HYANNIS PORT, Mass. -- If the hallmark of the British eccentric is having enough money to spend it too well, then Bill Putnam fits the bill.

The five or so red cars parked outside the Simmons Homestead Inn, which he owns and runs, are a giveaway. They include a 1967 Bentley T Series, a couple of 1976 Jags and a 1971 Datsun 240Z that he used to race.

Oh, and a 1999 Lotus Elise 190 that he drives daily, along with a 2005 Lotus Elise Mk2 and a 2000 Honda S-2000 that were parked out back on a recent visit.

For behind his B&B, Putnam has nearly 60 mostly British sports cars, making his Toad Hall Classic Sports Car Collection one of the most complete in the country. It is also unusual: All but one of the cars are painted red.

(He also has 37 cats and 528 bottles of different varieties of single malt Scotch Whiskey, but we'll get to those later.)

The sports-car collection is named for the character Toad in Kenneth Grahame's classic children's book, The Wind in the Willows, which was published in 1908. The compulsive Toad of Toad Hall was obsessed with cars, which he is always driving too fast and crashing. Red was his favorite color.

"The motor car was new back then and he was the first true car nut," said Putnam.

And so is Putnam. He raced with the Sports Car Club of America from 1974 to 1980 while he was living in Hingham, Mass., and named his team Minuteman Racing in honor of the road he lived on. All of his cars carry the name.That was when he got interested in English sports cars. "In the various classes they ran in, they did very well," he said. "There were a lot of manufacturers and they weren't too expensive and meanwhile the American cars had gotten so big."

Putnam's collection includes Austin Healeys, Jaguars, MGs, Triumphs and TRVs as well as a 1960 Daimler, 1960 AC Ace Roadster, 1966 Sunbeam Tiger, 1965 Morgan Roadster and 1999 Mini Cooper.

As he states on his extensive, erudite and highly personal Web site: "The reason I have so many English cars is that there were so many really classic ones. The U.S. never really built any neat little roadsters with the exception of the very first Corvettes, but the Brits sure did. Even today MGs, TVRs, Morgans and others are on the roads in the UK but not in the U.S. since the '80s. What a shame . . . ."

In addition, he has six Datsun roadsters from the 1960s and early 1970s which he claims was his first favorite marque, but which lost their sting as race cars once they began to be called Nissans.

"The Datsuns were very popular at the time and I got very fond of them," he said. He said they were fast because they were made of junk steel and were therefore light. "But they rusted."

Three Mazda racers, in addition to the Honda S-2000, round out his collection of Japanese sports cars.

But his marque of choice seems to be the Lotus, or as he calls them, Colin's Creations, after Lotus founder Colin Chapman. Putnam has 13 Lotuses, with a green 1960 Lotus Elite Series I the star of the show. "Really, the prettiest car Lotus made," he writes on his Web site. "I'll probably paint it red, though."

The cars are housed in a rambling low-slung barn behind the inn with ever lower ceilings as he has continually added on extensions over the years. They sit on a gravel bed with ornamental rugs acting as walkways.

"I can't drive them as much as I'd like," he said, adding, "They were all running as of last winter."

Putnam's collection does not stop with the cars. Model cars for each one of his full-sized cars line one wall and small neon outlines of each of his cars are ranged along the walls. Down one side wall, pennants going back to 1989 for the annual Figawi ("Where the figawi?") yacht race from Hyannis Port to Nantucket - even though he said he has never sailed the race. Another corner of his shed/barn is piled with a collection of frogs/toads and he has one on the dashboard of every car "let people know it's Toad's car."

Putnam, 70, has an eclectic background. He earned a degree in geology from Yale and worked in the petroleum industry where he got into corporate real estate. After stints with American Express and Howard Johnson, he left the corporate world and started an ad agency in Boston that grew too big for his liking so he sold out.

"I've been trying to downgrade ever since," he said.

He then worked with his wife in a business appliquéing bags, but folded that up after she died suddenly of asthma. He has one son who lives in Sandwich.

Putnam bought the1800 Simmons Homestead with its 14 rooms some 19 years ago, a year after his wife died. He runs the inn with local help. True to his collecting nature, the interior is crammed with pictures and knickknacks, including a collection of whimsical salt and pepper shakers that line the main dining room table.

A sign next to the front door to the inn declares: "If I am not here, I'm flying kites, bike riding, running errands, goofing off, out drinking, at the beach, somewhere." It is signed "Bill Putnam, Innkeeper of sorts."

Another signs warns: "Don't let the cats inside." A smaller one below states: "This means you Abigail."

Abigail was his first cat and a section of his Web site is devoted to a feline philosophy of life inspired by the late cat - "Abigail on Anger," "Abigail on Self-Worth," "Abigail on Boundaries," for example.

The original Abigail may be gone but Abigail Too is the third generation of her reincarnation; in addition, the names of all his 37 (and counting) cats start with the letter A "so they can all be alpha cats."

An additional building beside the inn houses additional rooms, his quarters and his collection of Scotch whisky. A total of 528 bottles of different varieties line the walls as far as the eye can see. A small number are open but the actual collection is of sealed bottles. "It's the largest in the country," he said, with single malts from Northern Ireland, Japan and the United States as well as Scotland.

Putnam said he believes there is one collection in Scotland that may have him beat by a few bottles.

"I'm not compulsive," he said, shaking his head and smiling.

Now let's see, compulsive, self-contained, likes to drive fast in red cars? Mmm. Sounds a lot like Toad of Toad Hall to me.

"I'm going to grow up one of these days!" he said.

The Toad Hall Classic Sports Car Collection, at 288 Scudder Ave., is open daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Adults $8, Kids 10-16 $4, 9 and under admitted free.

"Bring a camera, wander around and enjoy," Putnam says on his Web site. "Bored wives can sit in the chairs and play with the cats at no cost."

For more information, see:

www.toadhallcars.com

pelsworth@projo.com / (401) 277-7403