So Why Did I
Sell That Car?
Hanging
around the Ferrari Club was fun...I came to love the people, many of
whom became casual, though lifelong, friends. I should explain
that...as many of them moved into Vintage Racing I followed along,
purchasing the Siata and starting to participate while the sport was
still quite young...the mid 1980s. But without the unifying and
local Bay Area focus of the FOC, I generally only connected with
these folks at races, and since I only did the local events at Laguna
or Sears Point, even in my most active racing years this was no more
than perhaps five times a season. There were exceptions of course,
with whom I built closer relationships, first among them being Ernie,
with Gary W. a close second. And though I did not see the rest very
often, for me as well as Adin they became and will always remain
“family.”
Hanging
around was fun, but there was the delusion which set in at some
point, convincing me I could actually acquire one of the magnificent
machines needed for club membership. I lusted after something
sexy...if not a short wheelbase California then at least a Cabriolet.
 |
| 246GTB For Some Reason I Love Them in Yellow Should be badged as a Dino and not a Ferrari |
I
was fixated on a front engined, V12 model, as to me this was the most
famous and successful motor Ferrari had built, one which dominated
the sports car racing circuits from the first LeMans winning 250
Sport of 1952, owned even then by Ernie
to the radical for its
time pontoon fendered Testa Rossa of the later 50s,
the SWB (pic)
and the all conquering
GTO of 1962-63,
ending finally with the
scam of the 250LM, a 3.3 liter mid engined car (thus really a 275 and
not a 250) Ferrari tired unsuccessfully to pass of f as a
continuation of the GTO.
 |
| The First 3 liter Ferrari The 250 Sport Mille Miglia Assigned Number 1952 and c1982 Bob Rubin and Ernie Mendicki, Piloti |
 |
| My first instructor and good friend David Doing what he did so well in his 250TR Testa Rossa (from Tam's Old Car Site) |
 |
| 250 GTO About $100 million in this shot |
 |
| 250LM 1965 LeMans Winner |
That,
unfortunately, eliminated one of
the sexiest cars ever...the 246GT(pic).
While I still could not manage the “S” or open version, the coupe
was selling for the same $10,000 as the car I ultimately bought, a Le
Sancey grey (the official factory name for a mildly metallic paint
that was not glaringly silver) 250GT Pininfarina Coupe 2+2. Quite an
awkward moniker for a car that is anything but.
While
panned by arm chair wannabe pundits and those who can afford today's
models (though rarely by the true collectors who have those landmark
cars mentioned above), let's look at what the automotive press
thought of the car in its day...as discussed in this R&T
road test of 1962 which I pulled out of my archives when I decided to sell the car.
 |
| The R&T test of the Series I 250 "GTE" |
I
want to “tell stories” in this article, but first I want to
feature my own car, as noted in the ten shots at the end of the post. Note that the
grill does not match that in the article. Nor do the headlight
surrounds, the dash, and the rear lights. Though these cars were
built as production models, they came out in three series. The
article features the earliest variant, mine was the last. There were
954 cars in all-the largest production of a single Ferrari model at
the time, and that production was evenly split between all three
series. In addition, though I do not know the early history of my
car, it was clearly first sold in Italy, as all the legends on the
metric gauges is in Italian. Though by the third series the overdrive
no longer shared the same oil as the transmission, my car nonetheless
did have a rare option...electric windows. In all these years I have
only seen one other with the feature.
Convincing
Sherri we could indeed afford the car was a challenge...solved by
leasing it (Ferrari “buddies” are all too happy to help provide information on ways to divest
you of your money), though I bought out the lease a couple of years
later when our finances allowed.
And
then...a couple of days after purchase...the motor put a rod through
the block.
But
not before I accumulated my first (and only) speeding ticket in it. I
had packed a young guy who worked for me and his wife and kid into
the back seat and took them for a ride on Caῇada
Road, which parallels I280 on the SF peninsula. As I floored it and
wound to about 85 in third I was hit with
LIGHTS!!!!!
RED
AND BLUE FLASHING SIGNALS!!!!
A
FREAKIN' ROADBLOCK!!!
Seems
I had stumbled into a setup of multiple county sheriff units waiting
to nab participants in the regular Saturday night teen drag race. The
cop was actually laughing as he approached the car-I naturally just
took my foot out of it and immediately pulled over as soon as the set
came to life. When he accused me of doing “Warp 3” I held my
tongue to avoid bragging that I wasn't even wound out totally in
third, and had another gear plus that overdrive (I dispute the claim
that the car was faster in fourth than OD, though I am not going to
tell how I know. Quicker, yes...faster, no).
As
noted in the article the car was totally docile to drive and you
could indeed drive away from 10MPH in 4th.
Hell, you could even (in first) just take your foot off the clutch,
feed it no gas at all, and it would burble happily away. But the fact
that there was no redline painted on the tach should have made you
aware there was something else going on here. How big are your...cash
holdings?
While
0-60 in 7 (not 8 as in the article) is mundane today, that was far
from the case in 1963. And look what happens after
60.
From there to 100 was 17 seconds. The faster it went the faster it
seemed to want to go...and it never lost the solidity and poise which
makes driving a true GT such joy.
Then
there were those brakes...Lockheed discs on all wheels, with a weird
extra slave cylinder between the two front ones and vacuum boost. No
matter what the speed the damn thing stopped in an absolutely
straight line no matter how hard you stood on them. And don't think
it tried to stand on its grill, either. No squat, no dive, no drama.
And no car I have driven since gave me the same sense of solid,
modulate-able control.
Sooo...we
were taking a ride to Santa Cruz one weekend...kids in the back seat,
Sherri by my side. Jason looks like he is about ten in the photo
Sherri has in an album...maybe as old as 12 (he was a slow grower
until he hit about 14 so it's hard to tell)...and Adin looks like
maybe 4-6. I, of course, disdained Highway 92 to Half Moon Bay and
instead opted for the far more challenging, and convoluted, route up
Kings Mountain Road and down to Pescadero. Stop at the top required
so the kids (well, I think mainly Adin) to recover their cookies...or
at least to keep them from losing them.
Swoop
down the other side of the mountain to the sea, then down an open ans
widening Highway 1 to the outskirts of Santa Cruz, whereupon I backed
down from my 100MPH+ pace....to a more sedate 50 or so outside of
town. Both kids immediately awakened, and Jason asked why we were
going so slow.
Indeed.
By
that time Sherri had figured out the metric speedometer dial. Try as
I might to convince her that an indicated 160 was not all that fast,
she was onto the gag and told me that 100 was a bit too enthusiastic.
Spoil
sport.
I
guess I should explain the rod-through-block. Seems the prior owner
had somehow gotten lost during his last oil change and only put in
two of the ten (yes, that is not a typo...Ferraris were more oil than
water cooled back then) quarts the sump held...and then said that,
despite an ad claiming all the gauges worked, upon questioning, that
the oil pressure always read zero. But then I did not pull the
dipstick either, being so anxious to get the car that I was all but
stepping on my tongue. Naive idiot and a lost law suit...though the
fact that the guy and the judge were on a first name basis wasn't an
issue, was it? Nah...not even when he said “you have to expect
these things when you buy exotic machinery?' Really? So Ferrari
became famous in racing...by engines self-destructing?
The
current version of the club still runs a hillclimb in Virginia City
each September. Back then the FOC partnered with the Cobra Club for
the event. I don't know whether that is still the case. It is the
most dangerous course I ever hope to have been on, but I was too
stupid to know it then. As it says on the map,
it
is 5.1 miles long and climbs 1200 feet. The map also shows the 20
twists and turns but, though it is a topographical map, it does not
show the hard rock cliffs on your right as you climb, nor the sandy
embankments and 400' drops on the left. Oh...and that mild looking
turn 17 is literally a potential killer. It had negative camber, and
other than a scenic overlook on the outside, there is nothing between
you and California but a lot of nasty downslope.
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| Believe me, it's nastier than it looks Turn 17 is deceptively evil |
The
times I inked on were from my runs in 1980...but not all five
of
them. You see a dash between run 2 and 3? That dash was me spinning
180 degrees into that scenic overlook. Of course I did not tell
Sherri...I'm not that
stupid.
I screwed up, had no idea how, and you note my “back off”
comment...from then on the turn became a second gear event to be
treated very cautiously and not with the third gear enthusiasm which
resulted in that 4:51 time and a class win. While 64 MPH average may
not seem that fast, look again at those turns and remember this is a
carbureted car which starts out with 240 Italian ponies at sea level
and is now trying to muscle its way up 1200 feet, starting from over
4000 feet above that sea.
At
the awards banquet Sunday night Jules Moritz came up to ask what the
noise and smoke was from me on Saturday. Nice guy, huh? Sherri gave
me the ol' stink eye and said “Weren't going to tell me, eh?'
“Nothing
to tell,” I said. “I screwed up, I don't know how, it was over,
and I'm not going to do it again.” While I did (I think) run the
event again, I kept that promise...like I said, it became a second
gear turn.
You
might miss a couple of interesting things about the course. The line
starting from the lower left is the boundary between Lyon and Storey
Counties. Also note the dotted line? That is the return downhill to
the start line. Like the course, which is on the closed truck route,
that road crosses the county line. It was always a giggle to bbe coming back down that, in a car with numbers on the doors and wearing a helmet, stuffed in between two "Ma and Pa" motorhomes. The looks on those folks faces was just priceless.
The logistics of running the event involves two county supervisory boards, two sheriff's departments, the state highway authority, and the highway patrol. No small deal. I once accompanied Doug Fonner, who was president of the Bay Area Region of the FOC at the time, to manage some of this. It was a very long day. And of course we all took turns manning corners for hour-long shifts, with a full complement of flags. More about that later.
The logistics of running the event involves two county supervisory boards, two sheriff's departments, the state highway authority, and the highway patrol. No small deal. I once accompanied Doug Fonner, who was president of the Bay Area Region of the FOC at the time, to manage some of this. It was a very long day. And of course we all took turns manning corners for hour-long shifts, with a full complement of flags. More about that later.
The
first time I ran the event, which may or may not have been in 1980, I
vividly recall that the route was up the very highway we now live
just off...CA88. In fact, I can swear that Sherri and I met up with a
group running up the hill in front of the police station/city hall in
Sutter Creek. Perhaps that was on the trip where we spent the night
in the Murphys Hotel? Too many years, too many events.
Anyway,
we were with perhaps six other cars. Recall that Nevada either still
did not have speed limits outside the cities in 1980, or perhaps it
was that they did not enforce any. At any rate, CA88 become NV88 at
the border, and also becomes a long, very gradual downhill straight
many miles long before you hit the towns of Minden and Gardnerville.
Bill
and Judy Morton were ahead of us in their silver 330GTC when we
crossed out of California...and apparently into hyperspace. At 120 I
was still loosing ground rapidly to Bill, and at 145 indicated my car
was topped out.
I
caught the group at the stoplight in Minden. “Silly me,” I
shouted. “I thought the event started tomorrow!”
I think I did the event at least
three times, each time “caravaning” with a small group of cars. I
recall one time we went up CA4, a route that is actually so twisty it
is not all that much fun to drive. And we always stopped somewhere
just at or after the top of whatever pass we were on, for lunch and a
leg-stretch. Everyone brought picnic stuff to share, and some of
this, being Ferrari folk, was much beyond PB&J sandwiches. In
fact, an award called the “Wretched Excess” award became at least
an informal running joke...it sort of got out of hand when Tom and
Teresa Jones somehow stuffed sterling silver (including candelabras),
crystal glasses, linen tablecloths, lobster, and drawn butter into
their yellow 246GTS.
John Lewis was campaigning his AC
Bristol, featured in an earlier blog, by then. Sherri and I were
taking a shift on the hill during his run, with the full complement
of signaling flags mentioned above. The most important of these were
yellow for caution, and red for stop. The event is a time trial, so
there is not wheel-to-wheel competition. It is you, within your
class, against the clock. But to expedite things for the large number
of entrants, a following car is started on the course before the
preceding car finishes its run...in theory far enough behind that, no
matter how fast the second car is, it is impossible to catch the
first car in 5.2 miles. Unless something goes wrong with the first
car that is. Thus in reality the only flag that matters is red and
green, since for safety an incident of any time requires totally
shutting down the course until it is cleared. The green allows any
cars on the course to restart, though except at the start line it
would be used for a restart along with the yellow, so drivers would
proceed to the top of the hill under non-racing speeds.
I think it was at turn 4 where
John lost it...though just enough to kiss the outside wall of rock.
Not good for the car, but not life threatening. We clearly heard the
scrunch and saw the dust it raised. However, storming up the hill
behind John was 1966 SCCA National Champion Dick Smith in a 427cubic
inch Cobra. The entire hill echoed with the exhaust from that car,
and I swear it brought pebbles down off the hill.
“Crap,” I yelled, “We gotta
shut him down.” One of us grabbed the red flag and started to wave
it. It waved and waved...immediately exiting the pole it was attached
to and blowing off the hill, leaving us looking dumbstruck at the
bare and very naked looking pole. The staples must have pulled out.
Without a second's hesitation we grabbed the yellow and waved that!
Hell, when the only
tool you have is a hammer...
Did I mention that Dick was a
former SCCA Champion? Yeah? Well he was also the smoothest driver in
a 427 I ever saw. This is a beast with so much power and so little
traction and handling by comparison that most guys, at least at the
vintage racing level of skills, honk it around a corner in a series
of short, straight squirts, until it is fully lined up on the
straight and they can put their foot down, after which Oh Mother does
that thing fly!
Dick was so smooth you'd have
thought the car was my 750cc Siata. He was also pretty savvy and was
not at all confused by the yellow, instantly braking the car to a
halt. Whew!
On this or another journey Adin,
who would have been no more than five at the most, decided to ride
with his “best friend” back from Virginia City to San Mateo. Yes,
Adin really did consider John his best buddy. I once got called into
school to discuss this with his teacher, who realized Adin's stories
about John sounded suspiciously like he was an adult (well...maybe
not). The discussion was about imaginary friends not being
appropriate for school assignments.
I laughed so hard I was in tears.
Anyway...John wanted to race
“like it was back then.” Drive to the event, race, drive home.
Except coming down off the Sierra Crest that September the
temperature was frigid...one of those El Niῇo
years where the snow never melted. We stopped for hot cocoa at some
little inn and John could barely get his hands off the wheel. Adin,
on the other hand, had curled up on the aluminum floorboard under the
car cover and was quite toasty. The floor of an AC can melt your
shoes if you're not careful.
There
were other Virginia City memories
There
was also Steve Tillum's incident with his 275GTB/C Competitione...but
I think I related that story elsewhere. If not I'll add it here
later.
Joe
alphabet gave us all a hell of a scare as the candidate most likely
to become our first event fatality. As it turned out this happened
years later. Odd name, you say? Actually one that was well-known
among motorcycle guys back then, as he made really nice after-market
bike headers. Joe said his family got the name as Ellis Island,
though I saw a show recently which claims names were not changed
there and that they had language experts on duty who knew how to deal
with names which, according to the story Joe told, “had too many
letters in it” and thus was arbitrarily changed to “Alphabet”
by the Immigration Officer.
Anyway,
Joe had a 308GTB or S, and spun it on some turn or another. He wound
up backwards with the car having been stopped by the sand it plowed
up. This was more than fortuitous as it had rained the previous week,
thus softening what would otherwise have been dry and crumbly and
incapable of stopping the car.
Problem
was, Joe was crazy panicked, and exited the car on the downhill side!
We got there just as this was occurring and pulled him back to
safety...and sanity.
The
final hillclimb story I can recall is about a crazy Italian (wait, is
that redundant?). Alessandro Pedani was the kind of guy who would
dress up in a red driving suit, start jabbering in the Italian he
spoke fluently at anyone and everyone, and talk his way into the
inner sanctum of the Ferrari garage during the years Long Beach was
an F1 event.
Alessandro
and his then girlfriend Patricia were on duty as corner workers at
#20, the last turn on the course. At least that was what was supposed
to be happening. 20 is not particularly dangerous, except for one
item. It exits into a languid semi-straight which crosses a
bridge...over the Virginia and Truckee Railroad below. Obviously the
bridge surface of concrete is a change in grip and temperature from
the rough asphalt of the course. The turn (any turn) can bite. I once
watched a guy in a new to him real 365BTG/S (65 made, the others were
coupes with the tops cut off) wipe his car first along one guard rail
and then, trying to correct, on the one on the opposite side of the
bridge. Disheartening.
I
was driving someone's van, picking up corner workers to either switch
to a relief crew or end the day, with Sherri. We get to 20...and
there is no one there. We lean on the horn, and out from under the
bridge crawls Alessandro and Patricia...both in their underwear. They
were bored, and hot, and then...hot and not bored. Dangerous
abandonment...but funny.
I
ran the old Riverside Race Track twice, but only once with the
Ferrari. The first time I caravaned down with a half dozen other
Ferraris...though all I remember are Bill and Judy Morton leading in
the GTC, “Crazy” Bob Epstein in a 250LM, and (I think) the
Thinessens in their 246. Marshall and Nancy Matthews were also along,
I think, but in a Porsche Speedster. I was driving my 914, and had a
hell of a time keeping up. I was rowing gears as fast as I could and
barely hanging on...I'm sure I was at the ragged edge of what my
skills were then, though I did elicit a comment of respect from Bill
about keeping with the group.
Bill,
by the way, decided the “Road Closed” due to flooding sign on
CA33 was bogus, and we merrily wrapped our way around it and
proceeded at warp speed. The road parallels I5 for a long stretch,
and we were flying low...until the CHP intervened. Seems the sound of
our cars outraged the cows and farmers. We got a lecture and
instructions to “get back on I5 and keep to the speed limit.” Of
course as soon as he was gone we put foot to floor and continued
larking down 33. How the hell Epstein convinced the cop that car was
street legal is a credit to his attorney-ship...but I thought he was
a corporate
dweeb!
In fact, on one trip he got clocked at 140...and asked the cop to
please not mess up the ticket cause he planned to frame it!
I
don't recall much of the event itself, but the trip back was a bit
memorable. First there was the stop for fuel (this time we did stick
to I5, possibly America's most boring road...if you really want to
deaden your nerves...). As the six or so of these exotics (ok, that
is stretching it a bit for the 914, but...) pulled in we could not
help but notice, and nod a friendly greeting to, the officer in the
CHP cruiser at the next pump island.
We
carefully pulled out and were judicious about re-entering the highway
at a respectable and responsible speed. We didn't get ¼ mile before
he pulled Marshall over. Of course the rest of us stopped to learn
what heinous crime he had committed and to keep the group together.
He and Nancy had given a lift to a friend, so Nance was sprawled out,
sans seatbelt, on the parcel shelf of the Speedster...no small feat.
Was it that? Nah...he was nailed for not having a front license
plate.
Are
you kidding me? To this day one out of every five cars in California
(hell, I've got two)
leave the plate off. In many cases it this is due to aesthetics, and
for the rest it just probably got loose and fell off at some point
and was not replaced.
Sigh
My
second time I motored down by myself in the GTE. I only managed a
2:07.71 on the 2.547 mile track, and was the 7th
slowest car there. But the next one behind me was three seconds
slower in a 308GTS, and it got worse from there, with a Daytona only
managing a 2:14 and another the slowest car at the event, with a
sleepwalking 2:27. I could have beat that in my 77 Oldsmobile!(track
pic)
But
the highlight for me was not spinning the car, as I did coming out of
the last turn when I zoned out and confused an access road for the
track, nor being split at 140 by two cars between the chicane and
turn 8, not having to find someone to rebuild the oddball Lockheed
brake caliper when I failed tech with a leak.
No,
the real giggle had occurred on the way down. It was a hot day, and
between the drone of the exhaust, which is lovely...for about 90
minutes, after which it can become annoying, the absence of AC, or
the fact that the car is a thinly disguised race car, about which a
famous local painter had said, at a club event, that the only reason
they put a body on it was to keep the flies off you.
I
had stopped for a break somewhere in the middle of...nothing. Perhaps
somewhere around what is called “Lost Hills.” No Kidding. I'm
sitting by the side of the road, and it dawns on me that the car is
sipping fuel at the second best rate of anything we owned. Normally
Ferraris of the era are do over-carbureted they slurp fuel like a
horse at an oasis in the desert. The 2+2 only sported three twin
barrel downdrafts rather than the six twos used on the hotter
versions of the motor such as the GTO. Still, the normal mileage per
gallon was...eight. It mattered not how you drove it...that's what
you got. Foot to the floor, or an egg on the throttle pedal..no
difference.
But
that day, cruising on I5 in overdrive, I got a staggering (by
comparison...stick with me) 18 miles from a single gallon of high
test.
And
then a fixed-wing CHP plane circled me and, on a bullhorn, asked me
if I needed help. Are you kidding? I'm getting 18 freaking miles per
stingy little gallon in a Ferrari
and you think I might nee help? Other than a bottle of champagne I
rather doubt it.
But
that's not the end. I purposely left this one for the end.
I
don't remember where we were returning from, but once again I had the
only four passenger car in the group. OK, so two of the passengers
needed to be either kids, midgets, or adults with no legs, but
still...
The
president of the Bay Area FOC region was an interesting wisp named
(seriously) Memory Hughes. Memory of what? She had grown up in, of
all places, Zimbabwe, and spoke with a charming ( and believe me, not
all of them are) British accent.
She
was always...on the prowl I'd guess you'd say, for a rich guy. And
quite open an honest about it. To her credit.
Anyway,
for some reason Memory needed a ride back to the Bay Area. Did she,
as required for membership in the FOC, actually own
a
Ferrari. I honestly don't recall. But there she was, scrunched across
the rear buckets of the car...a feat in itself as there was a
non-moveable arm rest between them.
It
was yet another blisteringly hot day...just the usual summer burn in
the Central Valley. Memory decided she needed to ditch the long pants
and change into shorts. She had a small suitcase with her in the
cabin, so no problem, right?
Well,
small as she was, this required quite a bit of contortion to exit the
pants and stuff herself into the shorts. In fact, it required a few
moments of a very cute little ass plastered against the rear window
of the GTE...upon which we seemed to have acquired an escort...an
elegant, though rather gargantuan Rolls Royce Silver Cloud (pic),
piloted by a 60 something bald, pot-bellied, grey-haired gent chewing
furiously on a big stogie.
I
let this continue for a few seconds figuring, why not let him enjoy
himself, assuming he doesn't:
A.
Have a heart attack and crash or
B.
Forget to steer and crash and/or
C.Either
one of these taking me
out
as well
And,
I admit it, I was enjoying the view as well.
I
finally gently pointed the situation out to Memory, still struggling
though I don't recall if it was getting the pants off or the shorts
on.
Her
comment has stuck with me forever:
“Ahhsshole”
she articulated in that sophisticated sounding Brit, “only dead
people drive Rolls Royces.”
Indeed.
So...why
did I
sell it? All these memories and more were packed into the three year
period starting in 1979 and ending in 1982. The club changed...I
changed...and
vintage racing arose.
The
region disappeared into the bowels of the Ferrari Club of America,
and somehow that seemed...different. At club events I often had the
oldest, and only
“classic”
Ferrari there. Events became more show-offy, more costly (when
raising the dues above $100 a year the justification was “We should
charge more because we are the Ferrari
Club!),
and it finally ended when a guy told me he would not bring a 308 to
the club picnic because it was “too valuable to drive.”
Listen...it
is not the cure for cancer and it doesn't make your...thing grow
longer. It is a wonderful pile of metal, rubber, plastic, and glass
that is meant to be used.
And
that brought me to...how much of the car was tired and needed
rejuventating.
It
needed brakes. It needed a clutch. The exhaust had been patched with
epoxy by me so many times I think that was all that was holding it
together. The paint was sad, the chrome more so. The seats needed
re-stuffing and re-stitching. There was a part of the floor pan that
the previous owner had “fixed” by making a replacement out of
fiberglass. The carpets were shrunken and did not fit. Ditto the door
panels. The wind on/wind off cables spools for the windows failed
every 20 days like clockwork.
The
car deserved the $50,000 or so it would take to put it right. It
deserved better than I could justify putting into it.
But
God...do I ever miss it and the fun we had.
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| Boranni Wheels of Course |
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| Understated Elegance Never Needed to Scream "Look at Me!" |
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| That Early Prancing Horse and Hood Badge Says it all |
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| A few words needed: Single Overhead Cam per bank Also single dual point distributor per bank Three two barrel downdraft Webers Twin Oil filters 24 valves-setting clearances was an overnighter You time the beast as if it is two separate six cylinder engines |
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| Yes, it is a Nardi Wheel |
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| NO "leatherette" anywhere Just the most lovely hides available |
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| The Series 3 Dash was different that the earlier cars Note the 300kph speedometer and the Italian small gauges |
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