Reporting by Erin Udell, Fort Collins Coloradoan
An antique car business is parting with pieces of its original private collection with a car auction after a long multigenerational run in Northern Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Relics, based in Windsor, will auction off more than 200 classic cars and trucks and dozens of car parts and antique signs Sept. 19. Its items span nearly a century, featuring everything from a 1912 Ford Model T touring car to a 1995 Ford F-350, according to the auction catalog.
The business’s earliest iteration started around the 1960s or 1970s, when the late Jim Born bought an old garage in northern Minnesota, where he bought and sold car parts and tinkered with old Model Ts, according to his grandson DJ Born.
After losing that original garage, the family bounced back and forth between northern Minnesota and Northern Colorado. In 1991, they settled in Windsor, where Rocky Mountain Relics took root selling cars and car parts primarily through mail order, DJ Born said.
The business has been run by three generations of Borns, including Jim Born; Jim’s son, Doug Born; and now Doug’s children: DJ, Michael and Amanda Born. While auctions are rare for Rocky Mountain Relics, DJ said his family decided to finally host one this fall — two years after his father’s 2024 death.
What will be in the car auction?
The auction includes some of the family’s original collection, which started all those years ago in that northern Minnesota garage. Over time, that collection has grown to include thousands of Western cars, trucks, car parts and other memorabilia spanning mostly from the 1910s through the 1960s, said DJ Born.
“When a family member dies, you realize life is shorter than you think it is, and there’s too much stuff for one family to do,” DJ Born said. The auction is a way of trying to pass these pieces on “so they can live on and get built and be appreciated,” he added.
The car auction, run by VanDerBrink Auctions, will start at 9 a.m. Sept. 19, with a preview open house planned from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 18. Both the open house and auction will be held at 20801 County Road 78 in Eaton. It will feature both online and live bidding.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan.
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