The Pimpmobile

An ill-advised effort to watch a movie named 'Love Ranch' this evening reminded me of a good tale. Supposedly based on the story of Reno's fabled Mustang Ranch brothel and its founders, the film was about as bad as I thought it would be, although the presence of Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci did give me cause to give it a shot. A short shot, as it turns out.

One of the early scenes has them riding around Reno in a gaudy custom sled typical of the 70's and 80's, and that's what brought this story to mind.  I actually met Joe Conforte, the owner of the real Mustang Ranch, once, and I met him over a very similar if not identical automobile.

Early one evening at Modern Classic Motors I glanced out the side window and saw a monstrosity of a car parked under the service portico. Curiosity drove me outside to have a good look, try to find out what it was. Walking around, taking in all the gaudy details, gave me no clue to its make, but the term that immediately came to mind was 'pimpmobile'. I had no idea at that point just how prophetic that thought would be.

After a few moments movement inside caught my eye. Down the stairs from the executive offices and out the side door came a short, stout mafia type, complete with cigar, slicked hair, fancy suit and arrogant attitude.  "You like that car?" he asked.  Now, several responses came to mind, along the lines of 'I wouldn't be caught dead in it' and the aforementioned 'pimpmobile'.  However, since he'd come down from an obvious private meeting with someone in upper management, and since I hadn't a clue who he was, my younger, nimbler mind opted for a safer answer.  Along the lines of 'I was just trying to figure out what it is'.

"It's something you don't have and never will have," he responded.  Then he began to tell me all about it.  I remember few of those details -- built in Florida, I believe, on a Lincoln Continental chassis with a custom body and interior. My older and less nimble mind tells me it might have been a Titan, but.... never trust an old and stodgy memory on such details.  After suitably impressing me (not!) with his swagger and pimpmobile, he hopped in and drove away.

I walked back inside the showroom and spoke to another employee.  Something along the lines of 'who the hell was that pompous ass?'.  "You didn't know?" said the employee.  "That was Joe Conforte!"   And then I said something along the lines of 'ahhh -- it was a pimpmobile'.

I don't know if the rest of that movie had any basis in reality, but the mythical owner played by Joe Pesci was definitely driving a custom pimpmobile very similar to the one driven by Mr. Conforte.  The producers got that part right.

Ferrari Heaven

There are times in life when all the suns and moons and stars line up just right and we find ourselves in our own version of heaven on earth.  Delivering Ferrari and other fine cars for Modern Classic Motors in Reno was about as good as it could have gotten for me at that point in my life.

I still remember the first time. I'd been hanging around Ferrari of San Francisco, supposedly working but since I never made a sale and therefore never got paid, I refer to it as hanging around.  One day my boss asked if I'd like to fly to Reno and pick up a car from MCM, drive it back to San Francisco.  I didn't have to think twice about that. Vern Keil, the Ferrari manager for MCM, met me at the airport, took me to the office downtown, then when we left for the warehouse to get the car he said "have you ever driven one of these things?"  I had, but it had been a long time and a different model. So he put me in the driver's seat and off we went.  The warehouse was a sight in itself -- a huge building filled with new Ferrari's.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven right there.  Pretty soon, I was behind the wheel of a brand new 308 GT4 headed west.

As it turns out, that was a fateful day for me.  Vern told me they were building a new showroom and would be needing salespeople, asked if I was interested.  I didn't have to think twice about that, either, and when the showroom opened a few months later I was on the staff.  That's when it really got to be fun. There were opportunities galore to drive Ferrari, Rolls, BMW and all the rest of them.  I ferried a few more in and out of San Francisco (tales for another day) but really wanted a chance to deliver to dealers in Denver and Phoenix, whose owners preferred that the cars be driven to them rather than put on a transport.

Months passed, then our Denver dealer came to town and he, Vern and I went out to dinner. After some discussion, the dealer asked if I wanted to deliver a car he'd just sold.  Again, I didn't have to think twice.  "We'll pay your expenses," he told me, "and $100 for your trouble."  I looked at him funny.  "Trouble?" I asked.  He smiled, fully aware that I'd probably have paid him $100 for the privilege.  "We'll pay you $100," he said.  With the deal done I set off a few days later for Denver in a silver 308GTB.  "Take your time," he'd told me, "call us when you get to town."  Surprisingly, after I arrived they asked if I'd driven over to Aspen or taken other side trips.  Such a thing had never occurred to me, but they said I should have taken the time to see all these places.  They wanted me to enjoy the trip, have some fun.

I definitely had fun, although most of the first day was spent on two-lane highways full of RVs and trucks and few opportunities to pass.  When I could pass, I'd eventually have to stop for gas or food and then they'd all pass me again.  I got tired of the leapfrogging game and settled down just to drive, sandwiched between giant vehicles, frustrated.  I stopped at the Great Salt Lake and put my feet in the water just to say I'd done it, but other than that, the desert between Reno and Colorado didn't have much appeal for me.

The real fun came the second day.  I'd stayed overnight in Grand Junction and, as is my wont, left very early the next morning, around dawn.  As expected, the highway was mine alone at that hour and I was able to let the car loose, drive steadily at its easy-cruising speed of 90mph, and enjoy the scenery.  After I reached and crossed the Colorado River the scenery became truly spectacular.  On my left was the river, on my right a big stone cliff, no real shoulder on either side, not another car in sight.  The road was gently curvy -- enough curves for fun, but gentle enough that I could see the road ahead for a safe distance.  I was in heaven.

Then, all hell broke loose for a few long seconds.  Off in the distance I saw a pickup loaded with camper shells and towing a trailer filled with camper shells, sitting in a wide spot on the left, next to the river.  As I watched, it began to creep slowly toward the road and I remember thinking that surely he saw me -- sun shining on a silver car flashing towards him -- and surely, he wasn't going to pull onto the highway in front of me.  I let off the gas just in case.  In the seconds these thoughts took I was drawing closer to him and then, he began to clearly move onto the pavement.  I hit the brakes -- not in panic, but firmly, watching as the truck/trailer pulled at a snail's pace into my path and blocked both lanes of traffic, leaving me no place to go except the river or the rock wall.

The Ferrari stopped mere feet from impact -- no fuss, no squealing brakes, no fishtail or skidding, no bother.  "You want me to stop? OK, no problem."  From 90 mph to a dead stop in seconds.  I think that was when I first began to truly appreciate the Ferrari engineering.  Anybody can make a car that'll go fast.  Not everybody can make one that'll stop so effortlessly from such speeds.  The entire incident took much less time than it takes me to tell the story and I'm not even sure the driver of that truck ever knew I was there, at least  not until I passed him a few moments later, heart pounding, adrenaline flowing.

Soon enough the traffic was with me again and I was playing leapfrog.  This time, there was another player -- two guys in a red Porsche who were also playing leapfrog.  Eventually, we both stopped at the same gas station and they started chatting. They, too, were headed to Denver, mentioned that the road would widen to four-lane past Glenwood Springs and I could turn the car loose.  I questioned the issue of cops and tickets.  They told me to just shadow them, since they'd draw the cops if the occasion arose.  They also suggested that we meet for coffee in Dillon, and off we went.  I stayed close enough that I could see them, but not so close that we'd appear to be racing or together, and we all had a good bit of fun on that stretch of Colorado freeway.

This wasn't the most spectacular run of mountains, but it was the least crowded and therefore best place to park and get mountains behind me in a photo, atop Loveland Pass.

The Ferrari, unfortunately, wasn't happy with the altitude.  When we met in Dillon they suggested that instead of driving through the Eisenhower Tunnel, we take the scenic route over Loveland Pass so I could have a good look at the Rockies.  I hesitated because the car was running so rough, but they said they'd stay with me and be sure I'd have help if needed. They were right about the scenery --  utterly spectacular.  Little did I realize that I'd be following this same path on a bicycle a few years later.

The men offered directions to get me near the Ferrari dealer once I arrived in Denver.  We stayed together until our paths forked, said goodbye with a beep and a wave.  A quick stop at a phone booth (no cell phones back then) and soon I was enjoying a nice dinner with the dealer before hopping a plane home.

Later, I drove two more back-to-back to Phoenix, but that was mostly just flat desert and, for better or worse, nothing of real interest happened.  I do remember stopping at one gas station and having a guy ask, "did you win this thing in Vegas?", and at another, "Are you a movie star or something?"  Guess they didn't see too many of these things in the backwoods of Nevada back then.

Uncle Bill

One of the finest parts of my time selling Ferrari at Modern Classic Motors in Reno was Bill Harrah, better known to those of us who loved him as “Uncle Bill”. Make no mistake, I didn’t ‘know’ him in any sense of the word – in fact, I don’t believe he ever spoke a word to me – but he was in the showroom almost daily. I got to know him mostly through observation and tales told by his bodyguards and the person who’d probably known him longest, the Ferrari manager Vern Keil. My only personal encounter with the great man was a near collision, as I rounded a corner in the showroom one day and ran smack into him. I, of course, apologized profusely. He simply walked away. Vern and others who knew the man told me he was not unfriendly, he was merely painfully shy. Hard to believe, but true.

I heard so many wonderful stories, but there are only a few that I really remember and those are the subject of this story. The first comes from personal observation. When I moved to Reno to work at MCM, workers were racing 24/7 to finish the new showroom in time for a scheduled opening party. It was quite an affair – rather formal (I wore a long black slip dress and sexy Bruno Magli 1940s style open-toed pumps) and elegant. Hordes of local dignitaries were invited, the showroom was beautiful and filled with a shining example of every make we would be selling (Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW, Peugeot, Fiat & Lancia) except Ferrari. Even though we were distributors of Ferrari west of the Mississippi, the new 308 GTB models were scarce and we didn’t have one to put on display. Mr. Harrah had a bright red 308 as his personal car and since it was on the premises, he ordered that it be brought into the showroom. And nobody said ‘no’ to Bill Harrah.

One of the features of the new showroom was an office for Mr. Harrah that was accessed from a private garage. He could stay in that office, which I never entered, or he could enter the showroom from a door he controlled. Another feature of the showroom was its design. Because BMW insisted upon its ‘own’ showroom, the layout consisted of two round pods connected by a low-ceilinged bridge. BMW had one pod, the lower-priced cars had another pod, and the bridge area was meant to hold a Rolls and a Ferrari. The Ferrari was moved from Harrah’s private garage into the empty spot on the showroom and all was well – until the fire alarm went off, blasting loud and clear throughout the showroom and shop. To make matters worse, nobody knew how to turn it off – after all, the showroom was barely finished in time and I guess this issue hadn’t come up. We had to wait until the fire department arrived to quiet the noise. What had set it off? Heat from that mid-engine Ferrari wafting upwards through the horizontal louvers over the engine to the sensors on that low-ceiling. It wasn’t a mistake we made again.

Another from personal observation played out over the next couple of months. Harrah was known as a stickler for neatness and cleanliness and insisted that the giant service shop be cleaned from stem to stern every Friday evening. The mechanics cleaned their own areas, tools were always put away, then a team came in to do the floors. Made of polished concrete, the floors were washed and waxed every week with huge, powerful machines. Despite a sealant and every other trick the cleaners could come up with, grease stains still showed and this drove Harrah up the wall. Yes, he did check it, every week. Finally, he shut the entire service department down for a week and had the floor covered with glazed Italian terra cotta tiles. Yes, a dropped tool could chip one, but the offending tile could be and would be removed and replaced. The tiles worked – an expensive solution, but he didn’t care. Money was never an object for Bill Harrah. The floors were still washed and waxed every Friday night, but there were no more grease stains.

Harrah always traveled with a bodyguard. When he was alone, the guard rode in the car with him, but when he was with his wife or others, the bodyguards had a little 246 Dino chase car. During his visits to the showroom the on-duty bodyguard would generally come out into the showroom and visit with us and we got to know them rather well. They weren’t goons at all – they were nice men who looked like anybody else, but I would not have wanted to get in their way.

The story of the chase car is fairly well known. When the 246 Dino was first released, Harrah ordered one for himself and one for the bodyguards to use as a chase car. Over time, it became apparent that the chase car was faster than Harrah’s car. A lesser man might have insisted that they switch, but Harrah didn’t. He kept the slower car and made a game of trying to outrun the faster one until his Dino was traded off for something else. When he died I was living in Beverly Hills, and I flew back up to Reno to commiserate with some friends who cared about him. Harrah’s personal cars were cared for at the old MCM, a tiny converted garage in downtown Reno. We visited that garage during my visit, and there the famous chase car sat, for sale. I would have mortgaged my soul to buy that car, I think, but my soul wasn’t worth that much and neither was anything else I owned.

One final story – and I wish I could remember more of these. In between his many marriages Harrah was quite a ladies man. When courting a young woman he would always give her the car of her choice. Most of the time, that was easy to do. On one occasion, however, the woman requested a car that was no longer in production – I don’t remember what it was, but it was some big, flashy Detroit model from the previous year or two, and she wanted it with specific accessories in a specific color. Harrah set his auto managers to work trying to find the car in time for some specific occasion – perhaps her birthday. Finally, they located a decent car with all the right toys somewhere in southern Nevada or California, but it was the wrong color. Harrah ordered the car brought to the Harrah’s Auto Collection, which had one of the best auto body restoration shops in the world. Working around the clock, that team stripped and repainted the car the desired color and Harrah was able to present it to his lady love on time.

He was quite a man, well-respected and well-loved in Reno. He lived his life to suit himself, and while the casinos produced his fortune and fame, his first love was always his cars. The auto collection was the finest in the world, and I’m grateful I got to spend time there, see all those cars, before the collection was sold off after his death. I’m also grateful I got to know the man, if only from the outside.