NORTH SMITHFIELD -- Tom Laferriere does a little of everything so long as it involves classic cars, including buying and selling vehicles for his own collection, driving and restoring them, and working as a broker between buyers and sellers on an international scale.

Indeed, he said, with the weak dollar, much of his business over the last 12 months had been brokering deals that involved cars going to Europe.

“Lately, it’s been odd that you’ve sold a car in the U.S.,” he said.

He said he had just finished a complicated deal that involved him finding different cars for clients in Canada and Britain.

He found a 1917 American LaFrance in California for the client in Canada at the same time he was brokering that client’s sale of a 1934 Packard to the Brit. The Canadian had bought the Packard on eBay from a seller in Tennessee, but had decided –– without seeing it –– that he did not want it, Laferriere said, so it was still in Tennessee.

Adding to the puzzle, he said he had brokered the purchase of the LaFrance for the California owner two years ago from the previous owner in Australia.

He said it was complicated, but everyone was happy, with the LaFrance in Canada and the Packard awaiting shipment to Britain in a week or so.

Other international deals he said he had brokered recently included two American LaFrances to The Netherlands, a Ford Falcon and Model T to Sweden, a VW Combi Bus to The Netherlands and two to Belgium and a 1916 Studebaker to Ireland.

Laferriere said he offers a full range of brokering services, from finding buyers or sellers, to negotiating prices, to taking cars to auction –– he is currently attending the Worldwide Group’s Auburn Auction 2008 in Auburn, Ind., where he is auctioning a client’s 1934 Jaguar SS Custom Bodied Roadster –– to organizing the shipment of cars all over world.

He said he uses an extensive network of contacts along with his Web site to connect buyers and sellers. He said the key to successful sales on the Internet is “great video, great (photograph) resolution and an honest man’s description of the vehicle,” adding that credibility is everything.

“My business is my name,” he said.

Among the 11 cars outside his house on a recent visit were six of his own, including a black 1939 Packard 120 Business Coupe that he said was his first car.

Laferriere said his father had purchased the car in 1970 when he was 3 –– he is now 41 and married with two young children –– and he learned how to restore cars by working on it when he was 14.

“When he taught me how to mix Bondo, I was hooked,” he said of the plastic filler that restorers use to fill out rusted and dented areas so that, with a sanding and a coat of paint, they look like new.

He subsequently attended William M. Davies Jr. Career and Technical High School in Lincoln, graduated in 1985 and went to work with MAACO, a franchised auto body repair and paint shop.

That lasted six months.

“I learned enough about the auto-body business to realize that I did not want to do it for a living,” he said.

He said he subsequently took time off to go wandering for a number of years with jobs that included bartending in Florida and “the night club industry” locally. He then worked for ATP Manufacturing, a shoe component company in North Smithfield for many years, ending up as operations manager and spending six months in China opening up a factory there.

However, four years ago he decided to go into the auto business full time.

“I was always playing with cars on the side,” he said.

In addition to his black Packard, Laferriere had an unrestored 1920 Stanley Steamer with a 1916 Woods body in his garage.

He said he does not intend to restore the Steamer, just get it running, or “sorted” as he said. He fired up the burners under the boiler during a recent visit and showed how drivers would have to wait about 15 minutes for the steam pressure to build before the car could be driven.

“It’s a locomotive on wheels,” he said.

At the same time, he said “not a car in its day could compare with a Stanley Steamer for speed and power,” noting that a Stanley Steamer –– the Stanley Rocket –– set the world speed record by exceeding 125 mph at the Daytona Beach Road Course in 1906. It was wrecked the following year.

Laferriere said that in addition to their performance, Stanley Steamers were popular because their engines were not noisy and smelly, like internal combustion engines, and did not need to be cranked into action.

Other cars in his collection include a white 1962 Amphicar 770 –– so named because it was capable of 7 mph in the water and 70 mph on land –– which he described as “the most possible fun you can have in an automobile.”

“It’s really ugly, it’s a convertible and your brain says you’re not supposed to be doing this” when you drive it into the water, he said.

But he said his main passion is for old speedsters, particularly those that have patina.

“My passion lies in cars like this,” he said, standing beside a 1915 American LaFrance, with two massive chain drives to its rear wheels, and a black 1921 Model T Racer, with the number 20 boldly displayed on its hood.

Both cars were low slung with open cockpits and monocle windshields attached to the steering columns. And both had what he called a “barn-fresh look” about them. Indeed, he said that after he had restored the wooden floor and dashboard of the LaFrance, he left it out in the rain for a while to develop a worn look.

He said he drives both, noting that the LaFrance, which he said was basically a converted fire truck, could possibly go as fast as 100 mph, but at 5,500 pounds was a heavy car to control.

As with the Steamer, Laferriere said his interest was in getting the cars “sorted enough mechanically” to be driven rather than in fully restoring them to pristine condition.

For more information, go to:

www.tomlaferriere.com

pelsworth@projo.com