Scuderia di Pietra
By the
late 1980s or early 1990s the Stein household had a stable of nine
cars and a motorcycle stashed around the San Carlos property. But
before I speak about that I should explain the title of this piece.
For a
few years I belonged to an Italian language practice group out of
Sacramento. It was started by, and had many members who, are Italian
ex-pats or US citizens who nonetheless all spoke fluent Italian.
Digressing a bit (here we go again! Watch out!)...the national
Italian language is pretty much based on the dialect of a single
region...Tuscany. The 15 regions which make up the united Italy all
have their own dialects, and that of one can be all but
unintelligible to the citizen of another. It was Dante who is largely
responsible for the Latin “vulgate” spoken by the common people
of his native Florence ultimately becoming accepted as a common
national language, as he was one of the first to write in this
dialect rather than “High” Latin.
Anyway...while
the members of the language groups came from all over Italy, they all
were required to learn the national language, and the group came
together both so they could keep up their skills and also to share
the beauty of Italian with novices such as me...I got hooked on “La
Bella Lingua” and much else about the country (not the least of
which is their passion for and creations of things automotive) with
my first of what is now more than half a dozen trips to the country
dating back almost 20 years.
Patrizia
was the head of the group, and she insisted that each of us
non-Italians not only speak as much as possible only in that
language, but that we be given names which were Italian translations
or as close as could be made (she never did figure out what to do
with the name “Sherri” as there is literally nothing close in
Italian). So it was natural that I be dubbed “Martino.”
I added
the Di Pietra myself as a result of something the teacher of an
online music appreciation course I took named Robert Greenburg said.
As a way of illustrating the beauty of Italian and how well it lent
itself to music, he mentioned that he would much rather be known by
the melodic Italian equivalent of his name...”Roberto Monteverdi,”
literally “Green Mountain”...the same thing meant by “Green
Burg” in German. From there it was easy for me to turn the meaning
of “Stein” in German (“stone”) to “Pietra,” the Italian
version. I added the “Di” (“of”) just because it made the
sounds flow better.
So...back
to cars and such. I had the 914 of course, since that had been with
me since 1970. When we came to California in 1974, between the four
adults we had a Plymouth Road Runner, a 73 VW “Super” Beetle, a
Honda 350, and my Suzuki 550 Triple two-stroke. But when things came
apart the Plymouth and Honda went with Shelly and the VW bumped down
the road with Marcia. While I was sad to see her
go
I can't say I would miss that car.
We
had sold my 66 MkIII Spridget before leaving Florida. It just did not
make sense to bring it cross-country, and I'm not really sure it
would even have made it. Those cars just were not up to high mileage
regular use, and it was starting to show neediness. Once in Vegas we
purchased a 72 Beetle, which was a pretty solid little car.
But
again, moving to California, it seemed smarter to sell it and then
get another one once in the Golden State. V-dubs were certainly
plentiful and there was nothing particularly endearing about the 72
versus its 73 replacement. The 72 had been hit by some young girl
running a traffic signal, which was one more reason to not keep it.
But the 73, despite having more trunk space in the “Super”
version, somehow seemed to have lost the soul the Bug was known
for...and it was not long after that the model, the most successful
single car model in history, became just that...history.
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| Sun Yellow in Sunny Las Vegas |
So Sherri was without a car...but then Sherri was not working either.
Even when she got her first job I could still drop her off and pick
her up from her office in San Mateo on my way to and from the City.
Odd though it seems now, the computer company I worked for had
offices on Battery Street, and a dedicated parking lot free for
employees north of Broadway near Levi Strauss headquarters.
Of course this “solution” could not continue forever, which is
how the 67 VW van mentioned in an earlier blog (“Cars Suck”) came
into the picture. (“I'll still get up and make your lunch if we buy
the car for me,” she said. Yeah, right?). Before Sherri found work
she would sometimes take the train into the City and meet me for
lunch. And in those happy-go-lucky days we even once made love in the
914 (surprising how much room there is in that thing) as it sat under
a car cover (I always kept it thus covered when parked)...resulting
in startling a couple of folks as we crawled out from under it in a
rather funky and disheveled state after (God, it was HOT under there,
in more ways than one).
Which reminds me of the time I was working late and she met me for
dinner, after which sitting on the boss's couch for a business
meeting always gave me a case of the giggles.
But I digress...
In 1977 the 550 got traded for the second year of the first four
stroke Suzuki..the GS750, also pictured in an earlier post. I put
over 40,000 miles on that wonderful ride before deciding that most of
what I was doing was commuting to work on it in what was becoming
pretty sketchy driving and traffic. But I did used to get some of my
very own odd looks when I stripped off my helmet and leathers and
stashed them in the side cases, revealing me in all my three piece
business suited splendor. This was just as the so-called “Montgomery
Street” group of banker/bikers were getting started, and business
suited motorcyclists were not a common sight in the Financial
District. Until the City finally got smart and put in dedicated cycle
parking we all used to park on the sidewalks. Generally the Cops left
us alone, but every so often one got a wild hair up his nose and
ticketed me.
I
suppose the next vehicle to come along was the Ferrari...in 1979.
That story is told elsewhere, but suddenly I was among people who had
actual collections
of
cars, so the accumulation did not seem at all strange. The family car
had, by then, become a 77 Oldsmobile 88 with, of all things, a red
velour interior and (yuch!) a silver vinyl top, matching the car's
paint. What was
I thinking?
On
top of being just, well, totally BORING, Adin was an infant at the
time and somehow a bottle of his milk got “lost” in the cavernous
interior of the beast for a few days. We never did get the smell of
sour milk totally erased.
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| 18 feet of American Obesity Our garage was 17 feet deep |
Ernie
gave me the impetus for the next additions. When he was a teen his
father made his approval of a driver's license contingent on a shared
purchase of a Model A Ford...a total outlay back then of $50.
The
deal was that only after Ernie disassembled and then restored the
entire car could he get permission to drive. It took him a year and a
half and in the process he learned to do everything from mechanical
work to upholstery.
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| I don't really know what Ernie's looked like But given his skill and interest I somehow picture it coming out like this when he was finished |
I
thought the story such a great idea that I asked both kids what cars
they wanted. By then Jason was around 16 and Adin was 10. Jason is
not really a “car nut” but found the funkiness of the Crosleys
he'd seen at club events attractive, so we purchased an “all there
but needs total going through” 52 wagon from Dick Scanlan.
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| I only wish my restoration looked as good |
Adin,
of course, having grown up around racing and cars and thoroughly
inhaling their seduction, chose something a bit more...well, put a
name to it...a Sebring Sprite.
These
were official factory racers which ran the 12 hour event from about
1960 through later in that decade. He was familiar with the one raced
back then by Bob Thulander. However, at the time it was a $20,000
car, so I told him to pick something a bit less exotic, like a normal
Bugeye. I ran across a one owner California car in an ad, being sold
by the son of a career military man stationed at Moffett Field who
had passed away. It was one of my staff who talked me into
immediately leaving work to look at it. For $1800 left me by an aunt
we had a running Sprite in peeling British Racing Green paint,
overlaying the original white.
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| Butch Gilbert Restoration at Fantasy Junction |
The Crosley was my second rebuild (the Siata story is detailed
elsewhere), and my success with it was not much better than the first
effort. Adin actually helped me on it more than Jason did. The older
boy kept the car through college and then sold it.
The
Sprite was a different story entirely. I garaged it for many years
and kept it running, finally telling Adin it was time for him to
takeover about ten years ago. He totally stripped and restored it to
a very high standard. Here's how it looks today:
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| Obviously I'm proud of his work 100 Point restoration Seems some of me rubbed off on him |
So at that point, before moving the Crosley up to Chico when Jason
went to school there, we had six cars (Sprite, Crosley, Oldsmobile,
Porsche, Ferrari, and Siata), and the Suzuki cycle. But I wasn't done
yet.
If I was going to race the Siata I obviously needed a trailer, as it
is not “street legal.” Tom Thinnesen had designed a neat,
lightweight open unit for his Lola; a tilt-bed which allowed the car
to be winched onto it without the need for additional ramps. I got a
copy of his plans and had the same builder do one for me. At first I
towed it with the Oldsmobile, but realized quickly that it would be
better to have something like a small pickup in order to be able to
carry the needed “care and feeding” stuff required for races, as
well as perhaps to sleep in at the track.
Bill
Morton just happened to have a one year old Toyota with a shell over
the bed that would do nicely, It would also allow me to “retire”
the 914 as a daily driver.
So
I was now up to seven.
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| 21 mpg pulling a race car on an open trailer Simpler times |
The Toyota and Olds were parked along the curb in front of our house.
The Ferrari and Siata lived in the garage. The other vehicles were
stashed in various lean-tos and sheds I built in two paved side
yards. Thus everything was behind fences and “under cover” so
looking at our small, 4500 square foot lot, there was no sense of the
madness within.
And then I wrecked the Siata, a story I may (or may not) relate at
another time...or have I already? At any rate, while it was being
rebuilt I decided it would be good to have something else to put “on
track” lest I lose my nerve. I had grown quite attracted to the
purity of open-wheeled racers and their simplicity, lacking most of
the bodywork that so often is in the way of making the job of working
on a car easy.
Thus
came the Quantum FJ (Formula Junior).
I will provide more detail about this unique ride some other time,
but the point here is this was the eighth vehicle (ninth if you
include the trailer) somehow stashed on the Stein homestead a few
blocks from the center of San Carlos.
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| The purest form of the automobile And the best paint job I ever did |
And
then there was number nine...and a half. Gary Winiger and I got the
crazy idea of trying to build a two stroke Saab semi-rally-like 96
sedan with which to outrage the vintage community. What we were
thinking of was something like this, from a recent article on the
“Bring a Trailer” web site:
What
we actually acquired was two Monte Carlo “rollers” and (here we
go again) a bunch of boxes of parts. One car “lived” at Gary's
with the idea it was to be a parts donor, while the other one came to
San Carlos for me to work on. We ran out of enthusiasm well before
the project was well started, and eventually sold them BACK to the
guy we got them from to begin with. His plan was to make one into his
daily driver, but I have sort of lost track of the status of that
project.
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| It would have been fun But energy and time were lacking We would have been better off just buying one already restored like this |
And that, dear children, is how daddy quickly got things out of
control. The lesson was that it is easier to buy them than build them
and keep them running.
Fortunately
sanity gradually reasserted itself, and at present we are “down to”
a mere five cars and a trailer. And one of the cars (the MG racer) is shared with Adin.
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| A Work in Progress If the kid ever gets the time to work on it |
Well, there is that Venture 21 sailboat and trailer too, but that
doesn't count, does it? And Adin did need a place to store HIS
trailer without continuing to spend $200 a month to do so, right? And
the Lance camper was a good and practical way to be comfortable and
save money by not staying in motels and eating out all the time at
race weekends.
And yes...I still do have the damned old derelict Suzuki.
Sigh...
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