Anthony Toth is so obsessed with perfectly recreating a vintage Pan Am first-class cabin in his garage that he once traveled to Thailand for original Pan Am branded headphones. And you will see how his obsession goes much deeper than that.

pan-am-garage

Anthony began his obsession with Pan Am as a child, when he and his parents frequently flew to Europe to visit family. Pan Am’s service seems decadent and almost silly today, when Southwest and JetBlue achieve success with a budget mentality, but to Anthony, Pan Am was the epitome of class and style.

So why does Anthony Toth do this? According to the WSJ:

Mr. Toth’s obsession with Pan Am began in the 1970s when he was growing up in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, about 45 minutes from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Every summer, he and his family traveled to see relatives in Rome and Budapest, where his parents were from, usually flying in Pan Am’s coach class. “There was no other aircraft I could walk on board that intrigued me more than the Pan Am cabin,” he says. “Everything symbolized something. That meant something to me as a youngster.”

As a child, Mr. Toth would save items that most passengers considered to be trash, such as cardboard coasters and paper tray linings from coach meal services. On every flight, he would carry a camera and shoot three or four rolls of film documenting the aircraft’s interior. He lugged a boxy tape recorder to capture in-flight audio by cranking the dial on his armrest up to level 12 and placing the microphone to the earphones so he could listen to the airline’s music selection back home.

Anthony saved things like the cardboard linings on food trays and recorded his trips with multiple rolls of film and extensive tape recordings of the radio selection on board. “This consumed my world,” said Tosh. As an adult, he works for United Airlines, and two years ago bought a home with an oversized garage in which he could build a faithful replica of Pan Am’s first-class cabin. The project has taken him, in total, 20 years.

Similar Posts:

None Found