WTF...or HRD?

WTF...or HRD?

I never know what is going to trigger some weird memory segment of mine. Today it was Ardun overhead valve conversions for flathead Fords, and motorcycles.

A few days ago I was at a friend's house and took some quick snapshots of some of his “stuff,” which included a 32 Three window coupe with one of those head conversions. I'm sure at some point there will be more about the builder, but when I e mailed the picture to a couple of other car guys one commented on the head. That led to an internet search about Ardun, which refreshed my aging brain about two items: Don Orosco and Tom Senter...and that of course led back to vintage racing and the Monterey Historics, which is my tie to both of these folks.

Don is a racer from Pacific Grove I have known very casually for many years. While his Monterey rides ranged from both a Scarab sports racer and the F1 car to Lolas, I did know he was also into rods...and the article I found while trying to get something into my e mail about Ardun history brought back the lost fact that Don also was the force behind modern recreations of the head, which was originally created by and named for the “father” of the Corvette...Zora Arkus-Duntov.

Tom Senter, on the other hand, was involved in the evolution of the recreation head, but was known to me as the Ford representative to the Monterey Historics. He handed out the award each year for the “best Ford powered racer” in the event, a role later taken over by his widow after he lost a battle with cancer.

And then there was my scan through the first issue of a Road and Track subscription Gary Winiger gave me recently. I'm not at all sure what car magazines are about anymore, and this one least of all. Beyond the eight pages of Tire Rack ad and four or so of Weathertech plastic goodies to keep the carpets dry in your Belchfire, it seemed to have brief teasers about cars people actually might buy, and page after page of a shootout between supercars so stratospherically priced the mag actually boasted about the total price of the package (they also wrecked a McLaren which might have won the shootout, but at least had the courage to own up to that screwup).

The winner was the new Acura NSX, proving I guess that these days any car company can build a supercar. Whoopie. But what really struck me was one of the performance figures. This beast, which went for just under $300k as tested, reached from zero to 30 mph in exactly...the same time as the $749 250cc motorcycle I had in Grad School!

Wait...that can't be right, can it? Granted, from there the NSX would hit 40 before my bike could hit 35, and it got worse from there, but how'd you like to be equaled by a 250 pound Japanese “popcorn popper” two stroke in the Stoplight Grandprix?

And that, of course, triggered some pretty interesting motorcycle memories.

It was Dick Saltzman's fault. If you looked the photo of my Mark III Sprite in “BRG and the Five Speed Brown Bag” you saw two other vehicles in the photo...one being a rather agricultural looking springless trailer. Though I had no idea what it was for when I first saw it, it is a motorcycle trailer. One that was pulled by that almost new Corvette just in front of it....

Who the hell pulls a trailer with a Corvette?

My roomie Donnie had once again come up with someone to share expenses for our second year in a brand new quadraplex in the northwest part of Gainesville...a 27 year old grad student in engineering from New York.

Dick was a somewhat deranged looking pixie, graced with hooded eyes, one of which never seemed to be looking in the same place the other was at the same time

I don't know what I said,
But I don't want to think about
what he was going to do
with that turkey baster!
Tell me he doesn't look like an elf!

. Normally someone his age would be mature way beyond a couple of 20 year olds, but this guy really was...an elf. I'm sure of it. So we hit it off fine.

He was a landing gear designer for Grumman, who sent him to the university to get his Masters degree. You would think that a company in Long Island could find a college closer to home. I mean, Florida does have a good engineering school, but I'm sure there are many closer to Dick's home which are just as good.

Perhaps Dick selected the school, envisioning sun bleached beaches and babes in bikinis. Surprise! Temps on a winter night in Gainesville could hit the high teens, and walking across campus for a 7AM class could freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

When I asked about the Corvette, Dick said I would likely drive it more than him (really? Can I? Can I? CANIIII????). He preferred “the bike.”

Listen, when I moved from a Cushman to my 57 Bel Aire convertible I thought I was through with two wheeled toys for life. What is wrong with this guy?

So ok, his 64 Corvette had “only” 300hp and a 3.08 rear end, making it the slowest accelerating model...but I was rowing a 57hp skate which hit 60 slow enough to read a couple of pages of “Gone With the Wind” while waiting for it to happen. The Vette was sexy as hell!

“Why do they call it a sports car?” he asked, meaning he could not get a pair of skis into it. OK, so he was smart, but clearly not real bright.

For months I would wash the Corvette for him, my reward being the use of it for a day. I met my first wife by doing a handbrake turn with it in front of her dorm to pick her up. I was a senior, she a freshman, and I was positive the move had raised my sex appeal with her and every other pubescent female who made it to the window in time to see the end of the maneuver after hearing the squeal.

I don't think that included the Dorm Mother though.

Then one day he said if I washed the Vette he would let me take the bike out on my own.

I should explain that I rode in back of him a couple of times and was both scared and unimpressed. I finally figured out that I needed to lean with him and that made it marginally better, but it was small, uncomfortable, and with two aboard, not impressively quick.

Oh, what was it? A 250cc Suzuki X6 “Hustler” two-stroke. For those of you who know what that was, you know what comes next.

And yes, mine too was red
First six speed bike ever
and that was just the start of the fun

There are a number of gently rolling, gently curving back roads around Gainesville, and I tooled the bike out of town to one. Then, making sure no one was around, I stopped...put it in first, wound on the throttle and let out the clutch.

Jeeeeezzzzussss! This thing was a motor and two wheels. The only purpose of the frame seemed to be to keep the wheels from running away from the motor. My hands and feet were winding it out and shifting as fast as I could move them, my ass slid back almost off the end of the seat, and in less than 12 seconds I was zipping past startled cows at eighty miles an hour...from a 250!

A few years later, after a Yamaha 305 “Big Bear” and a rather pathetic Honda 160 “Scrambler” I owned one. From 0-30 no car or bike I ever found could stay with it (1.3 seconds and ask me how I know), and up to 60 not much besides supercars like Ferraris (yeah, right? In Florida? In 1969?) or Corvettes could come close. About 270 pounds and $749 dollars. Who needs a supercar?

Later  Kawasaki gave us the H1 500cc triple..a true "widow maker" if there ever was one, but in 1967 this was the first true Japanese super bike...the well ballyhoo'd Honda CB450 didn't come close. The X6 was .3 seconds faster to 30 and stayed right with the bigger, heavier, and almost 30% more expensive "Black Bomber" to 60.

Over the years I owned five other bikes. All were quick. Hell, the Kawasaki 350 triple was the world's fastest unicycle. Wick it on and nothing could keep the front wheel from pointing at the top of power poles. It also got such bad mileage I once ran dry on the Florida Turnpike because I refused to believe that the reserve tank really was going dry. Within six months every bit of rubber on it had rotted. The thieves who stole it off my parking pad one night actually did me a favor.

But nothing “moved me” like that X6...until I heard a Vincent pull up at Ernie's one day.

Steve Earle trusted Ernie enough to allow him to hold an early tech inspection for cars entered in the Monterey Historics at his house a couple of weeks before the event. It took pressure off both the racers and the event management to have some of the cars “pre-tech'd” this way.

So one day something pulls up next to the car I've got my head buried in and I pop up so quick I smack my head on the hood. And there sits this guy in a leather helmet and chaps on something with “H*R*D” on the side of the tank.

I knew vaguely what a Vincent was but had never seen one. Dave Malloy was then a neighbor of Ernie's, and had stopped by to see the cars. He also had a business repairing and restoring these “two wheeled Ferraris” out of his garage, a shop I was lucky enough to see when the weekend wound down.

Years later I was sitting in a cafe in Colfax with John Lewis (uh oh, there he is again!). We had been chasing and photographing a restored Western Pacific F diesel and had stopped for a bite to eat, when in walks this guy in a leather beret and chaps.

“I bet I know you,” I said.

“Not a chance,” he snarled.

“If I say the name 'Ernie Mendicki' will that change your mind?”

Stunned pause.

“Who the hell are you?” 

Once that ws cleared up Dave graciously allowed John and I to tour his new shop just outside of town. He's still there, and still restoring Vincents, as noted about 40% of the way down this page: http://www.thevincent.com/vin-suppliers.html

The photo below is not one of Dave's or his customers, but wouldn't you like to know where this little beauty is? Be patient...it's one of the other two I've known, and I'm sure more will come to light at some point. The blue fender in front of it is a hint...but I'm not going to ever tell you where it is...the owner knows too many people named "Guido."

Through the Corkscrew II

Through the Corkscrew II

It was pretty wild, in 1979, to believe I could own a Ferrari. But I swear it was that I got in with a bad crowd who led me astray. And no surprise...John Lewis was again at the head of the pack.

Sherri had gotten a job as an escrow secretary in a Title and Escrow company. This is a technical position preparing the paperwork needed to buy or sell property in California. All her work was under the supervision of an Escrow Officer, who was responsible for checking the work and actually managing the process. Of course this meant dealing with Realtors all day. And from a prior post (Whittel's Duesenbergs) we have already met John Lewis, Boy Wonder and Realtor Extrodinaire.

John was roommate with Sherri's boss, Ron Willingham. I can't imagine anyone living with John for any length of time, so I was not surprised when Sherri said Ron was moving out and John was throwing a Going Away party. It is not that John was a bad person...but I did say he was the World's Oldest Living Teenager, right? Think about it.

We had been at the party for awhile when John entered, approached us, and asked us to come outside and see his “new toy.” Though I knew John had been a “car guy” all his life I was not prepared to see a silver 1966 Ferrari 330GTC. At that time known as the most “tractable” Ferrari (whatever that meant), it sported a 4 liter Colombo designed “short” (as opposed to Lampredi engines) V12 derived from the 250 three liter, which was the most successful Ferrari motor up to that point. It also had a five speed, disc brakes, Borrani wire wheels, and was sex on tires. God it was pretty! 

John ushered us in to the car and off we went, ripping around Mariner's Island outside of San Mateo with Sherri on the transmission tunnel...innocent days, but not as challenging as the time Tom Wessling and I double dated in my Austin Healey Sprite. But I digress.

Upon return John stopped the car and turned off the ignition. Turning to Sherri he asked:

“What do you think?

“That was really cool,” she replied.

Uh oh.

John and I both started laughing.

“What's funny?” she asked, beginning to worry.

"You don't know what you just started," he said.

“Not started, just continued” I answered.

At the time I had the 914 which I had bought in 1970 of course (see “BRG to a Five Speed Brown Bag”), and a fairly new 1977 Suzuki GS750 motorcycle,

and some sort of family ride...perhaps still our 1967 VW van...our “Hippie Hotel.” I thought I had all the sports and performance machinery I would ever own, and the thought of a car bearing the “Cavallino Rampante” emblem was way beyond my means...or my dreams.

And then John introduced me to the people of the Ferrari Owners Club, Bay Area Region, to this day many who are lifelong “family” to Sherri and me, but also to our younger son...a gearhead from the day he was born. I am not making it up that his second word was an attempt to say “motorcycle.” It came out something like mocyc...but I hardly cared.

So, come a club track event down at Riverside and off we went...Bill Morton in his own GTC, John in his, Tom and Tish Thinnesen in their 246 GTS, the Joneses in their own 246, Tom and Verna Griffiths in yet another one, an attorney named Bob Epstein who we all called "Crazy Bob" in a (yes, really) 250LM, Marshall and Nancy Matthews in, best I recall, their 250 California SWB cabriolet (he was the body shop manager for Carlsen Porsche south of SF)...and a bunch of folks I'm sure I'm forgetting...perhaps a dozen or more Ferraris in all, and one aging 914 gasping to keep up as we ripped around a “Closed:Flooded” sign and tore down CA 33 paralleling I5 at some ridiculous clip. 

I think Steve Tillum, who was head of neurosurgery at Kaiser in Redwood City, was allng and driving the 275GTB/C Competitione he had just bought. On the return trip we stopped for oil for it and (it was dry sumped) it took...a case! Think there was a slight leak? 

Steve is the only guy I know who thinks his wife would like a purse made from an armadillo as a gift for him playing boy racer in a ridiculously priced car over the weekend. I never heard how that came out but I suspect not well, based on the reaction of all the women with us on the trip.

250 California

246 GTS Dino

The four cylinder 914 really is a decent 85 mph car...but we were doing 90+ and hitting well over the ton. I was rowing gears and screeching around turns as fast as I could peddle, and was barely holding my own.

I thought I had fallen in with the best drivers I had ever seen...until I drove one. At 100 a Ferrari made even my driving look good.

250LM

Of course we got stopped! Some farmer called it in as we went screaming by his place. Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what a dozen Ferrari V12s sound like at 6000+RPM? Heaven...er...LOUD!

The cop said he knew all about the track event, and that we needed to transfer over to I5 at the next intersection and keep it to 70. He drove off, did just that....and off we went at 90 down CA33 again. I guess he just gave up, or maybe thought at least we were out of earshot of that particular farmer.

275GTB/C Competitione

It was easy to make friends with these people. No snobbery and they welcomed the lowly “VW” and us with open arms. So....

I think Sherri must haver dared me to figure out how to buy it when I told her I was after a Ferrari. Since nothing but a front engined, three liter V12 would doeven though the V6 246 Dino was quite a sexy car, and beyond any 12 I could afford, this was going to be challenge. My budget left only the 2+2 and 250 Coupe as possibilities, and even the coupe would be an uncomfortable stretch.

A few weeks later a “LeSancey” grey 250 GT Pininfarina Coupe 2+2 (for such is the real name of the beast, though most have dubbed it the “GTE” for reasons that are still rather obscure and contentious) sat in our garage. Interesting timing,  as I had quit my job because of excessive travel and was out trying to sell real estate to stay afloat. A losing battle while paying for this understated, but to me very pretty, and wonderful car. 

Just the sound was poetry. Twelve cylinders, 24 valves, four exhaust pipes, three carbs, two coils, two distributors...the valve adjuster screws alone cost four bucks apiece in 1979...if you could find them. Yikes.

I was in love.

Understated Elegance
Most People Thought it was an Aston Martin

Oh yeah...this was supposed to be about the Corkscrew, wasn't it? Maybe next time. I think you can imagine, given what a Ferrari was and still is, what's coming, though maybe not next.

BRG and the Five Speed Brown Bag

BRG and the Five Speed Brown Bag

The longest single trip I made by sports car was from Gainesville, Florida to Kansas City and back in my second Austin Healey Sprite. Though my move from Miami to Las Vegas was longer, I was driving a rental truck containing “all my worldly goods” and Marcia drove the sports car, so I can't really count that adventure.

The first Sprite, as chronicled elsewhere (From A Blue Condor to Sports Cars...Part II), as usual with my luck, needed a fair amount of work. I returned it to the dealer I had bought it from for service, and dad came along to give me a ride home as it would take a couple of days to complete the work. I was standing around with my hands in my pocket...pretty glum after getting the estimate...trying to ignore the lovely new MGB and Mark III Sprite on the showroom floor and not even daring to look at the Austin Healey 3000.

Dad had a brilliant suggestion:

“Instead of spending that much fixing your car, why not buy a new one?” He asked.

I looked at him like he had sprouted horns. I had glanced at the window sticker on this green beauty, and it totaled something just short of $2000...might have had two more zeros in terms of how likely I was to come up with that. Heck, I was still struggling to figure out where I was going to get $400 to repair the “Grey Ghost” Mark II.

The new model was indeed lovely. It now had a slightly revised engine which was not only more powerful, but also was more durable. The Mark II late version Spridget had a 1098cc motor with a three main bearing crankshaft. The bearing journals measured something like 1 7/8” in diameter. But the Mark III increased the journal size to, best as I recall from memory as I am too lazy to look it up, 2”. The important thing is that this was significantly more metal and more bearing surface.

The car had much better creature comforts as well...better padded seats, and top retention at the top of the windshield that looked like it as least had a chance of staying fastened at highway speeds, unlike the “press the dot” retainers of the Mark II. Best of all it had actual windup windows.

Now, in those days, purists would turn up their noses and sniff at any car with such softness, claiming that real sports cars had side curtains. My answer was always “the you are welcome to drown using them in Florida's “liquid sunshine.” This was a place where it could, on any given day, rain at a rate of an inch an hour. Side curtains were simply a sluice, not a protection.

“Dad,” I patiently said, thinking I needed to draw attention to some facts of life his aging and addled brain had clearly forgotten, “I can't afford the $400 repair bill, so where would I ever conceive of coming up with another $1600 for the new car?”

“Who said anything about you?” He inquired. It seemed that, having achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA the prior term in college, I had finally achieved some milestone of pride for him, and he was offering to step in and buy the car for me.

Wow! Sheer heaven. A great little car, and my first new one. I was all of about 20. And floating on a cloud. 

Civilized but Still Fun

In the photo I have “improved” the aggressiveness of this little snarler by removing the grill and bumpers, and adding both Lucas “Flamethrower” driving lights and PL700 headlights (illegal in Florida at the time, BTW, even though they were much better than any approved standard US lights). Behind the Sprite is my roommate's 64 Corvette and the trailer for his motorcycle...stories for yet another day.

I had not had the car long before my 8^th grade girlfriend invited me to visit her in Kansas City. “They got some crazy little women there...” and at that time she was one of them. Candy had visited me in Gainesville right after my fiancée broke off our engagement. It rekindled our friendship but there was not that much of a romantic spark. But she left for KC and challenged me to “step outside the box” and visit. So I did, but she was involved in what hinted at some sort of manage a trois that was not even ready to think about, no less be around. The best part of the visit was riding in her new “partner's Morgan...weird as a Triumph powered wood framed car with inflatable “Whoopie Cushion” seats and metal dash that was so thin if you pushed on it it would “oil can” could be.

The trip out and back had a number of events that are only memorable for me...but one that totally freaked me out. I had stopped at a little cafe in Mississippi for lunch one day. I had parked where I could see the car from my seat at the counter...and noticed some sort of Police vehicle had stopped with his vehicle blocking me. The officer who stepped out of it looked sort of like the Sheriff in the old “Dukes of Hazard” TV show.

So “Boss Hogg” came in and asked who owned that “little furrin” car out there...his accent was thick enough to cut with a knife. I decided I'd better not play games with him and acknowledged that it was mine. At the time I was working part time as a DJ at a local Gainesville station, and in place of a front license plate, which Florida does not use, there was a radio station plate with “Gainesville, FL” and the station call letters...as well as a “Press Credential” pass in the lower corner of the windscreen.

I don't remember how long my hair was, but it was long enough to stand out among the other customers. The cop looked me over with evident disgust.

“You ain't from these parts, is you?”

“No sir.”

“Just passin' through?”

“Yessir...on my way to Kansas City.”

“Reporter?”
“Not really, just a DJ.”

“Well, we've had some issues with furrin reporters herebouts.”

He then exited and sat in his car, waiting for me to finish my meal. I decided to try and not show my discomfort, and managed to choke down enough of the food to quell my hunger and look finished, though it tasted like cardboard at that point.

He did not move his car until I was seated, belted in, and engine running. And then followed me to the next legal jurisdiction line, though I no longer remember whether that was the county or state border. I actually did not calm down until I left the state.

I kept the Sprite for many years...unusual for a car whose build quality could best be called “barely adequate.” I taught my first wife to drive in it, and even when I left Grad School and we needed a second car we kept it and it became hers. I'll never forget her telling me that, one day in Athens while stuffing her very long mini-skirted legs into it some “Southern Gentleman” yelled something at her that , only after returning to our apartment, did she realize was the epithet “HIPPIE!”

But by 1970 we really did need a second car, as our only other vehicle was my X6 Suzuki motorcycle. I somehow convinced myself I needed to be “mature” and purchased a Datsun 510 wagon:

Cute but Useless

It was kind of cute and looked practical, particularly since I envisioned its storage capacity as a plus and was thinking we could even sleep in it with the seats folded down on camping trips.

What a piece of junk. Within the 12 months we had it every single trim screw had rusted, the transmission was replaced under warranty, and so was the differential. When I traded it in I actually had to pay to get rid of it as I owed more on it than it was worth. So much for the myth of superior Japanese quality control.

In late 1969 or early 1970 the car magazines began reviewing the new “budget Porsche...” the 914 model. Available with either a 125hp Porsche 6 or a more pedestrian 85hp 4, either version, unlike the 911 and the 912 it replaced, was mid rather than rear engined, and had a five speed, electronic fuel injection,four wheel disc brakes, removable hardtop, built in crash bar for rollover protection, and two usable trunks...one of which allowing stowage of the top without sacrificing the use of the trunk!

At the time only true exotics at three or four times the cost could match it in features...names like Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Aston Martin, and none of them had all the items I just mentioned.

While the six was obviously more exciting there was no way in hell I could afford the $6500 price...even the $3600 entry level four was going to be a push...but though the press panned the four as well as the looks, even photographing the car at a low angle with the popup headlight pods open to make it look at awkward as possible (there has NEVER been a car with popups which looks good with the headlights raised)...I loved everything about it including the design...and it had those seven magic letters gracing the engine deck lid, something I thought I would never see on any car I would own.

In fact, I loved it so much I have kept it for 46 years and recently brought it back to life after many neglected years of deterioration and poorly done accident repairs. And interestingly enough, the design has stood the test of time and is beginning to attract the attention for the landmark it really was. I was true to what it deserved, and it is as original as possible. Only the side shift transaxle from a six and the removal of the ugly “hockey puck” lights on the front fenders the US required to certify the car for sale, and the correct aftermarket and rare Pedrini wheels and front lower air dam deviate from 100% 1970 "as purchased" originality. Fixing the fuel injection was challenging, but I refused to take what appeared to be the easy way out and junk the FI to install carbs. The Bosch system was the first mass market electronic (actually electro-mechanical) system in the world, and was widely used by VW, Mercedes, Volvo, and Ford, as well as other Porsches. The car deserved no less. 

The dealer did not even have one in stock for me to look at or drive. All I had for three months was a brochure that I taped to the wall of my cubicle at work...one I still have, along with the original invoice for the car.

My name finally came to the top of the waiting list. I had ordered bright blue paint with a tan interior which, over the full eight year production run would have been a rare bird indeed. White cars were virtually unavailable. But when the salesman called he said he had three cars.

“One of them is white, with the appearance group” he said ( a $200 upgrade).

“Yes,” I replied.

“One of them is white, with the appearance group” he repeated.

Pause

“Tom, what are you saying?”

“One of them...”

The only difference between the cars was the brand of tires and one did not have a radio.

Great...now I have to somehow find someone to lend me $200. Fortunately a friend at work came through, and I went to pick up my car on July 9, 1970...with its upgraded chrome bumpers, fog lights, and vinyl-trimmed crash bar. But over the years I have become very glad the car does have those upgrades as I think they add to the appearance, and the fog lights are at least marginally beneficial.

What I got was one of the very earliest 914s...in fact one of the first in the state. To this day when knowledgable experts hear the serial number and that I am the only owner of the car it generates a surprised acknowledgement of respect.

 Back then I used to keep the car under a car cover both at our rented apartment, which had no garage, or at work, whose parking was likewise exposed. Florida sun is not kind to car interiors. My first project manager, Larry Duggan, took one look at the car under this tan canvas, and dubbed it the “five speed brown bag.”

The Five Speed Brown Bag
As it looks today...very much as it did in July of 1970

From A Blue Condor to Sports Cars... Part II

From the Gold Bug to the Grey Ghost

Or

From A Blue Condor to Sports Cars... Part II

I think it is about time that I completed the story of how I finally moved from big American iron to European, albeit British...and to this date they can't seem to have figured out that they really are more a part of Europe than anyplace else in the world...sports cars.

In a Part I I had finally gotten something sporty...a 61 Corvair Monza, gold in color, with a manual transmission. Don't get me wrong, the 57 Bel Aire convertible was as sexy as it got for high school or even college, but after losing that to a monster and plain 59 Chevy I really did want something that handled better and was smaller...more like maybe an MGA. But dad still was not ready for a furrin car for me...so we, or rather he, settled on the Corvair.

It was a pretty neat little car, with an air-cooled flat six over the rear wheels pushing out 110 horses, and though it was a three speed, the shifter was on the floor where it belonged, rather than as some ridiculous appendage sticking out of the steering column.

I don't know how it happened, but my best buddy Tom got even luckier, dropping into a silver Corsa convertible. This baby had 180 exotically turbocharged horses and a four speed, and was even given the European model name of “Spyder.” Even the Monza model was often called the “Poor Man's Porsche” in the motoring press. Of course I had to make mine a bit less drab by adding a racing stripe down the middle of the car, and wiring in a tach fit into a center console I built myself. This was the first time I actually worked on any car, and even taught myself to set the timing, change plugs, replace points, and do oil and filter changes. I was way beyond the old man's steps now!

I was now in my sophomore year in college, living with my ex-dorm roomie and a buddy of his in a hellhole in downtown Gainesville. Tom Stark was tall, gangly, and among other claims to fame, had helped build the huge Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral while working a summer construction job. The building is still in use after spitting out the Saturn V moon rockets for which it was designed, as well as the Space Shuttles.

I met Tom through Donnie Russell, who had more middle names than I have fingers on at least one hand. He was a Filipino, of mixed Spanish Catholic and Tagaloc ancestry...which made him quite an exotic oddity in North Florida. Donnie...everything Anglo Tom was not. Short, dark, and with a nose Bob Hope would envy. 

When I first enrolled at the University conditions in the dorm were quite crowded, and I found that the room for two I was assigned to had been crowded with three of us. The other kid was a redneck from a hick town also called Stark...or maybe I am mixing that up with Tom's last name, though there is actually a town called that in the state. He had gotten to town first and laid claim to the single bed, leaving Donnie and I with the bunk beds the school had crammed in. I really didn't want to be sleeping under someone but I was saved the fight when Donnie cheerfully took the bottom bunk.

Bad idea...every time his alarm went off in the morning it startled him awake and he sat up before realizing he was in a bunk, smacking his forehead on my bed above him. For the first two weeks he had a deep bruise on his noggin.

Mr. Redneck took one look at Donnie, who introduced himself to me by asking me to call him “Jungle Bunny,” and within a week disappeared from the room. I never saw him again. But Donnie and I, and then as Tom was introduced, became good friends, so it was only natural that we agreed to move off campus for our next year. Since the kids lived near the Cape and thus half as far away from school as me, they chose the place...a run down two bedroom apartment with a “sleeping porch” and a fridge that was made when General electric was a private. The porch was brutally hot....until winter, when it was frigidly cold.

But I had my Corvair, which I dubbed the “Gold Bug,” and an apartment, so all was right with the world. Until the thing broke its crankshaft one night on I75 just outside of Ocala on my way back to school from a weekend in Miami. I was beginning to think my life with cars was star struck, but I really think it was that dad's heart was in the right place but his ability to judge and pay for well maintained vehicles was suspect.

When we first got the car we took it into Luby Chevrolet in Miami, and dad unwisely told the shop to “do whatever is needed” on the car. When he got the $90 bill I thought he was going to croak. But when the crank broke and the car was towed to (I'm not making this up...who could invent a name like this?) Turnipseed Motors as the closest place for a rebuild, of course he blamed me for the failure. But I was doing a steady 70 at the time, and never really overstressed or over-revved the motor.

Tom and I could have plenty of fun with our cars without doing that. Like just ripping round and round the gas pumps half a dozen times before declaring a winner and settling down to actually get fuel. Great giggles, though it all seems embarrassingly silly now.

Once the car was rebuilt I did not keep it long. I think dad believed it was jinxed and I had finally had enough of his choices. I sort of “demanded” I be allowed to buy a sports car, and said I would make the payments, though I think by then I might have been a Junior and working as a dee jay and also picking up scholarship and loan money for things like tuition. I was pretty much paying my own way through school, so he could hardly say “no,” though he did draw the line by vetoing a TR3...he thought the cut down doors would get my knuckles restyled in signaling for turns.

So what I could afford was...a grey 1974 Mk II Austin Healey...Sprite. Though small and marginally powered, this baby had everything you could want, including a lack of comfort, a top you had to hold to the windscreen with your left hand to keep from blowing off at any speed above 50, and side curtains which, if closed against the rain, would bend out at the top and sluice water directly into your lap. Add to that the joy of it dying if you plowed through a puddle too fast, and only restarted after sitting for 30 minutes while the carbs dried themselves out, and I was in heaven.

Of course, I no sooner drove it off the lot and a few miles up US 1 from South Miami towards home that the shifter refused to select any gear. Towed back to the dealer, an argument between dad and the salesman obviously ensued...finally resulting in some semi-satisfactory agreement on the repairs.

And speaking of how good it was in the rain, one night on I 75 (I spent LOTS of time on that road) it was coming down so hard that everyone had pulled to the shoulder, as you could not see the hood of your own car in front of you. There were puddles on the highway going uphill! The only thing moving was one semi...and me. I knew if I stopped the engine would die, and with that wonderful top and side curtain setup, I was also likely to drown.

God I loved that car.

1974 Mk II Austin Healey Sprite
Picture it in Dove Grey

Through the Corkscrew...On Skateboards?

Through the Corkscrew...On Skateboards?

Laguna Seca Raceway has always been like home for me. Sears Point was closer to where I lived on the San Francisco peninsula, but somehow it lacked the magic of Laguna. I doubt it was the proximity to tony places like Carmel and Pebble Beach...as those were way out of my league. Somehow it was just the beauty and peacefulness of the surrounding hills, the fog as it rolled across the paddock, the hawks circling above, and, when the racetrack shut down, just the depth of the silence.

The Corkscrew is the iconic turn of Laguna. I can pretty much guarantee that almost any photograph you have seen of any car on the racetrack will have been taken from below that left/right complex...said to be the steepest drop in the shortest distance on any racetrack in the world.

The first time I actually got to drive the course was with the old Ferrari Owners Club (FOC) in the 1970s. At that time the track was still part of an active military base...the US Army's Fort Ord, and it was not at all unusual for track events to be “serenaded” by the sound of artillery practice off in the distance.

Laguna was not, and is not now, a long track. It was enlarged from 1.9 to 2.2 miles by adding an “infield” section by turning the original second turn into a 180 degree hairpin, followed by two rights and a left to return to the old track section at was formerly turn three, with the turns connected by short straights.. While the track is highly technical, there is no longer the sheer terror that was turn three, and the infield section is about the only flat part of the entire track.

Pre 1987 Configuration

But there is still plenty of terror to be had, since a “bad day” at what is now turn 6 can put you in a tree overlooking Salinas, and the Corkscrew remains, as it always was, intimidating to the unfamiliar, and a place that could still bite no matter what your level of experience.

Laguna Today

The first time I came up to the top of the hill...heck, for the first few hundred times, I knew that turn 7 was a slight jog to the right and that unless you got really stupid all you had to do was then aim straight for the big oak behind the left which starts the complex, and then stick your foot to the floor as you turned right, and the track rose up to “stick” the car to it, actually gaining traction as well as the speed you might expect from going so steeply downhill. At least that is the theory with my car.

But that is what my mind told me...my eyes and stomach told me I might be wrong about the jog, I might not have gotten on the brakes before the crest, which would put me into the wall, and maybe the unseen first left really wasn't where I thought it was.

Even after I thought I “knew” the turn and could take it well, I still often had to catch my breath quickly as the downhill speed made the off camber next turn come at me a lot faster than my mind could catch up with.

So the Corkscrew could be...interesting.

At first the Monterey Historics were a one day affair, with the Ferrari Club taking over the track for a club day on Sunday, which was and remains the day of the Pebble Beach Concours, already by the 70s one of the premier events of its kind in the world. So much so, in fact, that Steve Earle was soon asked to add a second day to the races in the hopes it would somewhat alleviate the crowds. It didn't.

In fact, Steve next added a club race the weekend before the Historics, partly as a practice opportunity for those Historic entrants unfamiliar with Laguna, and also as a sort of “consolation” for folks who were not accepted to the “Invitation Only” event that the Historics quickly became. Naturally this event was quickly dubbed the “Prehistorics.”

When the Historics went to two days, the FOC club day then moved to Monday. Things continued to spiral upward until what was the Monterey Weekend became the Monterey Week, with parties, multiple auctions, and car shows by the handful.

After the Historics there is an awards party for the participants, which I mentioned in an earlier piece. And then for some folks not wanting to face the congested traffic on Highway 68, or who just needed more time to unwind, or who were staying around for the FOC event the next day, there were clusters of barbecue groups in the paddock which ran for hours. But by not long after dark most of the racers, spectators, and crews had left, leaving a small contingent of the Tifosi.

Most club events in those days were run by volunteers; the members of the club. Even the Historics had volunteers for many functions. For example, I was a volunteer technical inspector who, along with others, was responsible for clearing entered cars in terms of safety and conformance to the required rules. At other events I have also been a flagman for signaling on corners, and a grid marshall responsible for “herding” the cars into position prior to their race.

So it was not at all unusual that, on this occasion, I was in possession of the combination and keys to the locks on the gates controlling entrance to the actual track. The gates were chained and locked, but it was possible to pull the chains apart enough to slip through.

There was a group of perhaps a dozen of us finishing up our dinners. Among our numbers were several children, ranging in age from perhaps six or seven, up into their teens. This included our own boys, who were about ten and sixteen at the time.

We never really worried about the kids having the run of the place in those days. It was a really benign environment and besides, where could they go? The older boy was not really into cars, while the younger one grew up with oil instead of blood in his veins. So of course it was the older one who wandered off someplace with John Lewis Junior...an apple not far from his dad's tree if there ever was one.

Suddenly out of the dark we heard this double “swooossshh” sound, seeming to come from the hill upon which is the scoring trylon...and beyond that the Corkscrew. It only occurred once, but about fifteen minutes later the two appeared, with skateboards under their arms. Their faces were literally as white, in the moonlight, as a sheet of paper.

“You didn't,” I muttered in horror and hope.

“Thank goodness we were sitting down,” was all Jason said in response.

Bet they have the record time for that little stunt...perhaps the only time it was run.

Whittell's Deusenbergs

Whittell's Deusenbergs

No, I have never driven, ridden in, nor wrenched on a Deusenberg, so you might wonder what this story is doing on this blog. To confuse you more, the emphasis of my writing is about sports cars, and it is at first difficult to equate something as big as a modern heavy duty pickup truck with that term.

But in 1930 America a Deusenberg was a sports car by the standards of the day and the country. So rare as to be exotic, with a production run in the hundreds not thousands, beautifully built, and with extreme 100mph+ performance in an era where most cars could barely do 55, it was the American equivalent to what Ferrari became after WWII.

And I have a personal link to two of them.

Anyway, these pages will, no doubt, contain many John Lewis stories, and this is only one of the more outrageous. John grew up on the San Francisco peninsula when it consisted mainly of farms. In fact he had a “farm vehicle” vehicle driving permit at 14 as many kids needed to help the family by driving various pieces of equipment about. Thus, John told me, the first car he showed up at high school in was a 1919 Rolls Royce. But I never saw a picture of the car, and John's stories were usually so over the top that I doubted them from the start...but every one of them which could be confirmed turned out to be true. Really annoying.

John's dad was a big wig tax attorney whose clients included the founder of Bank of America, and Sam Goldwyn of MGM. In fact, John claimed that he and his sister once had Clark Gable and Carol Lombard babysit them while his dad talked business with Goldwyn. I suppose I could have confirmed that whopper with his sister, but since Joyce was a crazy as John I would be suspicious of the veracity of that confirmation anyway, and of course there was no other way to check the story.

With John's interest in cars he had learned that one of his dad's clients had five or six Deusenbergs, and lived in the town of Woodside. George Whittell was, I was told, the single largest shareholder in the Auburn, Cord, Deusenberg company and a personal friend of E.L. Cord. He was quite a character, but you can read about him elsewhere so I won't go into a lot of detail here. But one pertinent item is that he was then confined to a wheelchair...and John's explanation was that Whittell's pet lion knocked him down and Whittell was afraid to go to the hospital as the lion would then likely be impounded, so he “self-medicated” and the broken bones never healed correctly. 

Well...at least it is a fact that Whittell did have a lion, which he use to take for walks through downtown Menlo Park.

This is probably the most unusual of the Whittell Deusenbergs. The photo was copied from this site: http://theoldmotor.com/?p=160291. The photo itself resides at the ACD Museum in Auburn, Indiana (you can see their logo at the bottom of the photo). 

While accurate as far as it goes, there is more information about the car that is interesting. It was displayed at the Chicago Worlds Fair, and had some unique features, including a body that was narrowed so much it required eliminating the door panel upholstery and, according to John, needing customized curved glass windows in order to fit the narrowed windshield, which Whittell researched since Buehrig did not think anyone could make them. They were also, very unusual for the time, tinted. Removing the door panels was necessary to allow enough clearnace to get the driver's hands aournd the steering wheel.

John said Whittell did not drive the car much. Supposedly a friend said it looked like a cow, which put George off. It died on him out in the woods above Redwood City and, in frustration, John said Whittell put a bullet through the block, requiring Beuhrig to have the car sent back to Auburn to be repaired.

John used Christmas cards to Whittell to “soften him up” for a visit to see the cars. Whittell finally called John and asked why he kept sending the cards, and young Mr. Lewis wangled an invitation to the estate. A tour of the barn where the cars were kept, in a rather sad state of deterioration, then occurred, and Whittell mused that he would like to take one more ride down Caňada Road at 100mph...and did John think he could restore the car for that trip?

John, being no dummy and with more enthusiasm than ability, of course said “sure.” Some time later the job was finished, though I never learned who did the actual work. Based on what I saw of John's car maintenance skills I doubt it was him. The butler then put Whittell into the car and off they went.

Upon return to the mansion Whittell supposedly told John “that was fun. The car is yours.”

Aww...c'mon. That has to be the biggest bullshit story ever, right? I certainly thought so, even when John showed me the Road and Track salon article on the car when it appeared at Pebble Beach. What he showed me was a reprint and not the original magazine, and to me the lettering of his name looked a little wonky, so I thought he had gotten one of those “we print anything” places to phony up the piece. Enter Ernie Mendicki.

Ernie was my greatest car mentor. He knew everyone and everything about cars, and when he died his widow and I, in preparing a retrospective for the Palo Alto Concours, figured he had owned 103 rare and exotic cars over his lifetime, including a number of very special Ferraris. There will, no doubt, be much more about Ernie in future posts.

I thought Ernie and John were in collusion about pulling my leg regarding the car. Ernie said they met when John joined the Air Force and got assigned to Castle Air Base outside Merced. One day Ernie was driving on a dirt road in his Oakland Roadster, a brand which morphed into Pontiac, when the Deusenberg and John went by in the opposite direction. Both cars screeched to a halt and backed up to parallel each other.

“I know every car in the county,” said Ernie. “Who the hell are you?”

“I'm John S. Lewis and I'm looking for a garage space to rent for this car,” came the reply.

“Well, I'm Ernie Mendicki and I just happen to have a space for rent,” Ernie exclaimed.

That is how it came about that the wheels for the car were prepped and polished on Ernie's kitchen table prior to the Pebble Beqch show...or so he said.

Ernie said he always liked John because, being five or so years younger, John never treated him like a kid. I doubt that, because John was nothing if not the world's oldest living teenager and thus treated everyone, including himself, like a kid. They used to double date in the car, and while I'm sure Ernie was more svelt when he was a teenager, he was a big boy, and the thought of him and a date in the rumble seat of the Boattailed speedster is something I just can't wrap my head around.

John later sold the car to someone in NY, and after air freighting it there drove through Manhattan to an unmarked building in a sketchy neighborhood to deliver it, via rollup doors and a private elevator which took him to a floor of red carpets, velvet ropes, and a number of fabulous cars. He was paid in cash as the buyer said his wife knew nothing about the collection.

At this point I was looking for hip waders and a shovel as the BS was getting too deep to handle. Until, that is, I was at his sister's cabin outside Sequoia Park one Thanksgiving and, among the family photos on the wall in the hallway, I'll be damned if there wasn't one of the Deusenberg with John behind the wheel and Joyce standing on the running board. The darned story was true! 

Ernie was a master model builder, and here is a model he built of the car which I got after Ernie died, put together from a kit but with hand made boat tail and other details Ernie added, including the meticulously painted license plates with the correct letters and numbers from when John owned it.

This is the highly accurate model of John's car
Ernie Built

There's more about the car...it wound up going to the owner of the LA Times, who then invited John down to go over the car with him, paying John back by renting Riverside Raceway and “playing race cars” for a day with him. I thought that too was a tall tale till my copy of Rider magazine came a few months later. The feature article on Otis Chandler and his Toys showed the man sitting on a black and white checkerboard floor, in front of the Deusenberg.

By this time I was learning to listen more closely to John's rantings, in both wonder and sheer terror.

From a Blue Condor to Sports Cars...Part I

From a Blue Condor to Sports Cars...Part I

The thing had a wingspan a California Condor would envy. It was a ridiculous looking car in a year of ridiculous looking cars, the most extreme of which was the 1959 Cadillac El Dorado convertible. My somewhat subdued 57 Bel Aire succumbed to too many mechanical issues to justify saving what was then a seven year old car in an era where the average car lifespan was six.

BTW...I really want that Cadillac. In white with a red and silver interior of course. At this point in my life 1959 didn't seem so bad, and that “in your face” tail and flamboyance was about the last hoorah of American innocence.

Dad didn't ask my opinion, but what showed up in the drive was a four door 59 Chevy...and a lowly Biscayne at that. This thing, in dark blue, was about as Plain Jane as it gets. However, it was nothing if not commodious...about the length of a modern four door, long bed pickup.

A Winged Wonder

But those wings! Absolutely the world's largest sea gull. But as a Gainesville-Miami ferry for up to six college kids with luggage it got the job done...that is until it didn't and became a torch on the Florida Turnpike one night.

I was returning from a weekend home with three or four kids when the car suddenly began to slow down from the steady and legal 70 I had been doing for something like 200 miles. I pulled off on the shoulder and got out to see why, but with my then lack of car knowledge I might as well have been looking at a picture of the car...I didn't even think to open the hood.

Finding nothing obvious, we motored on, and then the car slowed to the point it ground to a stop. This time all of us exited and the symptom, though not the problem, became obvious. The left rear brake drum glowed cherry red for a moment...and then burst into flames. Apparently this baby had not received exactly top notch care and the wheel bearings went dry and then collapsed. Yikes!

We didn't even get our luggage out as the fire rapidly devoured the whole car. It was quite a blaze, lighting up the sky for miles. A lone big rig stopped but unfortunately did not have an extinguisher, though by that point it would have done little good.

The Highway Patrol finally arrived and, after radio calls back to the nearest sub station and patched discussions it was gleaned that there was a Greyhound coming through (don't laugh too hard, it's Florida after all) a place called Yeehaw Junction that was routed through Gainesville. But to make the connection the officer had the cruiser up to 120 except when he had to slow down for a radio call in order for the caller to not hear the wind noise and thus know that he was illegally driving way over the limit with civilians aboard. At that point the speed far exceeded anything I had experienced.

The other kids made the bus; mom and dad ferried one of the Corvairs up; and I motored back to school in that. Obviously a new ride was in order, and while totally freaked out I was not at all sad to be rid of the sea gull. What appeared next was a sort of transition to sports cars...yet another Corvair, but this time a cool Monza coupe which even had a manual tranny with a floor shift. Heck, I didn't even mind that it was only a three speed. It might not have been a true European sports car, but it was a heck of a lot closer than a Chevy Biscayne. 

From a For Sale Listing