Rick Harrison uses ‘Pawn Stars’ cash to fuel car addiction

What would you buy if you fell into a ton of money? That's an American Dream fantasy question, of course, and for "Pawn Stars'" Rick Harrison, fame money helped procure 30 cars and motorcycles.

I ran into Harrison at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. We were test-riding 165 mph promo spins at the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

I know Harrison is a car buff, so I asked why he hasn't bought a NASCAR beast.

"They're fast, they're bad-assed, they're amazing," he said. "If I brought another car home, there would be problems. I have a lot of cars as it is. I'm a car addict."

He owns so many vehicles, he just sold a Plymouth Road Runner and a 1955 Chevy. He's building a 1947 Power Wagon. He has a 1968 Mustang GT Fastback, 1973 Volkswagen Thing ("That was my first car ... basically, they're bulletproof"), 1973 Jeep, 1968 Triumph, 1940 Indian Chief with sidecar, two Harleys, dirt bikes, a tractor, and his favorite is his 1940 Chevy Special Deluxe.

This hobby eats his spare time. "I'm a really spastic guy. I can't sit still," he said. "When I get off work, I just go home and go to my machine shop or work on the old cars."

You can join him on a vehicle adventure Oct. 5, if you want to donate to a motorcycle poker run benefiting the Epilepsy Foundation (www.epilepsy.com/pawn-stars-poker-run).

Even though he doesn't own a NASCAR racer, he has put his face on Jeremy Clements' Nationwide car a few times in Vegas races.

"It makes me look like an ass, but I love it," he said.

Worst car he ever owned?

"I had this when I was 17 years old — a 1969 Oldsmobile Delta 88 with no backseat. I paid 150 bucks for it, I think, rode it for a good six months, and put four or five quarts of oil a week in it," he said, laughing.

By the way, Harrison reads more than most people I know, so I asked for a recent book recommendation, and he served up "The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century" by Ian Mortimer.

"It's a book about the private lives of common people" back then, he said. "That's a great page-turner."

We started talking about that book and how people today don't realize adults used to have sex in front of others all the time, in humble little homes, until very recent civilization erected more walls.

"Everyone slept in (one long) room," Harrison said. "If you were very prosperous, you might have one wall partitioned off in another room. But everybody was doing it front of everyone.

"Oh, life sucked back then. They hadn't invented the chimney yet! There was a firepit in the middle of the room. It's not what you see in old movies.

"They had tallow candles made out of animal fat, they stunk. Sealers in the chimney were black from smoke. It was a brutal life," Harrison said, while workers at the racetrack kindly catered to our every need.