He talks about them like a proud father. They're his babies, a brood of 14. Don't ask him to pick a favorite. From the 1934 Plymouth coupe to the '57 Studebaker Golden Hawk, he loves them all the same.
And he won't part with a single one. Why, that would be like selling your own flesh and blood, your sweat, your soul.
Kenny Bell has a three-story garage filled with award-winning labors of love, antique cars meticulously restored over the years by his innately capable hands.
As a boy, he tinkered, obsessively, with his father's '23 Dodge, taking it apart, putting it back together, again and again. "I had to know how it worked," he said.
A totally self-taught mechanic, he operated his own business, Bell's Auto Repair, for years.
His great love is restoration, a skill indulged even overseas as a soldier in World War II.
He traveled for years as a master judge for the Antique Car Club of America.
At 89, he wakes up every day as eager as ever to get to "my cars."
"My birthday is May 9, 1926. I was born in Brounland, a small coal mining town.
"My father came over from Italy when he was 9. He stowed away on a boat. He had an uncle working on that boat who kept him hidden and helped him with food.
"He came into New York and worked his way to West Virginia to get a job. Miners were the only people who were working.
"When the Depression hit, my dad had a grocery store. He let all the money go out in credit with none coming in, so he had to close it.
"He went into the mines to make a living and a slate fall killed him in 1933. I was 7. My mother was left with eight children and pregnant with the ninth one. I was number five.
"Fortunately he owned the house. We made it by the grace of God. We had a garden and pigs, cows and chickens. So we made it.
"My dad left a 1923 Dodge in the garage with 5,000 miles on it. If my mother wanted me, she knew where I was. I'd be in the garage taking something apart and putting it back together. I'd just go out there and close the doors and do my thing. That's how I started with the cars.
"I picked up parts and made a bicycle. I traded the bike for a motorcycle. I rode about 100 yards and it threw me off. The chain came off and locked up the rear wheel. I pushed it home and fixed it and traded it for a T-Model. My first car. I traded it for a '32 Plymouth. I was about 13.
"I quit high school in the 10th grade and went in the Army. I had to lie about my age because my mother wouldn't sign the papers. I wanted to enlist but they were full up on their quota. She said the only way I was going to get in before maybe June was to volunteer for the next draft. I said, 'Where's the papers?'
"I went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the artillery school of the world. Everybody from all countries came there for training. From there, I went to Georgia in a big 240-gun. I didn't like that thing. And I knew they weren't going overseas. I told the executive officer I really wanted to go.
"I went to Alabama and joined the 66th Infantry Division to go overseas.
"We went to New York. I got on the boat on the first day of December of '44. It took us 14 days with depth charges dropping all around us. We got to England. On Christmas Eve, they loaded the big boats with the infantry and we got on LSTs with our artillery outfit and crossed the channel at night.
"The biggest part of our infantry was torpedoed. We lost 800 infantrymen within five miles of Cherbourg. I crossed the ocean and the channel and never got sick. Then I saw all that stuff floating around out there, equipment, helmets, body parts. And that's the only time I ever got sick.
"We were headed to the Bulge, but we lost our infantry. So we went to northern France to relieve the 94th Infantry. We surrounded Saint-Nazaire. They had a big repair place. There were 36,000 Germans in that area, and we had to keep them there. So we surrounded them while we tried to build up our infantry. They didn't know how many infantrymen we had or they would have overrun us.
"We as an artillery unit are the only ones who ever sank a ship, a German ship. They have a museum there now honoring the 66th infantry division in that part of France.
"When the war was over, I went to Austria, Vienna. First, I went to Salzburg, then on up to Wolfgang to a mechanics school. A sergeant was teaching the class. He was telling them about the differential.
"He was telling them how spider gears work going forward. I corrected him. Going around the curve, spider gears work. Next day, he called me up front and said I was his assistant. He said I was right, that the gears only move when you are going around a turn.
"He gave me the worksheet and I taught that whole class. He would stick his head in every now and then and say, 'How are you doing?' I gave him a few choice words.
"But he sent me to Vienna. If you were over there, that was the best place to be. Beautiful country, lots of restaurants, hotels, music, churches.
"I rented an apartment. This lady, probably in her 70s, I called her Grandma. I'd go out of a night and liquor up a little bit. I'd come in and throw my jacket, pants and boots on the floor and go to bed. The next morning, my clothes were all pressed, and my boots were polished. She really took care of me.
"They had a command car out back of the garage. Somebody tore it apart and lost all the parts. I went to the club that night. There was a group there, the ordnance people that take care of the automobiles. I bought them all a drink. I said I needed some parts. One said, 'You bring me a list tomorrow, and I will fix you up.' In a few weeks, I had a car to drive.
"There was a '37 Mercedes command car that nobody could get it to run. I asked if I could drive it if I could fix it. One of the guys working for me used to work for Mercedes. He told me what was wrong with it and said he'd find the part we needed. I drove that thing for a long time. It had belonged to the German general in charge of Austria. I drove it the whole time I was there, about 12 months.
"I went back to Brounland. When I left, I had two cars. They sold them for junk. So I got a '34 Plymouth and drove it for a long time.
"I got a job in Kanawha City building houses for about a year. Then I finally got a job at the Studebaker garage on Broad Street and stayed maybe 20 years.
"When Studebaker went out of business, I went to Pontiac. When Pontiac went out of business, I went to Nissan. Then Joe Holland wanted me to come down there. That was about 1990.
"Then I went to North Charleston and opened a little one-room garage, Bell's Auto Repair. I knew John McCormick and his brother, the jewelers. They had a garage that became empty and wanted me to come there. So I moved to a big garage there where I stayed until I retired in 2008.
"Social Security finally called and said you WILL come in, so I had to go down and sign up.
"I kept buying old cars. I have 14 antique cars. I wouldn't take a car to a show that wouldn't be first place to me. I usually came home with a first-place trophy.
"I judged for a long time for the Antique Car Club of America, a master judge. We traveled everywhere.
"I have a '34 Plymouth rumble-seated coupe. We finished it on a Thursday night about 10 and put it on a trailer and went to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and got first place.
"A guy came by with a briefcase cuffed to his hand and asked me how much I wanted for it. I said it wasn't for sale. He started at $30,000 and went to $100,000, and I still told him it wasn't for sale. It's my car and I was going home with it. I still have it.
"I've got a honeymoon car, the '57 Studebaker Golden Hawk. I jacked it up in the air and meticulously went over everything. Two years with it up in the air. I took it to Nashville. They judged it three times. The fourth time, they brought all the judges with them. The chief judge told a guy to go under the car.
"They said there had to be something wrong with that car. They couldn't even find a bolt turned the wrong way. They couldn't believe it.
"Today I drive a Chevrolet truck. I stay American. I don't like foreign cars.
"I had open heart surgery in 2012. It held me back about a year. I go to Heartfit three days a week. It gets you limbered up. I feel pretty good now. I still go to the garage every day I can get there.
"I'm going to a Studebaker parts show in March in Pennsylvania. Studebaker is the best automobile I ever drove, for durability and all the way around.
"I own a Studebaker Avanti, the 125th built. They only built 4,000. Special ordered. My wife wanted me to buy one when they came out. I'd have to trade my Hawk. I wasn't about to trade my Hawk.
"Years later, I found an elderly lady in Ohio that had one. It had 20,000 miles on it. She was in her 80s. She wanted a battery put in it so she could go to the grocery store. The service station called her daughter. The daughter said no battery. So they sold it to me. It was parked under the house with a coal pile. I worked for two years getting coal dust off that car.
"I could buy another car or two, but I don't have room to put them anywhere. I have a three-story garage full from top to bottom. I still have every car I've restored.
"I've had a pretty full life. I can't think of anything I would really change. I might have gone into business earlier, but that's about the only thing."
Reach Sandy Wells at sandyw@wvgazette.com or 304-342-5027.