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It's more than cars, it's history in all its glory till now.

We Are Curated on the pursuit of findin' history behind wheels

Miami Beach is a def spot for car lovers. & u are probably asking urself where u can find all these goods up close.

We got to chat w/ John Temerian, one of the founders of We Are Curated, a shop specialized in vintage supercars. U know, the type of cars that make u stop anything that u r doing just to stare at them (w/ your mouth wide open 😯). The shop has a collection from all over the world & gets the attention of ppl, well, from all over the world.

So if you're thinkin' about starting your own car collection or just wanna know more 'bout the restoration process, keep on peekin' 👀.

We love everything 'bout this space. How did We Are Curated start?

Curated is a culmination of my family's lineage in the collector car world. My grandfather was a mechanic working on Ferraris and Lamborghinis in the early 60s. My father later was an authorized Lamborghini dealer in the 80s and he was also an incredible mechanic and really an artisan at restorations. So I've been around cars since I was a young boy. I started off producing car shows in 2005 and & about five years ago we officially launched Curated. I've been around cars my entire life.

What does a car need to have to be @ the store between all these goods?

I like to say that I buy what I love. We buy the best quality low-mileage interesting histories/provenances. It's cars that are special, cars that tell an incredible story. I never tell anyone to buy anything investment-wise. Buy what you love and you'll always be happy at the end of the day whether the car goes up in value or it or it just stays at a certain value. But we really specialize in vintage Lamborghinis & vintage supercars.

What's your secret on finding them?

It's wild, 'cause I think I've found cars all over the world. It's a constant search, it's everything from social media to even chasing certain owners of certain cars for years. For example, our AMG hammer that was the factory AMG prototype car on the cover of Car and Driver magazine, I chased that for about two years with the owner, sending emails & phone calls. So I try to chase cars that are important in history and when their provenances are special. We don't buy cars overnight. It sometimes takes a week, sometimes it could take years.

Can u tell us a bit 'bout the retouching process?

A lot of the cars we try to buy incredible quality and very low miles. But that's not always the case. Sometimes you find something that's going to need restoration. We actually have three cars at the Lamborghini factory right now in restoration, so we work with Polo Storico for a lot of the Lamborghini cars. And my father has been helping us train some younger guys in our restoration department & mechanic department to really service and preserve cars back to their originality. I'm crazy about originality. It's really about curating the preservation of these historic cars.

How do u guys see the next generation of collectors?

The today's collector looks at the next generation of collectors as younger individuals that appreciate the cars as a lifestyle & the social aspects of buying the cars and collecting them. So we do things like events and I've even put cassettes from the 80s in some of the car, 'cause it brings you back to a certain time and that's what we're selling. We're selling memories, we're selling a lot of things culturally as well. You're not just buying a car, you're buying into something more than that.

We are impressed with the seats and the old cars w/ super complex sewing and high-quality lxthr. R they original?

I would say that the majority of the cars here have their original leather, with the exception of probably the 1959 Mercedes 300 SL & the 275 GTB Ferrari which are completely restored.

And when people ask me: “How do you know a car has low miles?”. Well, cars can get repainted, but the easiest way to tell is the leather. You look at the original stitching and how it was done and u just know if it's original or not. For very specific examples, there's even an original Italian sort of artisan that, when we look at a certain Lamborghini, we know he actually was the one that did the stitching & it's original. Details like that are almost the soul of the car.

It's also the colors on the sheen of the leather, and I think there's something about when u have an original car and you can smell the old leather. U can't duplicate that, you can't restore that. So I think that's very special.

All set to drive. HBY?

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