By Carl Goodwin
For almost 30 years Gerald Rothman has had the often thankless job of making sure that the rag tag army of Abarth owners in the US and elsewhere have a focal point.
Abarth owners, you see, tend to be as complex, individual, and hard to keep together as their cars. Longtime Abarth enthusiasts include the likes of Judge Parker, a deep fried Southerner who was the lead singer in a very popular country rock band. Mahlon Craft is a bearded lone wolf who lives on a mountain in Connecticut and once posed for the cover of Newsweek magazine as a Cro-Magnon man, painted by his wife, noted illustrator Kinuko. Dutchman Ed Swart is an ex-Abarth factory driver who married Jim Clark’s girlfriend, while Barry Ward owns and operates a successful chain of travel agencies. Members of the Abarth world can be ultra wealthy businessmen with a team of Abarth sports racers in a multi-car palace or unemployable dreamers with a gasping, rusty Fiat Abarth 850 on a dirt driveway.
Gerald Rothman, who kept Abarth enthusiasts patched together for 20 years.
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To the average Abarth owner, the idea of a formalized meeting, with officers and notes and agendas and budgets is anathema. An Abarth National Concours will never happen, and they prefer to be each an ‘outlaw’ in his own right. Outwardly, they seem to have little in common. Yet most subscribed to Gerald Rothman's Abarth Stinger, the lifeblood of the Abarth world and the glue which kept them all in some mode of contact with one another. The Abarth Register, and its organ, The Stinger, are Rothman's babies…or should we say "were" because "Mister Abarth" is retiring.
Rothman’s Stinger was a chatty, archaic cut and paste job, filled with letters and notes from Abarth owners around the globe, usually addressed to Gerald and Trude, his wife of 60 years . Or they might have been articles reprinted (with permission) from other publications about Abarths, or complex technical articles with scale drawings submitted by the more technical Abarth Register members, or humorous reports of the odd Abarth party or gathering. Rothman himself often wrote a creative article, one memorable piece being called "The Ghost of Carlo Abarth". Rothman deftly pasted them into the often unnumbered pages of the Xeroxed Stinger and mailed it out to the subscribers in his own time. Think of the Stinger as the exact opposite of the upscale Italian car club publications, yet in many ways is more interesting, vibrant, lively and above all, individualistically human, reflecting the inherent traits of the Editor.
Rothman was unfazed by the latest technologies, unfettered by email with all the accompanying junk and ads, untethered to anything but the US Postal Service. The cut and paste and copy mode worked just fine for him—and his legions of supporters. "If it was good enough for the New York Times, it’s good enough for the Stinger" he once remarked.
The New York Times was once, oh, perhaps 60 years ago, close to home and heart. A young Rothman, having held every position on the school paper at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, graduated with two awards from the Columbia University School of Journalism, the training ground for NY Times reporters. He applied for a job at the Times, but was turned down -- during the Depression, the Times was hiring only men with families to support. As the shadows of war loomed, Rothman enlisted in the Army Air Corps before Pearl Harbor serving, during WWII, as the flight engineer for a B-24 twin-engined bomber. As the war was ending, he worked at Consolidated Aircraft, maker of the PB4Y flying boat.
With his journalism credentials, he found a job as a specifications writer for Republic Aviation after the war. As president of the company’s sports car club, Rothman once met Briggs Cunningham while searching for a meeting speaker. He followed up his years at Republic as the editor of the American Newspaper Publishing Association. And he spent the last part of his career as ad writer for the Madison Avenue agency of Watts, Botson, Johnson and Duff.
One of the last issues of the Stinger. The old word mimeograph comes to mind. But it had a heart
and soul far greater than the slickest ad-festooned magazine on the newsstand.
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Always interested in cars and racing, (particularly the Indianapolis Millers), a chance meeting with Dave Ash (one of the prime movers and shakers of the elite East Coast sportscar set), led to a position who as the research editor for an automobile almanac Ash was interested in publishing. "Ash then went to Scotland for four months to shoot grouse, while I immersed myself into automobile specs." In doing so, Rothman discovered the tiny Abarth factory, and when the chance to take over the Abarth Register, established by Pete Linksy, he was glad to be of service. "I had journalistic training," says Rothman, "so it was easy for me to do the newsletter."
Rothman got a chance to own one of the very rare OTR 1000 Radiales. As we all know from reading Vack’s Abarth Buyer’s Guide, the 1966 OTR was a one liter hemi head engine inserted into the lovely 850 Fiat coupe. Radiale meant radial valves, as differentiated from the DOHC setup. With 85 hp on tap it was good for 105 mph. But not when at a stoplight, which was where the Rothman OTR was sitting when a Chevy Impala nailed it from behind. The Abarth lost the contest, and the ambulance took Rothman in one direction and the wrecker took the Abarth in another. The two were never re-united.
A far more enjoyable trip was one for the 1997 Mille Miglia. "Barry Ward made all the arrangements," Gerry says, "and he was the tour director. About twelve members of the Abarth club went. We went to the Ferrari factory and the Maserati factory, and we followed the route of the Mille Miglia. It was the trip of a lifetime." Ward recalls those times fondly, and said that "Gerry alone soldiered on, keeping the Abarth flag high on the pole. And I'm sure that he also had to dig into his own pocket to get issues of The Stinger out to subscribers."
Rothman's only Abarth was similar to this ad for the OTR 850. He bought it new but it was
soon rear-ended by a Chevy.
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At the news of Gerry’s retirement, Abarth owners sent in their tributes, one of which came from Mahlon Craft: "Gerry's dedication to producing the Stinger was a welcome breath of fresh air. Somehow, he managed to bring all of us together, with our overblown egos, and ended up with a crowd of people that mostly got along and, when they didn't, deferred to Gerry. What all of us need to remember was that he was a one-man show in a world where clubs and officers are the usual way. I'd like to say that the 'Rothman Years' of my affection for the cars of Carlo Abarth were my best. Perhaps that was just coincidental to the peak of my interest in cars in general. I doubt it though. In some ways, Gerry was like a father to me. Like a spoiled son, I never entirely repaid the favor in kind, but he did make a difference in my life. For that I owe words of thanks that have not found their way into Mr. Webster's published literary efforts."
And this, from Greg Paris: "Peter Linsky, who founded the Abarth Register in 1973, was the hare, Gerry Rothman was the tortoise. Gerry finally overtook a tiring Linsky early on, and steadfastly pushed forward until only time and technology finally overtook him,…nearly 30 years later. What a race!"
The Stinger, Rothman's Stinger, while not a lavish production, was loaded with information that readers really wanted. The mainstream car magazines could learn a lot from Mr. Rothman on the subject of generating reader interest. Letters to Gerry were frequently printed in their entirety. If there was something you would rather not be seen by everyone, it wasn't a good idea to include it in a letter to Gerry! Recent restorations of member cars, reports and pictures of vintage races, evaluations of motor oils, advertisements from parts suppliers, photos of the charming Annieliese Abarth with various figures in the sport, and letters accompanying checks for dues – from the USA, Italy, Germany, England, Switzerland, and Austria –were all part of this fascinating publication.
Feature articles from various publications were reprinted complete and unedited. These have included excerpts from Pete Vack's Abarth book, a marvelous series on the Cisitalia automobile, an article on OSCAs, and a 10- page Vintage Motorsport feature on the Abarth team, Team Roosevelt. Written by Carl Goodwin and Pete Vack, the piece won a Gold MOTO Award in Walt Haessner’s IAMC competition. With apologies to Walt, the greatest honor for the article came when Gerry announced it on the cover of the Stinger as "The Definitive Team Roosevelt Article."
Through this great newsletter with its vitality and spirit, Rothman has helped more car enthusiasts than anyone knows to keep these recalcitrant Italian crocks on the road, through a highly useful exchange of parts sources, service expertise, technical information and general encouragement. Of course, Abarth owners put plenty of time and money into the preservation of their machines but, if truth be told, when asked "what keeps your car on the road" they could have answered: Gerald S. Rothman, Executive Director, The Abarth Register, USA.
