Tom Armstrong - Senior Judge
Tom Armstrong is a life long car enthusiast. He began restoring Model A Fords while in college and continued through the years with classics, racing cars and custom cars.
Tom's 1936 Cord Phaeton won the Forest Grove Best of Show award in 1977 and is the poster car this year....some 33 years later!
He is a life member of the Classic Car Club of America, Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club and the Society of Vintage Racing Enthusiasts. His 1931 Model SJ Duesenberg Convertible Sedan was recognized with the Forest Grove Sweepstakes Award in 1983.
Through the years, the following Armstrong cars have participated at Forest Grove: '36 Cord Phaeton, '31 Model SJ Duesenberg, '69 Lola Can-Am, '48 Ford Woody Wagon, '57 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, '54 Nomad Custom, '55 XK 140 Jaguar, and more recently, the '48 Chrysler Town and Country Sedan (Post War Best of Show) and a '48 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet ( Sweepstakes Award).
Tom's judging experience includes the C.C.C.A., A-C-D, Pebble Beach Concours and the Kirkland Concours d'Elegance where he was the founding Chairman in 2003. Armstrong's judging philosophy is: Be good, be fair and objective, and by all means, be considerate and polite to the owners!
Tom and his wife Susan are active vintage racers and live in Issaquah, WA.
Paul Duchene - Presenter
Paul Duchene has been an automotive journalist for 40 years and a motorcycle rider for 50, starting with a 1939 James Autocycle in England, at age 10.
He has written for the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, AutoWeek, Car and Driver, and Consumer's Digest. He is the former executive editor of Sports Car Market Magazine and has been the magazine's motorcycle columnist since 2003. He was an award-winning writer and editor for The Oregonian for nearly 20 years. He has judged at various concours including the Legend of the Motorcycle at Half Moon Bay, and serves as an announcer at motorcycle and historic auto races, including the 2010 Prehistorics at Monterery.
Duchene has vintage-raced a T500 Suzuki, completed a half dozen Alcan 5000 winter car rallies, and restored or (at least extended the life of) numerous cars and motorcycles. In 2006 he competed in the MotoGiro d'Italia; and in 2007 the MotoGiro America. Whenever he gets overconfident, he buys a Citroen DS 19 and is humbled, again.
Keith Martin - Presenter
Keith Martin has been involved with the collector car hobby for more than thirty years. As a writer, publisher, television commentator and enthusiast, he is constantly on the go, meeting collectors and getting involved in their activities throughout the world.
His primary interest is exploring the cultural and intellectual underpinnings of collectibility, including examining why a society values some objects and not others, and how values are assigned to these objects. All of his magazines, books, television shows and web-based properties deal primary with the question of market values and how they have changed over the years.
In addition to being the founder and publisher of the monthly Sports Car Market and Corvette Market magazines, Martin's columns on collecting and reviews of exotic cars have appeared in the New York Times, Automobile, AutoWeek, Road & Track and other publications.
His Keith Martin on Collecting series, published by Motorbooks International, includes books on Ferrari, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Austin-Healey, MG and Triumph, with more on the way. The 2nd edition of his overview of car collecting, Keith Martin's Guide to Car Collecting has just been released, the 1st edition being completely sold out. It is a compendium of information for collectors from entry-level to highly sophisticated.
The website for his magazine, www.sportscarmarket.com, contains the world's largest and most informative database of collectible cars, with more than 75,000 cars listed with serial numbers, photos, descriptive and valuation details.
Last year, Martin and eBay Motors released a proprietary value-tracking tool that will compile and evaluate the sales of all collectible cars on the eBay Motors web site. The Collector Car Price Tracker now contains verified results of nearly 700,000 collector car sales. This is the only real-time, actual-transaction-based price guide in existence.
On television, Martin has most recently hosted the show, "What's My Car Worth", shown on Discovery HD Theater, as well as series featuring the Russo and Steele auctions at Monterey and Scottsdale, for ESPN2 and ESPN Classic.
He is the Chairman of the Meguiar's Collector Car Person of the Year Award Committee, and is on the Board of Trustees of the LeMay Museum and the Hagerty-founded Collectors Foundation.
Martin is an avid if not particularly choosy collector; roosting in his garage currently are a 1965 Alfa Giulia Spider Veloce he's owned for the past 24 years, a 1964 Volvo 544 that is the family daily driver, a 2002 Boxster S pressed into service when his wife demands heated seats, a 1959 Mercedes 219 Ponton that he bought by mistake on eBay one wine-infused evening, and a 1973 Series III Land Rover 88 that offers a truly agricultural perspective on motoring.
Martin brings an eclectic background to his passion for cars. His academic history includes the study of Intellectual History at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, and study as a Dance Major, emphasis Modern Dance, at the Juilliard School in New York City. He founded the first professional ballet company in Oregon, Ballet Oregon, was the director of it for over a decade, was awarded an Oregon Art's Commission Individual Artist's Fellowship for new choreography, and was director of dance for the Portland Opera.
He lives with his wife Wendie and their children Tyler, Alexandra, Drew, and Bradley in Portland, Oregon.