Addams and the 8C 2300 Alfa Romeo Castagna in front of his Westhampton Beach home in shortly before trading it for Ken Purdy’s Bugatti. Photo copyright and courtesy of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation.
By Pete Vack
From the Archives, 2010
Classic Addams: From a high perch of their haunted Victorian mansion, a chilly Morticia looks on as Lurch and Gomez prepare to pour a cauldron of boiling oil onto an unsuspecting and cheery group of Christmas carolers three stories below.
Perhaps no cartoon better illustrated the wit, charm, style and macabre humor of Charles Addams than this New Yorker art from 1946 known as “Boiling Oil.” It is Addams at his best; the detail, the creepy mansion, the scary but lovable characters, the anticipation of a gruesome act which never actually transpires. His Addams Family™ cartoons inspired two TV series, two feature length movies and made him and the Addams Family™ household names. And the story lives on; Addams Family 2 opens this month in theaters near you.
Addams’ favorite cartoon, and the first cartoon appearance of the outside of the Addams mansion. Copyright and courtesy of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation
Less well known was the fact that Addams had what he called a “long collection of rather good vintage cars,” which included two Bugattis, a 1933 Aston Martin, a supercharged Mercedes S, an Amilcar and a Castagna-bodied Alfa 2300. It was no passing fad; an interest sparked in 1948 at Indianapolis lasted forty years until his death at age 76 in 1988.
Even less was known about the man himself. People wondered what kind of ghoulish creature was capable of producing cartoons like “Boiling Oil.” From where did he get his bizzare ideas? Did he really hate children (or just Christmas carolers)? Charles Addams – he signed work “Chas” simply because it looked different — often liked to put on for his interviewers and public and act the part of a slightly mad cartoonist.
Addams’ passion for cars was often reflected in his cartoons. Here Uncle Fester prepares to go racing with Morticia in an old Mercedes. Published with the express permission of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation.
Six foot tall and often mistaken for either Lyndon Johnson or actor Walter Matthau, Addams often dated and married women who looked suspiciously like Morticia. He festooned his apartments and houses with medieval crossbows and suits of armor, (another hobby of his), Haitian voodoo facemasks, and a mechanic once found a small tombstone in the trunk of one of his cars with the epitaph “Our Little Orville”. He claimed it was okay since it wasn’t attached to anybody. He liked black cars. The Alfa 2300 Castagna avoided that fate, but the Type 35C Bugatti did not and it was painted black along with his much newer 1960 Bentley.
Surprisingly (other than to those who knew and loved Addams), he was said to be the gentlest of gentlemen. Michael Argetsinger (author of Walt Hansgen: His Life and the History of Post-War American Road Racing and Mark Donohue: Technical Excellence at Speed) recently spoke to his mother Jean about Addams. “My mother remembers him as a kind and gentle man,” he emailed. “My earliest memory of him is from the 1948 Watkins Glen where he raced his supercharged Mercedes Benz S. I was very young, but impressed by the Sherlock Holmes Deerstalker hat he wore.” Often imagined as a W.C. Fields type, Addams was the opposite. “I particularly recall his visits over the years to our summer home on Seneca Lake. He drew wonderful and fun sketches for us – my brother Duke and sister Louise still have the ones he did for them. He must have been fond of children because he is kindly remembered by all of us, and I think it’s difficult to fake interest and kindness with children.” At the time, Addams was married to the lovely Barbara Jean Day “Bobbi” Addams but he would never have children of his own.
Watkins Glen, 1948. Addams in his ‘fore and aft’ hat. Photo copyright and courtesy of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation.
In 1947 Addams and Argetsinger’s father Cameron were both members of the Sports Car Club of America. When, at a cocktail party, Cameron wanted to know who would back him in starting a road race event around Watkins Glen, Addams raised his hand, entered his 1927 Mercedes in the race and placed 11th complete with that Sherlock Holmes hat. The Mercedes was no slouch. The S model was the most powerful in the Mercedes catalogue and the racing versions were said to have put out as much as 220 hp. “My father told me that Addams drove that big Mercedes extremely well,” recalled Michael Argetsinger. The race was won by Frank Griswold in the Alfa Romeo 8C2900 Touring coupe.
The Addams pit crew on Franklin Street, Watkins Glen just before the start of the 1948 race. Bobbi Addams holds Charles’ helmet while Sam Cobean, with a bad ankle, leans against the Mercedes’ spare tire. Addams would finish 11th. Photo courtesy of the Argetsinger Family Collection.
Into this eclectic mix came another friend of Addams, a young cartoonist named Sam Cobean, whose work, thanks to Addams, was just getting recognized by the New Yorker and other major magazines. Cobean and his wife Anne became good friends of Jean and Cameron Argetsinger and spent much time at their home on Lake Seneca. Cobean, along with Addams’ wife Bobby were enlisted as the pit crew for the Addams’ Mercedes during the 1948 race. Cobean also caught the sports car bug, and as his own art became more in demand, he was able to afford a new Jag XK 120.
Addams, Argetsinger, and Frank Griswold. Photo courtesy Argetsiner family.
On a summer day in 1951, Cobean saw Argetsinger at Smalley’s Garage, there to have his Cad-Allard prepared by Lester Smalley for the Grand Prix in September. Cobean offered him a ride home in his Jag and Argetsinger jumped in. On the way, trying to avoid a car turning in front of him, Cobean left the road and hit a tree. Argetsinger was thrown out with massive facial injuries, and Cobean was killed instantly. Addams was devastated and said that he felt responsible. Cobean was one of his best friends and thought that it was his own interest in cars that got Sam started.
Bridgehampton, 1951. Addams in the 1927 Mercedes enjoys a moment with his first wife. Photo copyright Bill Giltzow.
Although a very good driver, Addams was never seriously interested in racing, and in the future took part only in rallies and the very beginnings of what would become known as vintage racing–old timer’s events held at Bridgehampton as a part of the SCCA events. The big supercharged Mercedes (according to the Mercedes Benz Museum, the car was a 1927 12/120/180 supercharged Model S sports tourer) was used several times at Bridgehampton, an event right in Addams’ back yard. Certainly, he was there with it in 1951. For the road, he tried out an Aston Martin DB2, moving up to a Mercedes 300 sedan in 1954, giving in trade an Austin Healey. But the class drive of the decade was an extremely rare Alfa Romeo 8C2300 that, despite the wishes of a previous British owner, found its way into the U.S.
Addams, left talking to friends at Bridgehampton in 1957. He had purchased the Alfa 2300 a short time before and was eager to get it out on the track. Note the tape accentuating the Castagna motif along the hood and fender. Photo by Dave Edwards courtesy of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation.
Old Alfas are known best by their chassis number, and 2211072 was stamped into metal of the car that Addams found himself in possession of in 1957. There is a photo of Addams with some track officials or enthusiasts taken at Bridgehampton in 1957, another in 1958, and another in 1960, if we can believe the license plates. Rarely missing an event near his beach home in Westhampton Beach, Addams was apparently very happy with the Alfa and had little trouble with it. 1959 found him again at Bridgehampton, where he entered the Alfa in what was becoming the traditional running of the Vintage Sports Car Club race. Dan Donahue’s Bugatti took first, and Briggs Cunningham in a 1914 Mercedes came in second, and Addams finished third in the Alfa 2300, beating two big Bentleys to the finish.
But when automotive writer Ken Purdy decided one day in 1960 that his Type 35 C Bugatti had to go, it precipitated a four-way deal that netted Addams a car he would keep for the next 46 years.
Our thanks to the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation, Michael Argetsinger and the International Motor Racing Research Center, the Simeone Foundation and Tony Carroll of the VSCCA for their help with this article. Also a special thanks to Linda H. Adams for her superb biography, Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life.
Next week: Bugatti Years
Sources
Primary
Interview with Michael S. Argetsinger, 5-16-2010
Interview with Tony Carroll, 5-17-2010
Books
Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life, Linda H. Davis, Random House, 2006, Turner Press, 2021
The World of Chas Addams, Charles Addams, Randon House, 1991
The Legendary 2.3, Simon Moore, Parkside Publications, 2000
Watkins Glen 1948-1952, the definitive illustrated history, Philippe Defechereux, Beeman Jorgensen, 1998
The Spirit of Competition, Frederick A. Simeone, M.D., Coachbuilt Press 2009
Articles
Driving Us Crazy: The Cars and Car Toons of Charles Addams by Michael Solomon, Tee and Charles Addams Foundation, undated.
Bridgehampton Sports Car Races, Sports Car, July 1959
A Siren Song from Stuttgart: the history of the supercharged Mercedes Benz K and S by Griffith Borgeson, Automobile Quarterly, V16 N.3
A special thanks to Kevin Miserocchi at the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation for use of the previously unpublished Addams cartoon, Bill Giltzow, whose father photographed the big Mercedes at Bridgehampton, Michael S. Argetsinger for the photos taken at Watkins Glen.
Hi Peter,
I have always been a great fan of Charles Addams’s work and have always been an Amilcariste with excursions to own a four-litre Voisin, a pair of Lorraine-Dietrich 3-litre six-cylinder cars, a 1937 BMW 326 sedan, a Bugatti T44 and so on.
The history of Charlie’s Amilcar is fascinating. If you are interested I could write it up for you. I’m guessing you have access to that sweet photograph of Charlie and his beloved dog in the Amilcar.
Two of my old friends, Ed Godshalk of Oregon and Paul Wilson of Virginia are, I gather, also your friends.
Amilcars, beyond social histories are vey advanced for their era and this has never really been acknowledged by those who only appreciate shine and speed.
I’ve been meaning to upgrade my membership of your very good email magazine and I really must do this. Unfortunately, I was struck down by “Polymyalgia” (look it up but don’t ever get it!) after we moved back to our home town of Melbourne after 30 years away in a region known as The Riverina. I’m lucky that I did not get a severe dose as it can last for many years. The medicos don’t know much it but they do know that stress triggers it. Try moving 700 kms south with a lifetime’s collection of tools and spare parts, scores and parts (I am a music composer who came from a family of engineers, mechanics and the like), two only 12 metre removal vans of furniture and whatever, two Amilcars and 478 large cartons, and do this in a time of ferocious bushfires, drought, floods elsewhere, a dithering and unprepared Federal government, a Royal Commission revealing the dreadful crimes of most of our major banks and insurance companies and then Covid-19.
Kind regards,
Bruce Smeaton
Hi Peter,
As a lifetime Amilcariste and great fan of the works of Charles Addams and “The New Yorker” I know quite a lot about the history of Charlie’s Amilcar and where it is today.
If you life I could write it up for you and I’m presuming you have permission to publish that sweet photo of Charlie and his beloved dog in the Amilcar.
I tried sending a comment before but I don’t think it went through as it is still sitting there with a note about moderation. Perhaps what I wrote was to lengthy.
Cheers,
Bruce Smeaton
Interesting chap, always enjoyed his cartoons. Never knew about his passion for racing!
Thanks for the info.
Fascinating, thanks Pete. I’ve subscribed to TNY since 1966; in those days of The Finance Emergency Regulations 1940 it was very hard to get money out of NZ for such fripperies as a magazine subscription, but it changed my life. I’m aware that other cartoonists there had cars; Geo Price an old Rolls-Royce….any details?
You may want to mention that the Alfa 2300 is on display at the Simeone museum and is exercised periodically. It is the only Castagna bodied 8C2300 LM roadster made. Yank
Cars and cartoons of Chas Addams was published by the Bridgehampton Museum and they may still have copies for sale
In the b&w photo of Charles’s Alfa at Bridgehampton, the gentleman on the far right in the dark shirt certainly looks a LOT like Briggs Cunningham. I would not be at all surprised if it were. Great article, thanks for publishing.
We are checking with them now to see if there are still copies available. But much more to come on Addams and his life and cars.
Alan, good to hear from you! Yes, we’ll have the complete story and a drive of the Addams 8C Alfa at the Simeone coming up in the October 26 issue of VT.
Pete