Tim Allen has enjoyed an expansive and successful career lasting more than forty years, but how many cars does he own?
Tim Allen is a lover of cars, boasting a collection of a few dozen. He’s a huge collector and has some rare and coveted vehicles, including a 1933 Ford Roadster, a 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air, and a 1946 Ford Convertible, among many, many others.
Read on to learn more about Tim Allen and his enormous collection of cars.
Slow Off The Line
When Tim Allen attempted to make a name for himself, it was through darker means. In the seventies, he was trying to break into a different career entirely.
Instead of the comedic presence we know on the big screen today, it is thought that Allen was involved with the sale of illegal substances.
In the late seventies, he’d become a considerable player in the cocaine market. In October of 1978, at the height of his smuggling career, Allen was caught with a pound and a half of cocaine. He was arrested immediately, having been ensnared as part of an undercover sting.
However, this event potentially spelled doom for Tim Allen. In September of 1978, a month before his bust, a new law was passed in Michigan. This was unfortunately where Allen was caught, and it could have meant a life behind bars for him.
The new law was considered extremely harsh, but fair. If a person was caught with more than 650 grams of cocaine or heroin on their person, they could spend their entire life in prison. It was an extremely deterring measure to battle a growing number of drug dealers and smugglers.
Fortunately for Allen, he was in a position to bargain. He supposedly gave up other, more prominent drug dealers, securing himself a massive reduction in his sentence.
He served just two and a half years in prison, still a considerable amount, but not life.
Out To Act
Once he’d been released from prison, Allen found it hard to break into a performance role. He dabbled with stand-up comedy, finding his sweet spot, but what he really desired was the big screen. He wanted to act, above all else.
In the late eighties, he started landed bit parts in b-movies, to no real success. However, in 1991, he’d be cast in a role that would catapult him into the spotlight.
He had secured a lead role in the sitcom Home Improvement, a show that would come to run for almost a decade.
This was the real hit for Allen, who hadn’t ever taken part in a bigger project in his life. The show was a massive hit, and by the end of it, he’d be earning around a million dollars an episode.
This helped Allen not only fill his pockets, but also his garage. He’d long been a lover of vehicles, but now he was amassing the wealth to begin building an impressive collection.
More Cars Than Fast And Furious
In 2013, GQ hosted an interview with Tim Allen in his enormous Los Angeles garage. They discussed some of his most impressive cars.
The majority of his collection was made up of classic American motors, which became the focus of their piece. You can see this video below, taken from YouTube.
His collection was eclectic and incredible. Although he leaned primarily toward classic American cars, he did dabble in other markets.
Also in the collection were some exotic and rare supercars and some high-performance European sports models.
Allen was also known for modifying and customizing his cars. For example, he owned a VW Beetle that, from the outside, looked completely normal.
However, there was a massive and powerful V8 engine hiding under the hood. There was a post on Twitter in 2020 from Tim Allen, discussing how he was rebuilding a classic car from the ground up.
One of his favorite cars from the collection is his 1971 Chevrolet Nova. Reportedly, Allen described the classic as “the sexiest car he owns”.
His wife claimed it was a “guy magnet”. The story behind how Tim Allen acquired the vehicle is also quite unique.
Apparently, he caught sight of the car on the road while he was driving, and managed to flag down the driver. Once he’d caught up, he offered to buy the vehicle on the spot, parting ways with a huge sum of money for the vehicle.
It seems that when you’re a multimillionaire with a thirst for classic cars, no vehicle is out of reach.
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