Danny ‘The Count’ Koker eats, drinks, and breathes classic cars. Danny is the well-known, bandana-wearing frontman of Counting Cars. The hit TV series, which features him and his team at Count's Kustoms in Las Vegas restoring and customizing classic cars and motorcycles.
Koker has an incredible knowledge of cars. Each episode of his show contains some really cool stories depicting before and after transformations. His famous catchphrase is “We find’em, flip ‘em, and sometimes I keep ‘em”.
The team take on roughly thirty to forty projects a year. And there is no shortage of demand for their services. In episode 12 of the first season, they cover one of Danny’s favourite projects; a 1979 Stutz IV-Porte owned by the legendary soul singer-songwriter Barry white.
Danny happens to be a long-term friend of Barry’s widow, Glodean White. And a year before they filmed the episode, she approached him and asked him if he would help her find the car. A very special car. The last car that Barry owned and drove.
In the show, Danny estimates that a Stutz IV Porte, from the famous Stutz Motor Company, like Barry’s, would have cost $70,000 back in 1979. Stutz produced limousines and top-of-the-range sedans in the seventies and eighties. Danny refers to the IV Porte as ’The Car of Kings’, because in those days it was an extremely popular ride with some of Hollywood’s royalty. Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, Lucille Ball and Sammy Davies Jr, all owned one.
Search And Rescue: Barry White’s Stutz IV Porte
There are in fact two stories surrounding the finding of Barry's car. Which slightly conflict with each other. One story from Apex Automotive magazine reports that Danny was with his production team at the time of the search. And while they were actively scouring an area of Vegas for it, one of the producers told him to take a left turn, but he took a right by mistake, and somehow stumbled upon it. Parked up on a driveway.
The TV show, however, tells a slightly different story. It shows Big Ryan (one of Danny's crew) telling Danny that he thinks he may have seen the car downtown. And he escorts a very pleased looking Danny directly to it, while attempting to sing Barry White songs on the way.
Either way, they manage to find a Stutz that looks like it could be Barry's former car. Danny gets really excited at the prospect of reuniting the White family with Barry’s old car, but he's still not sure whether its the actual car that Barry owned and cruised around in.
With the cameras rolling they pull up outside the residential property which has the cream-colored Stutz on the driveway. It’s Danny’s first glimpse at the car. And a closer inspection reveals that it has definitely seen better days. It’s been sitting outside for quite some time. The paintwork is badly weathered, the chrome is showing signs of rust and one of the wing mirrors is stuck on with duct tape.
When they talk to the owner, she tells them that she just wants to see the car gone, that it’s not the type of car she would drive, and that she needs the driveway space. The strange thing is, she has absolutely no idea that her car was once owned by the King of Soul, Barry white. She received it as payment of a debt, and hasn’t bothered with it since taking ownership.
As they look over the car Danny turns to Ryan and says, “If we look in the trunk, and it has white fur in there—it's Barry’s car”. So with much excitement and a little trepidation, they pull the trunk. And lo and behold, it does have fur. The fur is not so white now though, age has discolored it into more of golden beige color.
Danny smiles broadly and tells the owner the good news. He wants it. And after a short negotiation he loads it onto his pickup, after paying just $8,500 for it. So Barry White’s Stutz IV, which has been missing in action for so long, is now found. And it’s time for the team to get to work on it.
Restoring and Unveiling: Barry White’s Stutz IV Porte
Stutz produced the IV Porte between 1979 to 1981, and only made fifty of them. Based on the Pontiac Bonneville/Oldsmobile 88 platform, many of these premium cruisers were heavily personalized for their wealthy owners. Some with 24 Carat gold accessories. Under the hood, they carry a 5.7 liter V8 powerplant, which originally provided 165 horsepower.
The brief from Glodean White is to spare no expense and keep it original as possible. Which turns out to be a real challenge for Koker and his crew. Because parts for this old luxury classic sedan are not easy to find. So the team make a lot of bespoke parts for it. One thing that the team are pretty good at too, is paint work. Danny instructs them to paint the tired-looking two-tone car in pearlescent white, with a root beer brown skirt. And they do an excellent job on it, the finish is magnificent.
Emotions are running high as they roll the gleaming car out of the garage and a tearful Glodean sees it for the first time in years. “I can see my husband” she cries, as she holds tightly on to the count. Danny is visibly choked up too, as the now sparkling sedan with priceless sentimental value, slowly comes out to join them in the sunlight.
Danny closes the show saying “The family fell in love with the car again. And to have it back with them, means more than anything. It doesn’t get any better than that!”