Month: July 2022

“Daddy, I’d like to have a bed like that.”  

Mikey and I were in a Sears store.  There was a kid’s bed with plywood sides, painted on tires and some automotive decals stuck on it.

“Yeah, that’d be cool, but we could make one way better than that,” said Daddy, taking the bait hook line and sinker.

At the time I had Bob Lazier’s championship Formula Super Vee race car in my garage, along with bunches of spares, tires, wings, gas cans, etc.  
In the 8 years I lived in Vail, Bob went from an also ran in the Super Vee (VW powered) series to 1981 ROOKIE of THE YEAR at Indy. I was privileged to be a part of that journey.

We’ll just rearrange all those spares into a race car bed!

I was working at Van Waters & Rogers chemical company at the time, managing their warehouse, tank farm, and Will Call desk, so I knew a few of the boat builders, airplane guys, etc. around town.  Saturday mornings after my run up the canyon, I’d go by a shop or two for a little dumpster diving.  End pieces of fiberglass rolls that were not worth saving on a big project were perfect for me.   Price was right too.

A couple of sketches, a bunch of cardboard, some foam … this is getting out of control … and it won’t take much time, effort or money either.  

Sure.

Summer evenings in the garage became winter nights in the garage, and the garage became a full-on fiberglass body shop… kid size. 

Finally it was almost done.  Ford Blue spray paint, some REAL sponsor decals, this is looking good!  Who else has real magnesium (not aluminum) competition only wheels on his BED for cripes sake?  Mom made some custom sheets to fit the custom foam mattress, and we found some race car looking pajamas.  I’ll bet we could be in a car show!

The Salt Lake AutoRama was happening in early March, so I visited the organizers and asked if they’d like to have a Championship Porsche powered race car, and a way cool RACE CAR BED in their show.  It turns out there is a category for Non-Motorized Specialty Vehicles. “Sure, we’d love to have ya,” they said.

We all had a great time.  The only memorable incident happened as I was pushing the Super Vee out onto the show floor during the Monday night load in. Mikey was standing in the seat working the steering, and an old biker-looking guy was watching us.  Never seen him before or since.  As we went by, he looked me in the eye and said “You’re gonna have trouble with that one. ”  It was one of those moments when the universe warps a bit, and you get a peek into the future.

Turns out he was dead right, well almost dead… Mikey had sustained thirty eight broken bones, some many times.  Thirty eight pain med prescriptions, leading to addiction, then to street drugs, and the whole world that that brings.  Methadone saved us, barely.

But ya know, with all those negatives, I think there were a few positives too.

The show ran Tuesday thru Saturday.  Mike and I arrived about 8:00 PM Saturday evening for the load out, and there was a nice ribbon hanging on the bed.  We won the Non-motorized Division. Cool!  A note said the trophy presentations would be in a small auditorium starting around 9:00.  That was way past Mike’s bedtime, but we decided to stay anyway. Seated on the front row, I told Mikey we would have to go up on stage to get our trophy from the trophy queens, and would he like me to go up with him? 

“NO WAY!  I can handle this!”

Mike’s name was called, and he walked onto the stage where the spike heel and bikini clad girls (one on each side) gave him his trophy. It was about as tall as he was.  When the girls bent over to give him a kiss, the bikers and other assorted road trash in the back rows went nuts.  Come on you guys!

As we were driving home Mikey quietly asked me, “Daddy, why did those ladies have their swimming suits on?”  

“Umm, I don’t know Mike.  Maybe they were all going swimming later?  Ask Mom. I bet she’ll know.”

Mom let Mikey sleep ‘til about 10:00 AM, then took him to school with the trophy to show to his classmates.  Not sure if they ever did have the swimsuit discussion.

When friends came to visit, Mikey always showed them his race car bed, but about the 6^th or 7^th grade he was too tall to fit it.  The bed was dismantled and put into the attic of Mom’s garage to await (hopefully) a grandkid who would want it.  No luck so far.

Both Mikey and Shelley were adopted through the Mormon Church, and with the availability of commercial DNA tests they have each been able to track down their “bio parents.”  You hear stories of scandal, lives disrupted, reputations ruined, etc. etc. but I think that’s the exception.  Our experience has been one of acceptance, love, joy, and two new sets of cousins, grandmas, and uncles who all love having a new family member.  And he looks like us too.  Well, duh…  

One of the families has a five year old boy, named Michael, who has Attention Deficit Disorder ( A.D.D. — that’s Mikey) who’s had more broken bones than he has birthdays (yep — Mikey).  It’s our Michael redux except for the red hair.

Plans are to resurrect the Race Car Bed.  We wrapped the mattress, sheets and pillows in plastic before we stashed them so it should clean up pretty well.

We’ll see what the Mom involved thinks of the bed (Moms always make those kinds of decisions) and we’ll see if the little guy likes it too.

Do you think they’ll have trouble with that one?  God, I hope not.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

Duane

“PEOPLE.  It’s all about the people.”

I heard it at the first Pebble Beach event I ever attended, before it became Monterey Car Week.  My younger self was sure it was pretty much all about THE CARS though.  I loved them and couldn’t get enough of ’em.

As Pebble became Monterey Car Week, and a World Class Event, it seemed pretty obvious  to me it was all about THE MONEY.   

When Ralph Lauren won Best of Show in 1990 with a BUGATTI ATLANTIC (one of 700 or so made and advertised at the time as “The World’s Most Expensive Car”) a writer asked him where he found technicians to work on such exotic automobiles.  Ralph answered, and I’m paraphrasing here, “To win BEST OF SHOW at meets like Monterey, you must have your own World Class shop, with your own World Class craftsmen in each of the disciplines, paint, metal work, mechanical, etc.  If you have to rely on someone else, no matter how well meaning, you’ll never meet the schedule and you’ll never meet the quality level needed to be The Best.”

Yeah, it’s all about THE MONEY, and in the words of the great J. P. Morgan (1837 – 1913):

“If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” 

Recently, a dear friend of mine gave Don Orosco (1944 – 2020) a critical component (one of two known to exist) that Don needed to win Best of Class in 2001 with the Dick Flint Roadster.  The Roadster award was one of three class wins Don collected over the years at Monterey.

Don was gracious enough to give my friend and me a tour of his restoration shop (yep, it’s World Class) at the Monterey Airport complex the day of the show.  It’s the only time we could get together … and he even introduced us to his wife.  Great guy.

Don was at a cocktail party during the 2006 Goodwood Revival when he heard a big time European collector planned to recapture the FIAT- BARTOLETTI transporter that Lance Reventlow (1936 – 1972) commissioned to haul his Chevy- and Offy-powered Scarab race cars around Europe during a mostly unsuccessful 1960 – 61 race season.

Lance was the son of Barbara Hutton (heir to both the E. F. Hutton and the Woolworth fortunes), son of a Danish Count, stepson to Cary Grant, plus buddies with James Dean. Lance either “got tired” of racing, or Mom pulled the financial plug.  There are two stories.   

He sold his race car shop in Venice CA, complete with FIAT- BARTOLETTI transporter, tools and all the World Class employees, headed by Phil Remington, to Carroll Shelby.  Carroll’s first employee, Pete Brock, moved into an upstairs office. 

Carroll used the transporter to haul Cobras and other automotive icons around Europe. 

It was subsequently used by Lotus, Ford, and others.  It even had a bit part in the movie Le Mans, being repainted Gulf Blue for the Porsche 917 scene, then a quick (possibly in the parking lot) respray in red for a scene with the Ferrari 512.  It was sent across the ocean in the late ‘60s and used by various race teams in the U.S.

Lance died in 1972 in a plane crash while scouting for real estate in Aspen.

Probably the preeminent Scarab collector in the world, Don owned two originals and one faithful replica, and he just couldn’t let that rig get taken back to Europe.   Only problem was, the BARTOLETTI had been sitting in a field behind locked gates for almost 20 years, while heirs to the U Haul fortune fought over it.  They had resisted multiple purchase offers.  The “who do we know” and “who do our friends know” network went into emergency overdrive. Five days and $80,000 dollars later, Don took possession of the transporter.   

BARTOLETTI was an Italian coachbuilding firm that took FIAT and other heavy-duty chassis and made busses and similar industrial bodies for them. Don found that no two BARTOLETTI bodies were alike. The company was long out of business, and whatever blueprints there might have been were long gone also. He had to fabricate many parts based just on period photographs.

When Don built his facility at the Monterey airport, the Building Department let him know that anything he built had to fit into the Spanish Colonial Revival architectural style of the neighborhood.  Certainly nothing that looked like a CAR REPAIR SHOP would be allowed … heaven forbid!

No problem. We’ll just remove this small hill, build our World Class shop complete with oversize spray booth here, then put the hill back in place.  Any air vents, etc., will be disguised as mail boxes or some such thing.  Don hadn’t planned on a vehicle over 38 feet long though, with space around it to work.  Somehow it all fit.

Two years later in 2008 the BARTOLETTI, restored to concourse perfection, made its debut at the Monterey Historics, hauling Don’s three Scarabs.  As it descended pit row, “The place went nuts,” according to one bystander.  The event organizers had to ask Don to move his rig as the crowd around it was blocking the track entrance.

As I think of all the names associated with this story, Don and his staff, Lance (whom I never got to meet), Shelby, and his crew at the Venice shop, gosh it’s getting to be a long list.  Most are no longer with us, but all of the cars they built are a reflection of the people who built them, their personalities, their strengths … and their faults too, I suppose.

So maybe it really is all about THE PEOPLE.  I may be forced to change my mind again…   I’ll let you know how that works out.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

Duane