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Pan Am Lives—in Man's Garage

Trips to Thailand net vintage headphones and the like for cabin mockup

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 26, 2009 11:50 AM CDT

(Newser) – To Anthony Toth, Pan Am was the epitome of airline class, with its top-notch, martini-pouring first-class service and in-flight music so excellent that the United Airlines employee brought along a tape recorder to record it on trips as a boy. Now that he’s 42 and owns a home, he’s built a full-size mockup of a Pan Am 747 first-class cabin in his garage—complete with headphones in their original packaging, Pan Am china, and a red-carpeted staircase.

“The brand was so powerful,” Toth tells the Wall Street Journal. “They had this uncompromising standard of service.” He uses his flight perks from United to travel the world, searching for relics of those pre-1991 halcyon days. Sure, his version has one big deviation from the original—his vintage headphones pipe in sound from a flat-panel TV—but he’s never forgotten the formative experience. “I didn't want to sleep when I flew,” he says. "I wanted to spend every minute enjoying everything that was happening."

[Images (2)]

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Toth works for United, a decidedly less luxurious concern in the eyes of some. (AP Photo)

A Pan Am boeing 747 flying over snow covered mountains. (Getty Images)

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There was no other aircraft I could walk on board that intrigued me more than the Pan Am cabin. Everything symbolized something. That meant something to me as a youngster. - Anthony Toth

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Pan Am Lives—in Man's Garage