Pebble Beach Scrapbook

The owner Jim Patterson, who founded Long John Silver’s restaurant, not only supervised every step of its restoration but frequently road tested it. He reports the 77 year old car works well, but is hobbled by its huge turning radius. (Want to know more about Delage? Here’s the best book on the subject.)

Reportedly close contenders were Arturo Keller’s 1929 Bentley Speed Six Park Ward Open Two-Seater and Sam Mann’s 1930 Duesenberg J Graber Cabriolet . That last one would have also been tempting, when do you see a Duesie with Swiss bodywork?

GA-GA FOR GHIA
French aside, this year’s show was special for fans of Italian coachwork because the deceased coachbuilding house of Ghia was honored. Included were many Chrysler show cars, some branded Plymouth or Dodge, but also, surprisingly there was a Ferrari that looked like a Chrysler. One wonders if Virgil Exner, who ran Chrysler styling at the time, took umbrage at a Ferrari being bodied with a body that looked like a Chrysler show car, fins and all?

Another Ghia that was interesting was the 1955 Ghia Streamline X “Gilda” 2 Door fastback coupe nicknamed after actress Rita Hayworth who played the lead in a film called “Gilda.” The Gilda originally had a four-cylinder OSCA engine, but the owners, Scott Grundfor and Kathleen Redmond of Arroyo Grande, California decided to give it a gas turbine engine. It certainly has the length to accommodate the turbine and its plumbing. (More on Gilda in a future edition of VeloceToday).

Nearly the whole sweep of Chrysler’s relationship with Ghia could be seen there in the cars they had on display. First was the 1952 Chrysler Ghia Prototype Coupe from the 1953 Paris auto show on a shortened New Yorker chassis. The powerplant was a “Firepower” Hemi V-8. Of course each time these Virgil Exner-designed cars were shown there was always the promise they would reach production but except for the Dual Ghias, they never did. It seems at first glance that under Exner, Chrysler styling promised a lot that was never delivered to the public in their production cars but once you look at a Fifties Chrysler product you can see many small features of the prototypes did make it to the more gargantuan American production Dodges, Plymouths and Chryslers.

Equally impressive was the 1954 Dodge Firearrow II Ghia (above). It started as a mockup as a1953 concept car, and was rebodied a year later. That’s the car that was sold to Eugene Casaroll, who marketed it as the Dual-Ghia.

Below, remember Desoto? We do. On hand this year to join the Ghia parade was the Desoto Adventurer II. Despite the length, it’s only a two seater. The more attractive and streetable Adventurer I was used by Exner as his personal vehicle.

Also continuing the theme was the green 1954 Plymouth Explorer Ghia Coupe powered by a less impressive (than the Hemi) 110-horsepower six-cylinder mated to a “ Hy-Drive”. This came from the Petersen Automotive Museum collection in Los Angeles.

Less svelte but still interesting was a Fiat 8V Ghia Coupe. Powered by the rare 2.0-liter V-8 This car went back to the 1952 Geneva auto show. This car, chassis No. 000042, was built in July 1953 and is the only non-Supersonic-bodied Ghia-bodied Fiat 8V ever built.

There was one car that was both ugly and beautiful at the same time. It the Fiat Stanguellini Bertone Berlinetta, entered by Pete & Susan Vasquez, a one-off prototype built on a Fiat chassis but powered by a Stanguellini-modified Fiat 1,110-cc engine. Some of its lines were beautiful, similar to the B.A.T prototypes also penned by Bertone but other features were crude, almost ‘50s American George Barris style. One thing is sure—Corvette fans can no longer deny that the “split rear window” was lifted from Italian design, this car coming 11 yeas before the Stingray coupe.

And, below, it has come to this? Alfa Romeo’s Bertone Pandion based on the 8C Competizione. It seemed to be a car tortured by torn and stretched metal.

THE EXTRACURRICULARS
Pebble has more than cars. There’s the art tent, featuring the best of automotive art, including not only paintings but sculpture. Then there’s the unrestored cars. There were only a few. We appreciated the 289 Cobra that looked like it had been painted with a paint brush and had an engine caked with dirt. This car had been in storage for over 30 years when it was unearthed. We think the owner is having fun showing it unrestored when it won’t matter if it gets a little dirty or dinged.

In the prewar class there was a huge Delage (or was it a Delahaye?)  that had a fine coat of rust from nose to tail. Somehow in this form it is more possible to appreciate the beauty of the body shape than it it had all that distracting paint and polished chrome.

THE FASHION
For those who take note of such things, the most fashionable men seemed to be decked out in 1.)striped English style dress shirts 2.) very colorful ties 3.) just the right amount of gold watch with brown leather strap 4.) Panama hats in cream 5.) fine leather brown loafers 6.) little round sunglasses, a la Beatles but plastic framed.
 The women had more diverse attire, sometimes long dresses if they had a prewar car. Though Pebble has never had a “dress code” the event is inching toward what at least one of the Goodwood events has—period clothing recommended, which we find a fun thing because those who can’t afford to field a car can at least find a nice pre-war styled suit

THE DREAM CAR LAWN
It has become the practice for various and diverse automakers to premiere a car on the “upper lawn” before you enter the concours proper. Morgan had an aerodynamic coupe which still looked remarkably prewar. Rolls Royce had a Pebble Beach edition dhc Phantom which was only remarkable for its industrial grade picnic set. The new McLaren coupe was there and here’s where this reporting pair split their opinions. Wyss thinking it not much more impressive than, say, a Ferrari 458 Italia, but Winer, an engineer, thinking its engineering and styling above the Ferrari.

Very odd on the dream car lawn was a hot rod powered by a V12 made by Wayne Cherry, a retired GM styling official. The craftsmanship was on a par with million dollar prototypes by automakers, but the styling was a la Dean Jeffries of the Sixties which is certainly better than Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.
It’s too bad Cherry couldn’t have gotten such a radical roadster through at GM during his tenure there, the way Chrysler got Don Gale’s Prowler into production. When we look back it is really remarkable that one of Detroit’s “Big Three” got a factory designed hot rod into production. If only GM had had the chutzpah…

AUTO RETRO
The Retro Auto exhibition was about 1000 ft. away from Pebble, atop a hill which seemed to get steeper each time we climbed it. was The three days of Retro Auto provides a venue for enthusiasts who come to town early to look at  automobile collectibles including fine art posters, paintings, photography, sculpture and model cars. Hugh Ruthven, a stalwart of the Ferrari world, always has some nice driving gloves, pudding bowl helmets and the like from his European sources. Also from England there was a dealer in new books bringing titles that aren’t available here yet. We tried to find the chap we saw last year selling old photos but he doesn’t seem to have made the grid this year. There was even someone displaying a classic car body made out of carbon fiber, which we gathered is some sort of kit car project, not a proposal to rebody a classic in carbon fiber (though we are sure it would be faster than if alloy bodied!). There is a similar exhibition held at the Embassy Suites in Monterey and both have some of the same vendors but Auto Retro is free to anyone who has a concours ticket. Right across from Auto Retro was an exhibition of new Porsches–indicating the high regard automakers have for Pebble Beach to snare buyers in their demographic range.