VSCCA members

Story by Sean Smith
Photos by the author unless othewise noted

The car gene skipped a generation in Ben Tarlow’s family. Ben loved transportation, anything with a motor. Cars, trains, planes, boats, anything that moved. His granddad had a whale-tail 911, but his parents weren’t that into it.

Born in 1990, Ben grew up at the dawn of the internet; he learned about the wide world of machines at dial-up speed. At fourteen he started focusing on cars, because he knew in a couple of years he wasn’t getting his engineer’s or pilot’s license—he was getting his driver’s license. Things just went crazy from there. Ben got a bit nerdy about it. He wasn’t interested in studying all the latest hyper-cars; instead, he started researching the classics. At one point, his Dad did own a 1972 2002 BMW, so they became a passing fancy for Ben.

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Eno DePasquale with The Bomb at Lime Rock in 2014. He built the car in the eary 1960s, raced it, sold it, forgot about it. In 1990, The Bomb staged a comeback, having been rescued by its original creator. Photo by Sean Smith.

Story by Sean Smith
Historical photos courtesy the Eno DePasquale collection.

Eno DePasquale was a car guy from the word go. His father, a doctor, had a 1953 Jaguar XK120M that would occasionally see some late-night street racing at the hands of his son. Eno didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps; he wanted to work on cars, not people. His father would tell friends, “I think my son has gears going around in his head!”

In his high school years, with no formal training, Eno started to build cars for himself. He began by customizing a ‘36 Ford coupe, then moved on to a ‘32 three-window that he chopped, channeled, and built from the ground up. His final high school ride was a ‘40 Ford that he massaged into a custom machine.

Eno DePasquale in 1953 at age 16 with his 1936 Ford coupe that he customized.

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Ben Tarlow, Alfa Romeos and the VSCCA

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