The owner of this 3500 is happy to drive it around as is. Reverse snobbery or a truer perspective of the hobby?
By Brandes Elitch
Photos by Petya Elitch
Many years ago, there was a publication called “Special Interest Autos”. It was one of the best examples of automotive journalism anywhere on the planet. For the August, 1987 number (the hundredth issue of SIA), Editor Dave Brownell asked the Founding Editor, Michael Lamm, to write an editorial about the state of the collector car hobby. Recently I reread this column, and it resonates for those of us who have just finished the Monterey weekend.
I want to share some of Mr. Lamm’s comments with you. It is really one of the most important pieces published then or since on this subject, as far as I can tell, and I read a lot. Even 22 years ago, he was disturbed by two trends in the collector car hobby.
The first was a general, all-pervading commercialism. “What used to be a grass-roots, do-it-yourself, very informal hobby has become…a business,” he wrote. Second is the over-restoration of many collector cars. “Over-restoration has become a tremendous problem, especially since it’s part of the commercialization process.” Lamm quite properly identifies Bill Harrah as the progenitor of this process: over-restoration. He says, “Harrah’s pursuit of ‘excellence’, whatever that means, didn’t start out as a commercial standard, but it ended up that way.” He concludes, “The competition of money versus money has really gotten out of hand! No one’s ever going to look at a Bugatti Royale again and say, ‘Wow, that’s one helluva car!’ They’re going to say, ‘Wow, that’s $8 million standing there!’ Well, to me, that’s not what cars are all about.”
Anyone who considers themselves a serious automotive historian or collector should re-read Mr. Lamm’s comments every August, before heading to Monterey next year. This is because it is very easy to quickly loose all common sense, historical perspective, and even reality in the first half hour of driving around the Monterey Peninsula. It really doesn’t matter where you are or what you attend, there is an overwhelming sense of “which car is the most valuable” which really and truly erodes the fundamental decency of the car collecting hobby. Now you can argue that these events (The show at Quail Lodge, where a ticket costs $400, or the Pebble Beach concours, admission price $175) are far out of the mainstream hobby, but you would be wrong. For some time now, the truth is that when someone restores a really rare and desirable collector car, they want to show it first at Pebble Beach, before they even drive it! I have had people tell me that once they get their car out of the restoration shop (that says a lot right there) and show it at Pebble, then they will actually drive it around and start enjoying it. Partly this is because the committee which chooses who gets to show their car favors special cars that have never been shown anywhere else. And, it isn’t just what we used to call the “Big Classics,” –Pebble has classes for hot rods and motorcycles and every other kind of category you can think of, except for ’55 Chevies of course, prompting one wag to say that when he sees a Talbot-Lago on the Woodward Avenue cruise (held the same weekend) and a ’55 Chevy at Pebble, he will know that his world has changed forever.
Nothing says more than looking into the trunk of a car which has not been disturbed for more than 15 years. An “as found photo”.
This brings me to my choice of the best car story of the Monterey weekend. I can’t say that I looked at every car there, but after 30 consecutive years of attending, I have a sense of where things are and where to look. And in 2009, this story was at La Dolce Vita, the new show celebrating Italian and French cars. At first, it took me by surprise–a Maserati 3500 coupe, looking like it just escaped from the paint shop. But it’s better than that.
Here’s the story. The owner, Fred Johansen, is an old hot-rodder who collects rods and motorcycles (he has a few dozen Indians, just for starters). His girlfriend’s mother used to live in an apartment in the San Francisco bay area, and once a month they would make the obligatory trip to visit her mother. One day, there was a car he had never seen before parked outside in the lot, just sitting there, exposed to the harsh California sun. It wasn’t a hot rod, but it grabbed him and didn’t let go. He thought it was strange to see such a rare car just sitting in the lot, and so he left a note on the windshield asking if it was for sale. Every month, he would check, and there would be a few other notes (he never disturbed those) and every month he would leave a new note. This went on for ten years–ten long years. Then, one day he heard that the apartment was for sale and everyone had to vacate. He left a note in every single mailbox in the building, but no one responded, and then, the car was gone.
Fred Johansen holds the keys to the
Maserati in his hand, after 15 years of
prodding and patience.
Five more years went by. By now he had given up hope, and then his phone rang. The voice on the other end said that he had finally decided to sell the car. When our man replied, “But I left that note five years ago,” the caller said, “Well, today is your lucky day!” And so it came to pass that he became the owner of a very low mileage 3500 GT which sat on a lot for 15 years. He changed the fluids, the plugs, cleaned the tank, and the straight six fired up and ran well. Now he is starting on the body and the interior. The leather looks like it was lightly gone over with a blowtorch. But he will prevail. How can he not prevail?
The owner will prevail. Or, he’ll sell it unrestored and in five years it will be back, at The Quail, better than new but never driven.
Humbled by this story, I took my leave and headed for my car, and what should I see in the parking lot but another 3500 GT, looking itself like it had been left in dead storage for a few decades, but nevertheless still on the road. The owner is not afraid to drive it around, and seems uninterested in a concours restoration, choosing to keep it original.
And so, dear reader, I submit that these 2 cars are the real stories at Monterey this year, and were my inspiration to carry on, not the cars on the field at The Quail, or the Ferraris at Khakis, or whatever was being hawked in an auction tent. And of course, to a collector, it makes you stay up at night and stare at the ceiling and wonder where you can find just the same kind of thing.
This may be the best single article about collector cars I have ever read. I have fond memories of working in my unheated garage in Lemonister, MA on Alfas that I dearly loved. My restorations were the best I could do and afford. They were truly a work of love. This all happened in the early seventies
While I raised kids my hobby got put on the back burner and I was unable to return to it until the nineties. I was alarmed at the prices I found and worse all the people I met in the “hobby” had never really had their hands dirty in the cars they owned. They had not a clue about the subleties of valve timing or the oddities of rear oil seals. They spoke of their cars only in terms of dollars – the cars, for them, had no souls.
No one can do all the work themselves – my attempts at upholstery work was, charitably, pathetic. But a collector car has a soul and unless you touch that soul yourself – you do not understand the car and the spirit of that car will perish.
I am a reasonably hard headed engineer but I guesss a romantic about things like this. I remember Speical Interest Autos well, but somehow missed this article.
This is a great article and a great perspective on the hobby. Even at small local ar shows, you see the “Value” issue crop up.
Good, actually fantastic, article ! The OSCA articles that preceed it are equally impressive. There is no second magazine (on papre or electronic) that can compare to Velocetoday.com.
Thanks Mr. Vack and thanks to the contributors that make Velocetoday.com possible !
Good, actually fantastic, article ! The OSCA articles that preceed it are equally impressive. There is no second magazine (on papre or electronic) that can compare to Velocetoday.com.
Thanks Mr. Vack and thanks to the contributors that make Velocetoday.com possible !
Congratulations! A great article about the soul of what old cars are really all about, and how its been distorted at the Concours d’Ellegance!!
Pete,
Well I had to re-read your article on Montery because it was today that I was trying hard to get a mate to leave his Zagato Abarths old dark green paint all alone (no dents or corrosion just CA sundamage).I remember falling in love with a very tatty but straight Maserati 3500 in light metallic green.It had a chunk of filler missing from the bonnet and no front bumper,filthy Borrani wires and seats like an old glove.I used to ride my bike to stare at in the steet every weekend I had the chance to in Melbourne,Australia.Now I live in Europe and the first and last places I check at Essen and Padova (for example) are the car parks not the halls.
Cheers,Grant
ps I never got the Maserati becuase I bought my first Abarth book in Rome nearly 20 years ago by P.Vack.
Good article. We are doing our best at Pebble Beach to get across the idea that cars are meant to be driven. These days we do not deduct for evidence of use, but we do deduct for over-restoration. The PB driving tour and preservation classes help promote the concept. We also have had unrestored cars in the regular classes in recent cars. A number of them have been award winners. Michael Lamm and I are in concert and had an interesting conversation in this regard a couple of years ago.
If a Ferrari would have been featured here in this very original condition, the chassisnumber of the car would have been listed here. But its “only” a Maserati so nobody seems to care about that. A pitty…..
Ciao!
Walter
I agree completely! Four decades ago, I owned & raced sports cars & performance came before a nice wax job for me. Who here remembers “Old Yeller”? That was the true spirit of racing for me.
Now, as a car photographer in Detroit, I see a lot of over chromed “Trailer Queens”, a few even with gold plating. If I ask the owner what the ET is, they say they have no clue as they wipe a dust speck off the air cleaner. What’s with that? When I was a kid, we had a 1/4 mile marked off on a country road & everyone knew within 1/2-second what their times were within the parameters of a stopwatch & human thumbs reaction time.
One of the most interesting cars I saw last year was a mid 12-second Valiant with a mildly turbocharged slant-six motor. It dynos 315 bhp on pump gas, has a 3.23 rear end, & gets 28mpg around town. He drives it everywhere & loves it dearly. As long as he owns it, it will never become a Trailer Queen. This is a guy after my own heart.
Properly build, these would turn 8,000 rpm & deliver high 9’s at over 130Mph.
http://www.valiant.org/sixup.html
Great article – and very timely. I believe the situation has become even more of a problem with old racing cars. Today you see 512s and Cobras with finishes that Penske would have envied. They just didn’t look that way when they raced.
This subject is addressed extensively in Dr. Fred Simeone’s new book “The Spirit of Competition,” reviewed in VT last month. It is well worth reading his comparison of cars to other collectibles, especially furniture where any alteration of the original finish reduces the value significantly.
…and pebble beach is much the poorer for NOT having 55 chevies imho…
A car is only original once.
Eloquent in deed Mr. Elitch. All those of us who thought working on our cars was as much of the romance and intimacy as driving them. I bought my 250GTE for $5000 with dead red paint, corroded Borranis and shrunk-tight leather. After the engine was rebuilt, it took weeks of buffing to bring the dark red paint back to something near showroom condition. It showed no more than sun damage when I began. I held each Borrani in my lap and spent many hours over several days polishing each spoke and finally the beautiful rim to make each one nearly new, too. The leather took countless applications of a leather restoring material the name of which is lost in over-stressed memory files. I had no financial resources just a driving fascination with the cars—time—and elbow grease. Several interesting cars have arrived under similar conditions including the DB2 I recently found in a barn in Connecticut, but that’s another—similar—story.
p.s. Thank you Ed for slowly reintroducing the love of cars to Pebble Beach.
Entry to Pebble Beach sounds very expensive. Villa d’este the exclusive concours in Italy costs about 10€ on vistors day!
I agree with the article about over restoration and the owners regarding their cars as a show of wealth. What I do not agree fully is leaving the car in an as found condition. I always look after my cars, even modern ones, to keep them in a reliable and respectable condition. “Dirty Borranis”, the boot looking like the FBI went through it , and the paintwork looking like a sick cat, this for me is a sign of either a careless owner or someone enjoying seeing people look in disbelief when they see the state of a valuable car. I am a firm believer of using any car come rain or shine and pity cars that are left unused. Last week I was at the Beaulieu Autojumble and enjoyed walking through the visitors car park and seeing classics parked there. When I visited the museum I couldn’t help wonder whether the cars I was looking at actually worked. I know that some do but others obviously are never started up.
A well-written alternative view to this event Mr. Elitch! I have also really enjoyed the exchange of comments to this article, well done Mr. Vack!
My “two-cents” are about stewardship, and sharing. A collector has the obligation to properly maintain or improve the collectible during his ownership. A proper steward would not modify or incorrectly restore the car. For example, the Can-Am racers that I saw in the 60’s were quite rough and brutish. That was part of the aura. Have we forgotten how hastily-built and wonderfully mean-looking a brand new factory-prepared Maserati Tipo 63 was? Paint and panel-fit of so many charming old cars would be unacceptable today in a Kia dealership!
And sharing? Well, museums and events that charge so much alienate future enthusiasts and deprive so many of the education in automotive history.