69 Partner of Undiscovered Classics with Geoff Hacker, Mike Puma has held a lifelong interest in collector automobiles. His love for classic cars began at a young age having grown up around 1950s and 1960s Cadillacs belonging to his father and uncle. As a child he was constantly reading about cars and was especially intrigued by the extravagant concept cars of the 1950s. Seeing them forgotten in junkyards before being restored and brought back in the public eye was something he hoped he could do one day too. By his mid-teens Mike began buying, selling, and collecting vintage cars, and not having a Cadillac budget, he focused primarily on muscle cars. As he approached his late-20s, he was yearning for more and thought back to the gleaming concept cars of the 1950s. Recognizing that most of them had already been found, he didn’t think much else could be out there that would make him fall in love all over again. That all changed when he came across a car he had never heard of before, a 1959 LaDawri Conquest. His interest in vintage handcrafted sports cars peaked with his acquisition of the LaDawri, which was even more special being the most intact postwar electric car built in America with an experimental drivetrain engineered and built by General Electric. In his role alongside Geoff, Mike helps to research, educate, and promote these unique cars while also managing social media, including a growing YouTube channel. Mike brings to the table skills beyond his passion for these cars as a co-owner of Preservation Studios, a full-service historic preservation consulting firm operating since 2002. His company works with property owners, developers, and municipalities pursuing historic preservation and tax credit rehabilitation projects, representing over $1 billion in reinvestment into historic buildings. Not content with just consulting on historic rehabilitations, Mike and several of his close business partners purchased a derelict Main Street building in Buffalo and completed a transformational project. The Monroe Motor Car Co. Building was built in 1920 as a dealership selling Marmon and Velie automobiles, located on what was known as “Automobile Row” for decades. Most notably, Ford purchased the building in 1932 and used it as their prototype for their new concept of a full service dealership, including sales, repairs, and parts sales. The building’s automotive history faded from local memory as the richly detailed exterior had been clad with corrugated metal and the opulent showroom was covered over with false walls. Their project brought the building back to its former glory and has become an award winning historic preservation project. Mike Puma Mike Puma
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