kept corresponding with these people," Pauls said "Finally, along about 1951, they decided to form the club. About 275 people from all over the country formed the original membership of the club. I was a charter member on that day 42 years ago."

"I got to go to my first Annual Meet in 1953 in Springfield, Massachusetts at the factory where the cars were built," Pauls said. "In 1953, of course, the only cars that were postwar was an occasional Mark VI or Silver Dawn or Silver Wraith," Pauls said. "It was 98% prewar and 2% postwar cars. It was lovely."

"A lot of the participants were people from the factory," Pauls said. "So going to those early meets was really a great thing, because you met aII these people who were instrumental in the building of the cars and the maintenance of them afterwards."

"The first 10 years were probably the best, because there was an enthusiasm," Pauls said, "there was a newness - a "Gee whiz!' attitude. There were national meets all over the country. We spilled over into whatever hotels were available, bed and breakfasts, rooming with other club members."

"I went all through the years 1947 into the 50s working on other people's cars, driving other people's cars, going to meets, having a ball, taking pictures, searching for bits for other people's cars," Pauls said "It didn't bother me that I didn't have one. I wanted one, but I didn't so that was okay. If you've got the enthusiasm you don't give a darn whether you have a car or not."

Since that time Pauls has owned numerous Rolls-Royces and Bentleys and traveled extensively with and for R.R.O.C. Leads to bits often result in the reunion of parts not only for his own cars, but for those of club members as well.

"Fred Roe, author of Duesenberg: Pursuit of Perfection bought a car in 1938 for $125," Pauls said. "When he sold the ear in 1943 he wanted to keep a souvenir off of it. So he kept the body plate - M492, made by Merrimac."

"One day in 1973 Fred's at the Heritage Foundation," Fauls said, "Looking at this beautiful Rolls-Royce which now has the body that came off of his car, only he didn't know that. He looks at the ear and sees that it doesn't have a body plate. He goes to the curator and says, 'I have a body plate off of a Rolls-Royce and this one doesn't have one. Would you like to have the body plate?'

"I sure would!" the curator said.

"So he gives him the body plate," Pauls said.

"Later I went to the museum to see that car," Pauls said, "I recognized that the body plate matched the chassis and we discover that the body plate had gone back on its original body after having been off for over 30 years."

"That's the kind of thing that fascinates me about this hobby," Pauls said.

On another scavenging expedition Pauls had a lead on a vintage car, which had been abandoned in a goat yard in Pasadena, Texas. "In 1971 I dug the parts up, brought them home, checked the engine number out against the chassis number, and found out that they belonged to a car I had driven from New York to Houston and back in 1957."

"It's a treasure hunt," Pauls said, "-- and the strangest thing the way these parts show up."