Chapter 13 continued
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After what seemed like months, a massive eighteen wheel automobile hauler pulled up in front of 63rd Street. The truck driver called and gave us a heads up on his arrival. Philadelphia’s top sports and automotive writer, Bill Simmons, with the Philadelphia Inquirer, came out to cover the epic event.
The cars were filthy with the dirt and salt of slushy, snowy roads all across the US. The driver and a helper had had about enough of the traffic that would gather all around their truck on the road and it got really tedious every time they stopped and people swamped them with questions.
Someone at our place wheeled out a huge billboard of a sign from our warehouse that we had used for a show somewhere. Neighborhood folk were gathering to see what all the fuss was about. It was beginning to look like a street fair.
The lowest car on the back rear section of the tandem trailer was our zillion dollar Mercedes Benz 300 SLR. But of course it wasn’t a 300 SLR; it was an extensively hot rodded 300 SL.
Remember, this was a period in time when you could scarcely give away a Mercedes 300 SL roadster. God knows what I’d ever do with this modified SCCA racing version.
TOC
I told everyone to take a break. I needed to get this situation cleared up with Rauch right then and there. I got Jack on the phone. Yep, they’re all here safe and sound, I told him.
“Jack, this Mercedes Benz is not a 300 SLR”
“What do you want to pay for it?” said Jack. No argument, no fuss . . . He had merely sent the damn Mercedes in hoping to catch the kid who’d just come in the business napping!
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“The car has no value to me,” I said. “I’m putting it back on the truck; talk to you later.” And I hung the phone up.
I went back outside and we began to offload the cars. Everything was going smoothly until we got to the Alfa Romeo 2900B. The trucker got in the car, and you can see me at the edge of one of the grainy photos, in a sport coat. You can clearly observe my clenched fist watching the action unfold.
Seconds after the photo was snapped the driver exploded out of the car and yelled out that he “ain’t takin’ this fucker” off the truck.
“The pedals are all fucked up!!” he said.
It seemed that Jackson Brooks had driven the car up on the truck, and the driver hadn’t been in the Alfa before!
Here’s what the driver was faced with in The Alfa Romeo. Right side steering, a very tight cockpit, and a pedal cluster that had the clutch on the left, the tiny throttle pedal in the center and the brake pedal to the right!
The gated tall thin gear shifter was tightly to his left!
So, all in all, his “pedals are all fucked up” statement was not unreasonable!
Everyone involved thought I should be the one to bring the 2900B off the truck. Back to the time of my childhood I’d loved watching these car carrier drivers and always admired their ability to scramble up, over and under those big car carriers.
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So, up I went. Even at that first level I was nervous about the rickety ramps. Plus the Alfa was nose up against the truck cab! Turning to visually trace the fragile looking ramps that I’d be driving the Alfa backward on was impossibly daunting.
The distance to get the Alfa off the truck looked like it was a hundred yards, and the width of the ramps looked adequate for a bicycle, not a priceless Alfa Romeo 2900B with an impossibly tight cockpit, “fucked up pedals,” and finally, suicide doors!
(What is “priceless” in today’s rarified world of truly great Alfa Romeo’s? $30-35, Million, I expect . . .)
I squeezed in the cockpit and turned to look backward. I couldn’t see anything! Opening the suicide door and looking backward gave me nothing more than a view of the door’s hinge arrangement. Peering straight down I could see only the ramp itself.
I stationed four guys on the ground at each wheel and we proceeded backward literally an inch at a time. Once we had the Alfa safely on the ground, we had only the big 4.9 Ferrari all the way up front on top just behind the truck cab.
Twila came out of the office to tell me that Jack Rauch was back on the phone, which I had expected he would be. As I walked past her into the office, she said Rauch had asked if the truck had left yet.
After an icy greeting from me, Jack said he really didn’t want the 300 SL back in Chicago. He was sending the truck to New York to pick up a load of cars on Jerome Avenue.
“What will you pay for the car?” Jack asked.
“$3,500, including all the transportation involved with this load sitting here at our door . . .” and I quickly held the phone a good distance from my ear, expecting a major blast!
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“Pay the driver; and I’ll talk to you soon.” said Jack quietly.
I’d decide later whether to push all of the $3,500 over to the transportation on the “real” cars or maybe put a grand or two on the Mercedes “racer”. . .
I went outside to wind up the deal with the trucker and in the short time I’d been inside everything had gone straight to hell!
The truck driver had scrambled up to the very top forward ramps to bring the big Ferrari 410 Super America down. As you can plainly see, in transitioning to the lower ramps he had gotten the left rear wheel of the Ferrari off its ramp and the car was in a very precarious position, up in the air. Note the snow still in the ramps in the photograph.
It was a frightening debacle. The left rear wheel was literally hanging over thin air. With any further wrong movement the car would have dropped badly in some fashion, and sustained unimaginable damage. Correcting the situation would have been wickedly difficult.
The truck driver, who had jacked the car into the mess, chose to wash his hands of any attempt to correct the situation! He was tired, he said, and he didn’t get what the big fucking deal was! It was just another old car!
I was the one who went “upstairs” again on the truck to try to figure a way out of an impossible situation.
Perfect! It is 28 degrees. I’m dressed for luncheon in a nice toasty club dining room; but instead I’ve got salty snow in my fancy shoes and I’m clambering behind the wheel of an extremely rare Ferrari that is cockeyed on the ramps of a gypsy transporter. I took the wheel with no clear idea of what we should do to rectify this very bad situation.
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We were going to need the Gods with us. With all heads concurring, I chose to put the car in second gear, cranked in as much steering lock for the direction that we “felt” was correct. I started the Ferrari, and gave the very responsive throttle a healthy dose and engaged the clutch sharply and the Ferrari literally hopped forward and the rear wheel dropped back on to the ramp!
It was a very scary deal, and I let that Ferrari all the way down those damn ramps to the ground, very, very, slowly. I’ve never faced anything like that since. Poor Bill Simmons had plenty of time to capture those images.
All of the cars were terrific!
(BWTM . . . In the summer of 1997 my friend David Pressland, Hans Willie Walter, and I we were given a tour of the Mercedes Benz Classic Center and their museum. We were then invited to see what treasures there were in the basement.
As is often the case with the great automobile museums of the world including, Indianapolis and the Petersen, the basements often yield some remarkable automobiles. In the case of the Mercedes Benz Classic Center basement I came face to face with our old Mercedes Benz “300 SLR”. I asked our guide what he could tell us about the car. He said he did not have much knowledge about the car except that he thought it was an American special of some kind, by a man named Porter! I told him about how the car had come and gone through our portals in 1970. He took copious notes and was most happy to hear the confirming news. I notice today the car is all over the internet at all the right vintage events.
I think after a herculean effort I’d sold the car in late 1970 for $3,500 . . .)
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(Below is an article by Bill Simmons of the “event” and Bill’s photo contact sheets of the occasion. My apologies for the tiny images, but there were never any full size images developed. You can somewhat discern the “event” as it evolved. Also, there is a copy of Bill Simmons article for the “Philadelphia Inquirer” newspaper.)
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It was a very heady period for us. But we had some bumps too.
THE MURENA JUMPS THE RAILS . . .
1969 Murena
When the first Murena came to us, long overdue, we had to hurry to get it ready for its US debut at the Philadelphia Automobile Show. As I recall, we were up against a tight deadline. We had had to go to the port in Newark, New Jersey to collect it. I remember the Murena coming in the driveway late on a rainy Saturday afternoon. It was filthy, and I sent it down to the car wash a few blocks away.
Half way through the automatic car wash, the sucker jumped the rails, and proceeded through the rest of its “automatic” ride rearranging the entire left side of the automobile!
The following Monday morning Molin Body Shop stopped their work on everything else in the shop and pulled one of their 24 hour “right around the clock” miracles, and we had the car back, good as “new.”
You might wonder how a busy body shop could just do something like that. Remember, earlier I mentioned that they did all of Roger Penske’s work on his racing cars. Painting and repairing any damage on race cars for Penske Racing taught Molin very quickly how to do things faster and better than they ever dreamed they could.
As the eastern United States Distributor, I got to pay well for Molin’s extraordinary service.
The whole Murena experience was pretty dismal all the way around, but one remarkable tale came out of it all.
I cannot for the life of me recall why I thought we needed to be the eastern US distributor for the Murena automobile. I’m afraid that being able to run “Distributor” license tags, may have been the determining factor!
They turned out to be dreadful automobiles.
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A VERY FUNNY “MURENA” STORY
By the time spring came, we had relegated our Murena sales listings to page 5 of the newsletter. The four or five people on planet earth who were fascinated with the Murena had purchased theirs, and that seemed to be it.
But the Murena people had sent over a bit of money for the New York Automobile Show. It was our second New York show, but first as “new” car dealers; whoa, make that the eastern United States distributors! So, we dragged a Murena to New York.
Many years later, in the early aughts the great British magazine “Classic and Sports Car” each month ran a feature titled something like: “Does anyone know what this vehicle is?” I always enjoyed having a look each month at that column and, generally, I had no idea what the featured car was.
But, then an issue arrived, and when I reached the “Does anyone know . . .” page, there, in black and white, was the tail end of a Murena. Oh yes, it was one of ours all right; there was that Pennsylvania “Distributor” license plate!
All of a sudden, while seeing that shot of the Murena sitting curbside in New York City, bits of memory of a tale I’d heard long ago all came together. The magazine photo clearly showed a rainy early morning and the Murena was parked out in front of the Essex House Hotel, in Manhattan, where our gang stayed during the show.
At the time we were doing the show, I had heard that one of our sales guys, who was a dashing young Irish lad, had been swept off his feet by a certain one of the beautiful gals (who shall remain nameless) representing an automotive accessory company.
I looked at that photograph, and thought: . . .
“That’s Jimmy for sure. The show didn’t open for a few more hours, and it’s raining, and I’ll bet he’s in there with “Miss Magic Product”!
Well, good . . . no, great for him!
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THE SPRING OF 1970, WE GET BIGGER
The March/April issue of the Newsletter was pretty uptown for a gang operating out of an old obsolete gas station!
On the cover of the newsletter was a very striking young lady with an equally striking Ferrari 250 LM. The LM was the ex-Richard Merritt car.
In this photograph, the car is captured in its correct silver, before we decided to arbitrarily paint it a dark metallic blue with a substantial Gallo fly yellow “racing” stripe straight up the center of the car!! I believe we had felt it would be more enticing to a potential buyer.
The photographer was our young friend Winnie who shot the Ferrari GTO at the seminary. Winnie kept coming into our place with that statuesque brunette looking for work. He became more and more adventuresome in his settings as we went along. I haven’t any idea where the LM had gone for this cover photo, but I don’t see any civilization in any direction, do you?
The absolute topper though was a color photograph of our Lamborghini Miura. wich sadley we no longer have. Somehow, Winnie had managed to lure another lovely lady into joining him in the adventure of placing and photographing our Lamborghini Miura at the top of the grand staircase of the Philadelphia Art Museum! Remember this is the Miura I took delivery of in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York! Here is the car, just a few months old, visiting another art museum.
And yes, it is the very same set of stairs that Sylvester Stallone ran up in the “Rocky” movie!
I do know that I was not there for either LM or Miura photo shoots! That was probably for the best.
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FERRARI SUPERFAST 1
John Delamater had unearthed this giant of a Ferrari, as he did so many other great cars. It was the Paris Show car in 1956. It was also owned for a time by the actor Jackie Cooper. When it came in to us, hanging on for dear life on the back of that open car carrier, I was struck by the sheer size of it.
It was both visually and physically, about 120% of any other Ferrari I’d ever seen. Everything about the car was “one of.” Even the badges, chrome script, etc. were all oversized. The roof was cantilevered, creating an amazing visual juncture at what would normally be the “A” pillar of the windshield.
The engine was a 24 plug 4.9 Lampredi jewel. It was reputed to be a detuned Grand Prix engine. I drove it home one evening. When you lit it up, the engine had quite a crack to it, but the car wasn’t crazy powerful or particularly swift on the road. It was elegant to be sure, but the big Lampredi engine seemed, not lazy, but the power came on as a gathering storm, rather than explosively. Very smooth delivery though.
Getting in the car involved opening the massive driver’s door which was about the length of our little Rossellini Ferrari barchetta. Settling into the cockpit was a bit overwhelming. Once inside Superfast 1 you felt like a nine year old pretending to drive your Grandfather’s Cadillac. The seat was huge; you had to reach far over to the right, and well up to grasp the tall shifter topped with an oversized machined aluminum ball. As for the steering wheel, I would be looking through that steering wheel, not over it that was certain. Then I noticed that all the gauges, switches, and trim pieces were oversized! Not a great deal, but noticeably. Every bit of that Ferrari was a bit bigger and grander than any Ferrari you’d seen before.
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The car was intimidating to say the least. Driving that Ferrari was a busy proposition. The overall driving experience may be best described as vast. Simply vast. You could scarcely peer out over the side window sills. The front and back bumpers were in two different time zones. People on the road were insanely responsive to the sight of that Ferrari. The sheer size of the car and the daring, outrageous coachwork were spinning people’s heads!
The next day Mike Tillson found that the valves had possibly never been adjusted, set them right, and he altered the distributor advances. The car pepped itself up considerably and was much quicker on the road.
Did I mention that the Ferrari was finished in a lackluster white over silver with a tan leather interior? While the car was in the shop the dull colors began to trouble me. In spite of the car having an enormous presence, its color combination was just so “blah.”
I just kept seeing the car in a brilliant scarlet over that silver. That would take the car from looking, (I felt), rather “blah” to a true Ferrari. So, off to Molin Body Works we went for another color change.
(I know, there seems to be no end to our sacrilege with the Ferraris back in the day. Between painting them any color that pleased us, drag racing them, hosing them out, etc, we should all have been sent to our rooms!!)
June, 2010: . . . Just before he passed, John Delamater reminded me that he and John Carmack had driven from Indianapolis to visit with us on the day Superfast 1 came back from Molin’s and they were thrilled with the color change. They thought it really brought the car to life.
Shortly after their visit, the grand elegant Ferrari caught someone’s eye, and off it went to a new custodian.
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FERRARI GTO, #5573
(This tale moves us back into late 1969, but you’ll soon determine why . . .)
Among all the great automobiles built by the legendary Italian automobile maker, Ferrari, the 250 and 330 twelve cylinder GTO’s stand alone. With less than forty GTO’s built, they are the most iconic, valuable, and sought after of all Ferraris. Recent sales reflect a prevailing value in excess of $30,000,000 for the top examples. That’s for each one, by the way.
In the fall of 1969, I decided to travel on up to Watkins Glen for the Formula One Race on the weekend of October fifth. I left on a Thursday afternoon and stopped to visit Oscar Koveleski at his “Autoworld” in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Oscar is one of America’s top automobile racers, connoisseurs, raconteurs, Cannonballer and all around really special guy. And he possesses a marvelous sense of humor. I’ve always enjoyed visiting with him.
Oscar, in 1969 was the distributor for Heuer watches. And he had just gotten in the new line of Monaco Heuers. (Think “Tag Heuer” today, Steve McQueen, and several new iterations of the original Monaco series currently available at new, breathtaking prices!)
With its bold square case the Heuer Monaco timepiece was very avant garde in 1969. I was hesitant, but as the distributor, Oscar was able to sell me the watch for the sum of $69.00! That marked the beginning of a lifetime of Heuer and TAG timepieces.
With my new horological acquisition strapped on, I continued my trip to Watkins Glen, New York.
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Over 100,000 people attended the Watkins Glen F1 race that year, and they were able to watch Jackie Stewart duel with Jochen Rindt in the early stages 0f the race. Then Stewart’s motor went sour. Rindt won it going away.
The morning of the race, I ran into someone who told me that there was a couple of older racing Ferraris down in a nearby village with the unlikely name of Horseheads, New York.
The cars belonged to two brothers who ran a farm over there in Horseheads.
Once the race was over, it was quickly obvious that no one was getting out of the Watkins Glen circuit area any time soon. Over 0ne hundred thousand people all needed to get somewhere other than the track, all at the same time, utilizing the few narrow egress routes.
I didn’t care to get in the thick of it, so I called the brothers to see just how close they were to the track. Horseheads was just down the road, and “yep” they had some old foreign cars down there. Their name was Irwin.
“My friend said you had a Ferrari”, I said.
“Yep”, they actually had two Ferraris!
Might they be for sale?
“Yep.”
“I was here for the race. Would it be all right to come by and have a look at the cars this evening?”, I asked.
“Yep, we’ll be here tonight and you’re welcome to come and have a look.”
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It was almost dark when I got loose of the track. I stopped for something quick to eat and got my directions to Horseheads. It was a tiny, very rural little town south of Watkins Glen.
The Irwin brothers were farmers. That was pretty evident; both of them were fiftyish, big stout gentlemen in bib overalls, and T shirts. Farm tans, well worn work shoes. The Irwin brothers were a pretty serious pair.
I was led down the way to a barn building and inside there were a handful of fifties and sixties SCCA racing cars. There were two Ferraris.
The first was a nondescript 250GT, 2&2 Ferrari of the period. At the time that model Ferrari was difficult to sell, and I certainly wouldn’t be working hard to drag one of them out of the woods in upstate New York.
The other Ferrari, however, was a no nonsense, genuine, dead nuts, drop dead, tunnel back, 1964 Ferrari 250 GTO, serial number 5573!
Only three true ’64 GTO’s had been built. Pininfarina had been entrusted with the design, and Scaglietti had built the three. They were serial numbers, 5571, 5573, and 5575. As for their general racing successes, it was a difficult time for Ferrari in GT racing, as they were head to head with the Cobra Daytona’s, the lightweight Jags, etc.
Still, to me personally, the ’64 GTO was the Holy Grail.
Now, at this point we need to pause, and again remember that in the year 1969, an older (just five years at the time,) racing Ferrari was not a big deal. This GTO was actually pretty tired out, and there was nowhere to race it! The paint was shabby, it had some dings, it was dirty as hell, and was sitting on nearly flat old Firestone dry compound racing tires.
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I pointed to the GTO: “Is this car for sale?”
“Yep”, said one of them.
“How much is it?”, I asked.
“I dunno, make us an offer . . .”
I poured through all my agonizing rhetoric as to the fact that I couldn’t possibly make an offer, it was their property, and they’d have to set the price.
“Does it run? I asked.
“Dunno’, it’s been settin’ here a long time. Battery’s out of it . . .”
The other brother finally spoke up: “We could try to jump start it”, he said to no one in particular.
“Let’s do that, if you would . . .” I said.
They rummaged around and found a battery and a set of cables. They were pretty sure it had gas in it.
All hooked up, the one brother sat on the driver’s door sill, reached inside, and down and gave the throttle a few pokes. On went the key and the fuel pump barely clicked. The engine turned over very slowly. It was evident that the jumper battery wasn’t going to be of much use. Not a single cylinder fired.
It was getting pretty late, and we were all just standing around scuffing the ground, so to speak.
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“Listen”, I said, “there has to a price that you two have in your mind that will get the car sold. . . .”
“$5,800”, the lead brother said.
I replied. “I like the car, and I think I’d like to buy it, but”, . . . and then I enumerated all the things that were wrong with the car. It was of no use to anyone as a race car anymore, it doesn’t run, I’m nuts to even be thinking about buying it, blah, blah, blah.
“Look, I’m here”, I said. “I’d like to do something with you guys. I’d like to try and buy the car; take $5,000 . . .
“Nope, we can’t do that”, said Irwin number one.
We went back and forth a bit more lethargically, and then . . .
(. . . NOW GET THIS: . . . I PASSED THE CAR AND WENT THE FUCK HOME!! FOR A FULL FUCKING YEAR!!!!!! . . .)
I went back to Watkins Glen in 1970, with a friend and we had a repeat performance. Same 100,000 people at the race; this time Fittipaldi wins, and it is so cold you can’t believe it.
Nothing has changed, except this year I called ahead and the Irwin brothers were going to air up the tires and have a fresh battery on board the GTO.
We got over to the farm, again in the evening, because of the traffic.
Before starting the money dance, I decided that I’d better look this thing over as best I could. This time we were able to get the donkey fired up, albeit with a few whiffs of ether. The Ferrari was running on some number of cylinders above six, but nowhere near the 12 it possessed. It was utterly lazy to any throttle input.
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I was in the cockpit as the gauges came to life. The car had good oil pressure. As I sat there with the Ferrari running, all the GTO nuances started to reel me in. Those hood latches, the hood scoop, and check out that fucking shifter. Was that sucker serious, or what? The black crackle dash, the minimal instruments. The cockpit noise, that incredible cacophony that can only be found in a GTO. It is captivating, and fantastic. A few more cylinders reported for work, etc., etc . . . it was all starting to get at me . . .
“So how much is it this year?” I said.
“$5,800.”
This time the brothers nodded enthusiastically toward each other. That’s the damn price brother, and we’re stickin’ to it.
I walked over to the door of the garage, and saw it was starting to snow! The fourth of October and they’re getting snow up here!
Mr. Powerhouse, Mr. Step up to the plate, knuckled under.
“OK, I’ll take it. Let’s check the fluids and I’ll drive it in.” I said
My friend Barry thought I’d gone off the rails! “Are you nuts or nervous, it’s snowing and that old car hasn’t been on the road in years!” Barry said.
“I’ll get it in, let’s get going . . .”
I paid the brothers and we rolled the car out. Yep, it was still snowing, not heavily, but enough so you’d keep your eye on it. The wipers, of all things, worked perfectly! The brothers gave me a couple of fresh towels for the inside of the windshield.
I threw my briefcase and bag in the passenger seat foot well.
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We said goodbye to the brothers and started up their driveway. At the hilly top of the driveway, I turned on to the road and got my first notice from the ancient, bone dry racing Firestones and the limited slip rear, which hadn’t had an opportunity to limit any slip whatsoever, for God knows how long!
We left the brother’s farm, kind of sideways . . .
I’m sure one brother had said to the other: “We best hammer that boy’s check in the mornin’, he might not be with us much longer.”
God, the tires were like hockey pucks. We stopped and got fuel and hot coffee. The snow was light but steady.
As we started out of the Horseheads area, I was very cautious with the conditions being what they were. The Ferrari warmed up and began to push some welcome heat back into the uninsulated cockpit. The isinglass windows were actually keeping the bitter cold out, and every additional mile the car got better.
As I adapted to the car and the environment we were in, I allowed myself the opportunity to absorb the incredible experience of seriously driving a GTO.
Not around the block with this one, or out to dinner, or a few laps on a race track. I was actually, out on the open American road, traversing an unknown 235 mile route, at night, in adverse weather conditions.
At the top of the Northeast extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we stopped for more coffee. Barry had been tagging along with me, and it had been very reassuring, but at this point the snow had switched over to light freezing rain. I told Barry to make a run for it, get himself home, I’d be fine. He was reluctant, but took off for home. It was late as hell.
Before I left the service plaza, I snared a Punch cigar out of my bag, got back in the GTO, and just rolled that wonderful Ferrari on down the Pennsylvania Turnpike in to Valley Forge.
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The cockpit was cozy; the car ran a little better the further we went, though the old Firestones continued to provide adrenaline bursts along the way.
It’s quite difficult to describe, but at some point in the latter part of the trip, I realized that #5573 was “it,” as it were. There really wasn’t anything better for me in a Ferrari than this particular GTO.
The final 100 miles were euphoric in that car. It was a driving adventure I’d never forget, and I have never had another like it.
I got home; I remember the time, at 3:10 in the morning. The next morning as soon as I awakened, I began to put together a list of things to do to the car. That GTO was staying, not for a while, but if I was lucky, maybe forever.
I drove the Ferrari to 63rd Street and gave it over to Mike Tillson to sort through the car. I quickly got a report that the compressions were erratic and basically low. Mike thought it might well be tight valves.
Two days later while the GTO was still in Mike’s shop, I flew to Chicago, to meet with Jack Douglass. Late that afternoon, at O’Hare airport, I called in to just touch base. Ed Casey answered the phone.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’ve got some bad news; Ed said, “Mike had a bad accident with the GTO”
“My plane’s leaving, like right now; so don’t be screwin’ me around with your sick sense of humor . . .”
“I wish I was, pal, I’m not joking . . .”
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It had been a rainy day in Philly. Mike had finished with the engine and when he fired it, it was like a brand new deal. The engine evidently just sang, tons of power, lightning throttle response. Mike took another mechanic, Gino, with him and they headed out to Lancaster Avenue. In Wynnewood, a young girl in an Austin Healey, of all things, simply turned directly left into the path of the Ferrari. Mike never had a chance, and, of course, those ancient Firestones just compounded the disaster.
No one was badly injured, the girl, not at all, Mike took a serious cut on his upper lip, and Gino, though unhurt, walloped the windshield so hard with his head, that it popped out and slid down Lancaster Avenue, intact!
That is until the tow truck arrived and backed over it! The final irony.
It was a “high” inconsequential hit for the Ferrari, as the Austin Healey folded up easily. The frame of the Ferrari was fine, one suspension corner was moved back slightly, but the sheet metal damage was pretty big. The body was bent, one way and another, to the right rear wheelhouse. It was the saddest sight you ever saw.
The insurance company picked an arbitrary payout figure of $13,500. And, they had no interest whatsoever in the salvage. I was welcome to it. The car languished in a body shop.
I was devastated. #5573 was the one. I really wanted that one to be mine. Everyone scoffs at that and says I’m too much of a merchant, and it would have only been a matter of time . . .
Not long after the wreck, Pierre Bardinon in France telephoned about the car. I went over the damage with him. He commiserated, and then asked if the car was for sale.
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“Well, I guess it is,” I said.
He had caught me off guard completely.
“What would the price be?” Bardinon asked.
“$13,500” I said. It seemed to be the “new” number tied to #5573! Where the hell I got that figure, I have no idea, but Bardinon found it acceptable and #5573 was his.
Pierre Bardinon was in my mind, among the ultimate Ferrari enthusiasts. He had been a Ferrari enthusiast, owner, and collector for many, many, years in France, even having carefully constructed a fantastic road course at his property, Mas du Clos. When he bought the GTO, he had already been a customer of ours having bought two great early racing Ferraris from us.
He was the perfect custodian for the car. With the help of the Ferrari factory he was able to bring the car back to essentially what it was when it ran in 1964. All the damage had been largely sheet metal, and Bardinon has been widely quoted as having said if he could only keep one Ferrari out of his wonderful collection, it would be #5573.
#5573 is never an easy story for me to tell, because I never had the chance to live out the “What if” aspect of the story.
But I can tell you this, that run through the snowy, rainy night will remain my most euphoric drive in a Ferrari automobile.
( P.S. I’m happy to say that #5573 is back in America and in the hands of a “perfect” owner! He purchased the Ferrari for all the right reasons . . .”)
Coming in Chapter 14 . . .
Roger Penske comes through the door . . .
