THE ROADMASTERS OF EUROPE; Here's what Nicola Bulgari thinks of American iron.(Revs)

Byline: Phil Berg

Although there is a Bentley in Nicola Bulgari's 20,000-square-foot garage in Pennsylvania, "his blood is all-American,'' says longtime advisor Marty Schorr. "He believes America put the world on the road in cars.''

The other 50 cars in Bulgari's garage are mostly tributes to classic Americans, some modern. He favors the cars that descended from David Dunbar Buick's original company-he has 18 pristine examples in his garage-but he has one of everything of what he sees as the "average American's dream cars'': Chryslers, Hudsons, Oldsmobiles, Cadillacs, Plymouths, Nashes and Packards. Duesenbergs and cost-is-no-object hand-builts don't appeal to him as much as well-built production-line American iron.

The garage was completed several months ago in Allentown, the city itself a symbol of the American industrial might of the classic period Bulgari admires. Bulgari, whose Rome-based, family-run jewelry and watch company (spelled "Bvlgari'') grossed almost $1 billion in 2005, remembers Buicks as status symbols in the Rome of his youth. He even saw one that was a part of the pope's motorcade in the 1930s.

His daily drivers in Europe are a ...