Sunday In The Park With Jay: Leno & Friends at The Best of France & Italy Show.


By William Edgar
Pictures copyright William Edgar

Jay Leno, pop idol car guy with whom everybody feels totally cool. For a larger photo click here

We can improve upon reality, always. Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics said this wondrously well with his prize-winning play, "Sunday in the Park with George"—Sondheim's "George" being French impressionist Georges Seurat dabbing paint on canvas one Sunday by the Seine. Allow me here to borrow that fitting image, substituting 300 cars for pallete colors and setting the stage at Woodley Park alongside the San Fernando Valley's dry Sepulveda Wash rather than that romantic Parisian river.

Happy man and beautiful blue Bug. Jay Leno pauses long enough for a snap alongside his 1937 Bugatti Atlantique. For a larger photo click here

For the artist Seurat, think present day Leno. In the eight years this atypical Van Nuys, California, car show has thrived, repeat participant Jay Leno of media and collector fame has been a de facto catalyst for helping draw vehicles and people together at this moto-delightful day in the park. "I like it because it's not a judged show," said Jay, standing aside his stunning French blue 1937 Bugatti Atlantique. "Nobody has to beat anybody. You just show up with your car. You've got expensive Ferraris parked next to $3,500 Fiats, and that's what makes it fun."

Tina Van Curen, who along with husband and show co-founder Chuck Forward owns half a dozen Citroens and Alfas, told me in her lilt, "A lot of people come here who have never seen these cars and fall in love — and that's half the battle, getting people to appreciate them and decide they really want to rescue one of their own." Most of this day is about the morphing of grubby finds into driveable gems. There are no judges' clipboards, no concours points to be added or subtracted. In fact, there was a Fiat 600 on a trailer that was downright scary. But you'd be hard-pressed to find flaws in Leno's Bugatti.

Drive-in show at Woodley Park. Ferrari 250 Gran Turismo clears a path for teeny Vespa 400. For a larger photo click here

"I'm a big fan of French cars," Jay told me. "They all say that Germany was the birthplace of the car, but France was the nursery, and most of the exciting cars, at least for the first thirty or forty years, are French. After the war, of course, the tax situation and everything ruined their industry. It should be a lesson to the rest of the world because they were really the most innovative, most exciting, best looking. They have a very strong masculine-and-feminine form, always very masculine in the motors and very feminine in the form. I really like the line. They don't call it a French curve for nothing."

Strolling past pint-size Dauphines and down-to-earth Traction Avants, moving on to racy Italian stuff, I found a 1953 Fiat "Otto V" that won me over with élan. Merkel Weiss, third of the show's four co-founders (the other being Sam Williams), was there to comment. "It's completely custom made by Fiat, in house." This red 8V, David Sydorick's Berlinetta, was once a factory team competition coupe. "Fiat," said Merkel, "was afraid Henry Ford would sue if they said Vee-Eight, so they called it an Eight-Vee. This one is absolute Pebble quality. I love the little Deco waterfall front grill on it." A few steps away were Dan Kolodziejski's magnificently restored silver 8V Zagato and Abarth 207A Spider Boano. Another row had Lancias of such fundamental beauty they brought water to my eyes. I had a hot dog, the best ever, then went to ogle the show's Italian motorcycles — splendid Moto Guzzis and gleaming Ducatis.

David Sydorick's show-stopper 1953 Fiat 8V competition coupe. For a larger photo click here

"I like the old Desmos," Jay told me in fellow biker-speak. "They're kind of like Harleys that went to college. I have to admit I've got a Hailwood Replica I've had since '85, and I like it even better than the new Ducatis. It's not as fast, but just fun." The park was full of fun stuff - two-, three- and four-wheel. "Fun to drive," said Leno, as if it were a mantra, "should be the main criteria. I mean, this generation of people starting out now really don't know what a lightweight car is. Obviously, the Ferraris and all that stuff are very exotic. But the day-to-day Italian cars are always fascinating to me. The Topolino is about the tiniest car that you could make, yet somebody seven feet tall could drive in it. When you open the engine compartment, the generator is bigger than the motor!"

Jay checks out a 2-wheel Italian beauty, aka Ducati Desmo. For a larger photo click here

Over by the entrance was Silvia and Jerry Hathaway's 1972 Citroen SM. It was drawing lots of notice, so I asked them about it. The car's stock 3.0-liter engine inhales via two Air Research turbo chargers, and they'd upped the final drive from 3.88 to 4.37. Said constructor Jerry of his salt flats speed record-breaking wife, "Silvia drove at Bonneville and went 206 miles per hour! We're trying to get back there in 2005." Definitely not your everyday SM cruising the Champs Elysees!

Further on there were some Facel-Vegas and a Dual-Ghia reminiscent of Rat Pack times, then the showroom new Lambo and Maser the guys from Beverly Hills Symbolic brought, and various Ferraris past and present. The Petersen Museum's Bruce Meyer drove in with his striking yellow 275GTB/4, and there was a red 250 Gran Tursimo that was poster perfect. "I like the old Ferraris," Jay said. "I'm not much for paddle shifters and all that. I know the electronics stuff is the way to go — it just doesn't have any interest for me. I like to shift. I don't think there are many people who can make an Enzo do what it can do. I mean, old cars are ultimately more fun to drive than new cars."

Citroen a grande vitesse. Jerry and Silvia Hathaway with their Bonneville speed record-breaking 1972 SM twin-turbo. Le Hot Stuff. For a larger photo click here

What does Leno think of racing? "I like the vintage racing. I like any race where you can watch people actually sawing at the wheel and driving," he said with gestures. "I don't have much interest in Formula One because the cars are so beyond anything. They don't bear much relation to cars you can actually drive. When I was a kid I liked NASCAR because it was the Hemi versus the Torinos and the big Fords and the big Chevys. Now they all use the same engine, and I don't quite get it. Not that it's not interesting to some people, it's just not that interesting to me. I always liked the 'race on Sunday, sell on Monday' idea — that a car I own, like a TransAm Mustang or something, you'd see it win the race on Sunday and then you'd feel kind of cool because it was your car."

Beyond the show's axis and past some trees was the swap meet, not well attended but of significant appeal at this eclectic congregation. "I wish the swap meet was bigger, actually," Jay said. "I wish more people would bring more swaps." Leno loves to poke around car bones. "I wish we had a west coast Hershey, but we don't," he lamented. But we here in Southern California do have The Best of France & Italy Show and it's something I'll come to next time, always the first Sunday in November. It's on my 2004 calendar.

Art in metal. Jay Leno's 3.3-liter Bugatti DOHC supercharged straight-8, with bore and stroke of 76.2mm x 101.6mm, makes 180hp at 5,500 rpm for a top speed of 140 mph. But with this kind of look, who's really counting?. For a larger photo click here

Jay Leno had the split hood raised on his Atlantique. In sunlight streaming past clouds that suggested rain soon, the supercharged straight-8 twin-cam engine of his Type-57 Bug was breathtaking. "My car is a re-bodied car," Jay told me. "It's all Bugatti but it wasn't an Atlantique body originally. It now has an all-aluminum Atlantique body on it." I asked about all those Jean Bugatti rivets. Leno, always keen to talk on about cars, explained the Atlantique's trademark body fasteners. "They have rivets because they were originally supposed to be magnesium, and then they realized that was too hard to weld, but they kept the rivets because at the time aero stuff was moving very quickly. Lindbergh had flown the ocean just a couple of years earlier. So everybody wanted airplane dashboards, airplane looks. That's why you have the ecto-skeleton look to it to sort of give that era a feel."

Before he left, as he was about to do, I asked Jay what he thought of VeloceToday online. "I haven't seen it," he confessed, "but I'll check it out." Then he laughed in that Leno way and said, "I've got to get a computer!" As he headed for the door of his French blue Bug I handed him a card. Jay paused. "Cool!" he said. "Thanks!" The blower whirred and his Bugatti's first gear made that sound it does as he drove off with a crowd watching and smiling.

Let's see. "There are worse things than spending a Sunday in the park with motorcycles and friends and all the things to do with cars, George" is a typical Sondheim meter and lyric, though one Sondheim never wrote. But it's oh so true.

William Edgar co-authored the Dean Batchelor Award-winning American Sports Car Racing in the 1950s with Michael T. Lynch and Ron Parravano. The website for Edgar's period racing images and other writing is online at http://www.edgar-motorsport.com