The Ferrari Kid

I was born for Ferrari. I just didn’t know it until I was a teenager and I never saw a real one until I was 25 years old. It was lust at first sight.

Some of my earliest memories revolve around sitting on the front steps of the old house on Main Street in Cedartown, Georgia “counting cars” with my grandfather. I was very young – pre-school -- so the simplicity of the game matched the simplicity of my age and our lives. In a small town in the deep south in the late 1940s, we had to find our own diversions where we could. With the delight and glee that can only spring from a child’s purity, I would shout out “Ford!”, or “Pontiac!” or “DeSoto!”. As far as I can recall, no tallies were kept so I really can’t tell you where the term “counting cars” came from. That’s what we called the game, nonetheless. In the dark evenings we’d progress to guessing what make the car would be by the sound of its approach. I don’t recall what percentages of those guesses were correct, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was spending that time with my grandfather, who was the light of my young life.

I also can’t say if these evenings fostered the love of automobiles that was to permeate my life, or if the fascination with autos fostered my interest in the game. I do know that I continued a fascination (my mother would have called it an obsession, no doubt) with the American car that didn’t waver until I was 16 and uprooted once more to follow my career Army father to yet another new assignment. This one was particularly cruel because it presaged my senior year in high school, a time when most of us are unusually vulnerable. It was also particularly interesting because it was my first overseas assignment. We would be going to Germany where, although I didn't know it at the time, my father would be a key player in the first of many nuclear-armed Nike missile sites that would form a shield against the dreaded Soviet Union. In my first act of rebellion against the discipline imposed upon me by my southern birthright and also by my military existence, I tried to refuse to go. I tried to stay with family in south Alabama.

None of this worked, so in the summer of 1959 I found myself in the small town of Idar-Oberstein, Germany. My father was stationed in Baumholder, a very large military base in a very small German town. I’m quite sure I was still pouting and unhappy and refusing to even consider enjoying this new land that surrounded us. Fortunately, that didn’t last long. We would spend Sundays driving and exploring our new surroundings. Mostly, I remember long stretches of thick woods and narrow, twisting roads broken up by quaint taverns or villages. I do remember quite clearly seeing my first “sports car” parked along the side of one of these roads and feeling my heart go right up into my throat. Lust! This was a new experience. Up until now my love affair with autos had been limited to American behemoths, because that’s all I’d ever known. I suppose there were places in America where cars such as these were seen, but certainly not in my existence, which was limited to army bases and small southern towns, for the most part.

The car that started it all. Mine was black, but photo is not scanned. 190SL photo courtesy of automotivetraveler.com

When we passed this sleek little car I had no clue what it was, but I knew I wanted one. I don’t recall if it was that day or on a later sighting that I isolated a chrome circle with three prongs on the the car. Had I even heard of Mercedes then? I’m not sure. I know I didn't recognize the logo and I asked around until I discovered what manufacturer that mark belonged to. A little more research proved that this first love was a 190SL, a classic blend of sleek lines and rounded voluptuous curves in just the right balance. Many, many years later I would own one of these, but for now it was simply the beginning of a lifetime obsession with European sports cars that eventually led me to the conviction that the ultimate of the genre was the legendary Ferrari.

Fast-forward about 10 years and I was walking down Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco one Saturday, on a break from a part-time ‘job’ at British Motors. That, perhaps, is a story for another day. Parked on the curb in front of the Porsche dealer was a sleek bit of gold that stopped me in my tracks. Until this day, I had never seen a real, live Ferrari and I stood on the sidewalk with my mouth gaping and eyes wide as I drank in the sight and bent over to take a peek inside. I jumped like a scalded cat when a voice behind me said “Like that, do you?” I turned to see an attractive older man, who turned out to be the owner of the gold beauty, a 330 GTB. His name was Al and he sold Porsche. Right away, we had things to talk about aside from the Ferrari and soon became friends. I can’t recall with any detail my first ride in the car, but I do remember walking from the bus stop to my ‘day job’ in San Francisco one morning early and hearing a high-toned car horn blowing insistently behind me. Since my southern mother had tried to teach me to be a lady, I ignored the insistent and continuing sound until I saw the car and realized Al had come by looking for me to say good morning. And I do remember the first and perhaps only time I was allowed to drive the car. I remember much more about this car and Al, but their purpose in this story is that they introduced me to the world of Ferrari for real, rather than fantasy.

Fast forward another few years to around 1973, when I was living in Newport Beach, California. Those were the days of the gas crisis, long lines, fuel shortages and theft by siphoning. I had spent a weekend in San Francisco and that Monday morning was driving to work with a close eye on the dwindling gas gauge of my red Datsun 240Z. I’d intentionally left it low while I was out of town, and because of the lines thought I’d take a chance on getting to work then fill up later, when I had time to wait in line. The car had other ideas and sputtered to a slow halt along a stretch of lightly traveled four-lane road that was, naturally, the only portion of my commute that took me outside a densely populated area. I steered off to the side of the road and sat there deflated, wondering what the hell to do now, when in the distance I spotted a car stopped and backing towards me. I watched its approach with some combination of incredulity that somebody was actually stopping to help and a dawning bit of disbelieving astonishment as the car neared enough for me to see the Ferrari logo on its rear.

I couldn’t move. I was dumbfounded and speechless and seriously wondering if I’d moved into some fantasy world where things like this might happen. They sure didn’t happen to me aside from fantasies and dreams. But there it was right in front of my car, big as life, prancing horse and all staring me right in the face. Then a tall man who I later characterized as a cross between Burt Reynolds and Clark Gable unfolded himself from the Ferrari and started walking back to where I sat trying to take it all in. All I could think was "holy shit, this can't be happening." But he was here, he was real and he was outside my window wondering if maybe I was afraid he was an ax murderer.

I forced my body to move, rolled down my window and after a bit of conversation he piled me into the Ferrari and off we went in search of a gas station, where he filled up a gas can and returned me to my car, primed the carburetor and made sure the Z was running well before he left. If all that wasn’t enough, in the course of our search for gasoline our conversation had shown the unlikely coincidence that he and I lived in the same apartment building in a huge singles complex in Newport Beach. We dated and became friends and he had many wonderful Ferrari stories to tell. I never drove his car, which I believe was a 365 GTC, but we had some wild rides in it. I remember going out for ice cream and flying down a stretch of Newport Highway at about 130 mph.

My Ferrari of San Francisco Auto Sales License

By 1976 I was living in San Francisco once more and it was quite a year in my life, for many reasons. One day in late summer I presented myself to the owner of Ferrari of San Francisco and told him I’d like to sell Ferrari. He was fine with that, since he didn’t have to pay me anything, but I’d have to scare up my own contacts because anyone walking in the front door belonged to his existing salesperson. I didn’t care – I just wanted to be there, to hang out with these cars. I got my first auto sales license and thought I’d reached big-time. One day I offered to wax the cars in the showroom – there must have been 4 or 5 used classics that he thought needed help, and I took the paste wax he gave me and began applying it to each in its turn, which worked out quite well. I really didn’t know what I was getting into or how difficult it would be to take all that dried wax film off the cars. I found out soon enough and in fact think the realization set in about half way through the first car. Leaving the stuff on the cars wasn't an option, so with the thrill of rubbing those fabulous cars dwindling rapidly, I struggled for hours, as the men stood around watching and laughing at their little joke before finally stepping in to help. I was exhausted!

This opening led to me working with them setting up and staffing the Ferrari booth at the San Francisco International Automobile Show that fall and from there to becoming a real Ferrari salesperson at Modern Classic Motors in Reno, NV, the legendary holy grail of Ferrari on the west coast. MCM was owned by Bill Harrah and had imported and distributed Ferrari west of the Mississippi for many years. In December of 1976 they were opening a new showroom and I opened it with them. I also latched onto a gig delivering Ferrari and Rolls Royce in and out of California and a few multi-day trips with brand new Ferraris to places like Denver and Phoenix. If you’ve never been turned loose with a brand new Ferrari, unlimited expenses and no time schedule, you haven’t lived.

I never managed to own one – or to like one of the owners well enough to marry them – but my memories will last a lifetime and my heart still goes right into my throat when I hear that unmistakable growl of a V-12 or the tight whine of the newer mid-engine V-8s. I'm a Ferrari Kid for life.