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Viorel Burcea, a Giurgiu-born antique car and motorcycle afficionado, owns ten historic vehicles, including a 1974 Dacia, a '65 convertible Ford Mustang, and a '38 Plymouth sedan.
"Now I'm retired, I'm 59 and live in Bucharest, but I'm from Giurgiu, where I was a policeman and worked at the Registration Service as head of the Registration Numbers Workshop. I built the first registration numbers workshop in Giurgiu, and 15 years ago I founded and served as president of the Giurgiu Retromobile Club,'' Burcea briefly describes his life journey.
"I've been passionate about cars since I was a little kid, I own many automobiles, for example a '65 convertible Ford Mustang that I bought for 30,000 euros eight years ago and that can do 100 kilometers per hour, but also Dacia models. Because we work with the soul, not with reason, and I am more passionate about cars than a collector who gathers automobiles to capitalize on them later, I can tell you that the car I hold closer to my soul much more than this valuable Ford Mustang, the car I see almost as a family member is a Dacia from 1974 which I bought for five hundred euros. Why?! Because its value resides in the story, because it is part of my and my family's story. I drove it on a daily basis, but it's a family member, even if it wasn't my first four-wheeler. I love it more than this 30,000 euro Ford Mustang, because it was the car that has accompanied me throughout my life, I had a job, I worked as a Dacia driver, we had Dacia cars in our family, I brought my new-born baby from hospital with the Dacia and so on. It was a family member and this is what somehow connects you to that object. We, collectors, in our passion, attribute human traits to these iron beasts, we think of them as family members, we give them names. We took good care of them, also because back then there was a different optic, in the '70s and '80s, when you bought a car, it was for life, not like now when you buy it and sell it after three years, there's nothing to connect you to it! You did their soundproofing, you kept them well, bought spares to have at hand in seven years when you would need I don't know what part and wouldn't find it on the market and so forth, the car was part of your life, which doesn't happen anymore,'' Viorel Burcea confesses for AGERPRES.
Apart from these two cars, he also owns eight other classics, a Plymouth from 1938, but also four-wheelers from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, about one for each decade from every period until now; his latest certified historic car is from 1993.
But beyond his passion, the ex-policeman remains modest and in everyday life he drives an "ordinary" 2008 Opel that cost 2,000 euros.
Apart from that, the Giurgiu-born collector owns four motorcycles and also seeks a sidecar motorcycle that belonged to the fleet of the Romanian Militia (traffic police) in the '70s.
