By Pete Vack, All photos by Robert F. Pauley
These are photo by former Chrysler engineer Robert F. Pauley relevant to recent past, present, and future articles appearing in VeloceToday. The lead photo above pertains to last week’s review of Powered by Porsche, in which we discussed the efforts of Louis Fageol to create a twin-powered Porsche.
Fageol was very encouraged by the performance of his twin-Offy special at Indy in 1946 and went on to create at least two twin Porsches for sports car racing. The Fageol Offy was shown here.
Pauley, who has contributed many fine articles for VeloceToday, photographed the Fageol Porsche at the Westover races in June 13, 1954. The top was removable and looks very advanced for the time, but we never realized the color was almost gold.
Another advanced car for the time and much better looking was the Siata’s Farina and Balbo-bodied 208CS. Readers wondered why we did not include a Siata in our article about Etceterinis. So, here is one, in another never before published photo taken at Bridgehampton, May 23, 1953 by Robert F. Pauley, a truly nice shot of Otto Linton’s quite famous serial number CS060. A few months later in September Linton won his class at Watkins Glen, then sold the car in order to buy an OSCA (see Winningest OSCA). Coming up in VeloceToday, Sean Smith will tell the entire story of another 208 coupe, Walter Eisenstark’s Balbo-bodied 208 serial number CS071.
Chicago, 1955, and a copper trimmed Plymouth predates the Mercer Cobra by ten years.
Another photo relevant to Graham Gauld’s article this week in VeloceToday, the Copper Clad Cobra, was found while researching Pauley’s files. We noticed one slide that normally would not catch out attention, a Plymouth at the Janury 1955 Chicago Auto Show. However, in addition to writing the date, place, car and f-stop, Pauley further noted that the black car had copper plated trim. All on a 35 mm slide! While copper plating on custom cars is not unheard of, this was on the brand spanking new 1955 Plymouth, the first cars Virgil Exner and his design teams were able to start from a clean sheet of paper, and perhaps a link to the much later Exner-designed Mercer Cobra. But despite a good bit of GoogleTime, we found absolutely nothing on this car. Who had it done, and was it connected to Exner?
Gold Plated Goodies
Copper plating was one thing, but gold plating was downright brave. The fad may have started with a 1956 Hollywood movie, “The Solid Gold Cadillac” in which the heroine ends up being given a solid gold Caddy. But the car — an Eldorado Biarritz, appears for only 30 seconds in the last few seconds of the movie. It was, however, a real car, though just painted gold inside and out. This may have inspired Elvis Presley to deck out his 1960 Eldorado Caddy with gold plated front bumper and trim including some of the dash. Gold records were installed in the headliner. And actor/singer Isaac Hayes did one better (or worse) to a 1972 Cadillac, with even more gold plated trim.
Robert F. Pauley’s photo of a gold-trimmed XK120 M Jag was taken in February 1954.
Or, maybe they all got their inspiration from a Jaguar XK120 M which was shown at the New York Motorsports Show in February, 1954. Again, it the proof was found in the 35 mm Kalt sheets filed under Robert F. Pauley. We had previously thought that this was the Road & Track cover car for June, 1955, but it was stated that the cover photo was taken by Jerry Chesebrough of Peter Satori’s XK140 with $3000 worth of 24 karat gold plating.
And not an XK120. Apparently there were not one but two cream colored gold plated Jaguars. We have no idea of who owned the earlier gold plated XK120M or what became of it, nor does Google.
Cigar chomping his way to an Indy victory in 1958, Jimmy Bryan would die at Langhorne in 1960.
Finally, and in keeping with our book review of Aldo Zana’s great new book “Monzanapolis,” we happened upon a photo of one of the most important players in the race of two worlds, Jimmy Bryan. Bryan won the 1957 Race of Two Worlds at Monza, placed second in the 1958 event, and won Indy in 1958. Here, Robert F. Pauley photographed Bryan going on to win Indy in the Belond Special, finishing at 133.79 mph, considerably slower than the 160.061 mph averaged at Monza the previous year.
Again, the Fageol Porsche.
Note the Kimberly Ferrari in background.
Hi
Does anyone have any pictures of the Gullwing car built by Peter Montiverdi which he put on his Ferrari 750 monza in 1958. I have been looking for any color pictures which someone should have. Thanks Jim Carpenter
My own Siata 300BC has direct ties to both Otto Linton, who sold the car to Tom Scatchard in April of 1952, and Walter Esienstark, whose 208CS was on display next to my car at Pebble Beach in 1991. Another connection is Otto’s appearance at Bridgehamptom in 1953, as Scatchard is listed in the program for that event but I have yet to locate information as to how he and the car performed, though he did finish 20th overall at Sebring earlier in the year, after a class win at Thompson and finishing the last full race completed on the original Watkins Glen street course in 1952
That Siata 208 Balbo coupe is one of my lifelong favorites. A confession, after some 60 years: in about 1958 I saw a picture of one in a car book I got from the library. I cut the page out! An outright criminal act, but the temptation was overwhelming. I still have that picture. In 1953, as a small boy, I was taken to the last Bridgehampton race on public roads, and saw the car. Later, in c. 1969, I saw it (or a sister car) on a street in Philadelphia, looking very shabby. Then 10-15 years ago I visited Walter Eisenstark, who kindly showed me his. Fabulous car.
Paul Wilson
The copper plated 1955 Plymouth might predate the Mercer Cobra by ten years but there’s a 1926 copper plated Rickenbacker that beats the Plymouth by 29. It’s a 1926 Rickenbacker Eight Super Sport that was the New York Auto Show car. It was sold by RM in Monterey in 2014 (where I saw it) for $946K and you can see the car and read the description here: https://www.rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/MO14/Monterey/lots/r187-1926-rickenbacker-eight-super-sport/181160
The chassis number of the 1954 XK120 is known.
I believe there was an earlier XK120 1950 that was gold plated with pure white trim as well displayed at an earlier show this car later was in California and may survive
apart from the XK140 pictured above the next Jaguar appears to be the well known gold plated MKII saloon displayed at NY motor shows with a well known model/actress c 1960
terry
tmcgrath@bigpond.com
I also have a photo of a red/maroon MKI with a model in front of the car at an American motor show that also has gold plated brightwork