In 2011, Roger Baggett retired from his 37-year career working in the oilfields of Northern Alaska with a couple of goals in mind. One was to explore his longtime interest in collecting and restoring cars, a hobby for which the icy Alaskan climate was anything but conducive. He also wanted to make a major lifestyle change after decades of performing industrial electrical maintenance in the oil production facilities at Prudhoe Bay, where temperatures could dip to 40-below zero.
“One of my goals in retirement was to never wear long pants again, and I’m doing a darn fine job of it,” Baggett says.
Baggett’s twin objectives led him to an extreme environment of a different type, but one that fit his needs perfectly—the Southern Nevada desert, where he has spent the past 10 years as a shorts-wearing car hobbyist in Pahrump. There, in a 1,050-square-foot shop equipped with a vehicle lift, he spends hours doing mechanical work on the small fleet of classic and vintage cars he’s collected. The desert heat doesn’t faze him, he says.
“Weather’s weather. I worked in the cold, and I can work in the shop when it’s 110 degrees. It sounds ridiculous, but I just figure, ‘Yep, it’s hot.’ I just suck it up and do what I want.”
His vehicles include a 1950s Willys Jeepster, a sort of mashup between a Jeep and a convertible sedan, and a 1929 Ford Model A delivery panel van. Both cars are modified with modern engines, automatic transmissions and special touches like electric bucket seats in the Jeepster.
Baggett’s approach to collecting is to resurrect cars he can drive anytime he feels like it, not to create museum pieces. “My cars are in the $20,000 range,” he says. “I don’t have $100,000 cars that I’d be afraid to drive.”
When Baggett isn’t wrenching in the shop, he’s often traveling with his wife, Jennifer, to car auctions. The two are planning to attend the Mecum Las Vegas auction October 7-9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where Baggett is selling three vehicles—a 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe, a 1964 Ford Thunderbird and a 1991 Mercedes-Benz 350SDL sedan that was Jennifer’s daily ride until she recently got a GMC Yukon SUV with a custom interior and exterior panels that make it resemble a classic woodie-style wagon.
“She’d had the Mercedes since 2015 but didn’t like it anymore since it didn’t have good cupholders,” Baggett says, laughing.
The couple are partial to Mecum events—Baggett says the company provides exceptionally cordial and professional customer service to bidders and sellers. He also likes Mecum’s approach of offering vehicles at a broad range of prices, as opposed to catering exclusively to the high-end collector market.
Then there’s the social aspect of being around other car enthusiasts. “I have friends in Erie, Pennsylvania, who go mostly to [Mecum’s] East Coast auctions. We have friends down in Texas who we see all the time, people in Canada, friends in Australia,” he says. “You start chit-chatting and you strike up a friendship.”
At the Las Vegas auction, Baggett will set up in his normal seat, near the front by the stage, where he’ll be wearing his standard outfit of a tie-dyed shirt and Birkenstock sandals.
And shorts, of course. Always shorts.
Mecum Las Vegas About 1,000 vehicles, including muscle cars, customs and exotics, will go on the block during Mecum’s fifth-annual Las Vegas auction, scheduled for October 7-9 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Gates open daily at 8 a.m., with auctioning starting at 10 a.m.
The general public is invited, and bidding isn’t required. Tickets cost $20 in advance and $30 at the gate once auctioning begins.
For more information, visit mecum.com.
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