The Yearbook by am.marketing

2020 ISSUE I

| THE YEARBOOK

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THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

2020 ISSUE I | THE YEARBOOK SPRING 2017

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MESH NEW ENGLAND

THE YEARBOOK A SELECTION OF THE NORTHEAST’S BEST EVENTS

2019

IN THIS IS SUE

HAGERTY AND THE GREENWICH CONCOURS MEET BRIAN KELLY, CEO OF THE KELLY AUTOMOTIVE GROUP THE HISTORY OF THE MT. EQUINOX HILL CLIMB

1953 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible $125,500â&#x20AC;¨ Engine: 6 Cylinder Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Blue Mileage: 321 Miles Stock Number: 8208 VIN: P6EA18208

1959 Ferrari 250/500 TRC DK Engineering Call for Our Price Engine: 12 Cylinder Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Red Interior Color: Black Stock Number: 2423 VIN: 2423

1970 Chevrolet El Camino LS6 SS $99,500 Engine: 454 cu. in. Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Silver Interior Color: Black Mileage: 50,000 Miles Stock Number: 7147 VIN: 136800B177147

2017 Dodge Viper GTC ACR $189,500 Engine: 10 Cylinder Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Orange Mileage: 500 Miles Stock Number: 0535 VIN: 1C3BDEDZ9HV500535

464 PORTLAND-COBALT RD PORTLAND, CT 06480

860.342.5705 www.f40.com

BUYS, SELLS, CONSIGNS, TRADES, SERVICES AND RESTORES SPORTS, EXOTICS, CLASSICS AND LATE MODEL AUTOMOBILES

1961 Chevrolet Corvette $69,500 Engine: 283 cu. in./245 hp Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Honduras Maroon Interior Color: Black Mileage: 100,241 Stock Number: 8516 VIN: 10867S108516

1958 AC Ace Bristol Roadster $325,000 Engine: 4 Cylinder Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Blue Interior Color: Blue Mileage: 10 Miles Stock Number: 26D2 VIN: 826D2 1969 Dodge Super Bee A12 $85,000 Engine: 440 cu. in. Six Pack Transmission: Manual Exterior Color: Hemi Orange Mileage: 16,800 Miles Stock Number: 7457 VIN: WM23M9A277457

FOLLOW WAYNE CARINI IN CHASING CLASSIC CARS THURSDAYS AT 9:00PM ET ON MOTOR TREND TV

from the publisher

I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT how the world is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic—it’s been generous in giving us time to think, hasn’t it? The virus has a surprising grasp of irony, bringing us together on an emotional level as it drives us apart physically. I’m grateful for that sense of community—showing up in everything from credit card donations for local food banks to toilet paper memes—in the midst of confusion and fear. My vision for Mesh New England has always been to help unite those of us who love cars. Frankly, the pandemic has just proved to me that the magazine is succeeding at that goal, because even a world crisis can’t stop demand for these pages. So, here it is, a virtual edition tailored to the needs of social distancing. Immerse yourself in these great stories while we hunker down and do the one thing that will make all the difference: stay home! Share the link with your car friends. It’s vital that we are there for each other now to remember that things will get better. Soon, we’ll get /meSH/ out, get together, and make as a verb: new stories for future editions. (of the teeth of a gearwheel) lock together or be In this issue, you can enjoy engaged with another gearwheel. our first Yearbook, a sum“one gear meshes with the input gear” mary of last year at a glance synonyms: engage, be engaged, mate, connect, through the lens of some of the lock, interlock. Northeast’s best photographers and written by some of the best writers. We feature eight events that gave us all great enjoyment, and a chance to see, hear and smell some of the best experiences our senses can handle. Also in this issue, we catch up with the North Shore of Massachusetts’s own Brian Kelly, president and CEO of the Kelly Automotive Group. He shares with us his trajectory to where he is today, enjoying life with his wife and driving his classic cars, always with a penchant for the Buick brand. Photographer and writer extraordinaire Sean Smith takes us to Mt. Equinox in Vermont for the ride up the mountain and a history lesson about this famed hill climb. Richard Earl, grandson of renowned GM designer Harley Earl, has joined us as a contributor with this issue, shining a little light on his grandfather’s legacy—it’s not a small one, to say the least. We are also excited to announce that we are accepting submissions from subscribers now through November 20, 2020, for our inaugural photo contest. This year’s theme is “Driven in the Northeast.” The winning photos will be announced on our website on December 21, 2020, and featured in our Yearbook 2021 issue. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional or an amateur, shoot with a Nikon or an iPhone, a Hasselblad or a Brownie, we would like to see your collector-carthemed images.

mesh

ON THE COVER: A detail of Audrain Motor Week’s William K. Vanderbilt trophy, at The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. Photo by Russ Rocknak

publisher

Russ Rocknak copy editor

Larry Bean contributing photographers

Marshall Buck, Deremer Studios, Russ Rocknak, Paul Royal, Sean Smith, Josh Sweeney, Rich Taylor contributing writers, this issue

Donald Osborne, Sean Smith social media/web

Navadise Media

2019 best in show winner | 1927 isotta fraschini tipo 8a s fleetwood

advertising inquiries Russ Rocknak 603.759.4676 rsr@meshnewengland.com subscription and editorial inquiries Russ Rocknak 603.759.4676 rsr@meshnewengland.com meshnewengland.com

Stay safe and well. Mesh New England is published six times a year by © 2019 RSR Media Group, Inc., P.O. Box 786, Bath, ME 04530 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher.

Russ Rocknak publisher, Mesh New England

Printed by GHP Media, West Haven, CT

MESH NEW ENGLAND 2020 ISSUE I

THE YEARBOOK

THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

Save the Date

OCTOBER

1-4, 2020

AUDRAINCONCOURS.COM

PHOTO CONTEST

THE OFFICIAL RULES

meshnewengland

You must be a subscriber to Mesh New England in order to enter this contest. Subscribe today at meshnewengland.com

—now accepting submissions—

Driven in the Northeast WE ARE ACCEPTING submissions from subscribers now through November 20, 2020, for our inaugural photo contest. This year’s theme is “Driven in the Northeast.” The winning photos will be announced on our website on December 21, 2020, and featured in our Yearbook 2021 issue. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional or an amateur, shoot with a Nikon or an iPhone, a Hasselblad or a Brownie, we would like to see your collector-car-themed images. Submissions must be taken in one of the 11 Northeast states. The 11 states that make up the US Northeast region are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. Images must have been taken within the last five years to be eligible to win. Photographs will be judged based on creativity, composition and the ability to capture a strong sense of place. Previously published photographs are not eligible for this contest. SEE RULES ON HOW TO ENTER.

1. HOW TO ENTER: Please submit your photograph(s)—maximum submission is five photographs—that best embodies our theme: “Driven in the Northeast.” Think of static, motion and environmental automotive photographic opportunities. Photographs will be judged on creativity, composition and ability to capture a strong sense of place. Previously published or awarded photographs are not eligible for this contest. Send entries to meshnewengland.com/contest. Remember to complete an entry form for each submission. Photos submitted without a completed entry form and/or required information will be disqualified. The contest begins April 3, 2020, at 10 a.m. US Eastern Time and ends November 20, 2020, at 4 p.m. US Eastern Time. Entries: As many as five entries are permitted throughout the contest time frame, but please do not enter the same photo more than once. In the event of a dispute over owner-

residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia. Employees of Mesh New England magazine, its respective affiliates, subsidiaries, dealers or retailers, advertising, production and promotion agencies, the independent judges, and the immediate families and members of the same household of each are not eligible. Contest is void wherever prohibited by law. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. By participating in this Contest, each entrant accepts the conditions stated in these Official Rules, agrees to be bound by the decisions of the judges and warrants that she/he is eligible to participate in this Contest. By accepting a prize, the winner agrees to release Mesh New England, its directors, employees, officers, and agents, including without limitation, its advertising and promotion agencies from any and all liability, loss or damages arising from or in connection with the awarding,

for purposes of advertising, promotion, and publicity without additional compensation.

4. WINNER SELECTIONS: Winning photographs will be selected from all eligible photographs by the photo editors of Mesh New England magazine, whose decisions are final and binding on all matters relating to this contest. Prizes are guaranteed to be awarded assuming sufficient number of entries. Winners will be notified by email at the email address with which they entered the Contest, and will be required to acknowledge email notification by Mesh New England or its designated agent within 14 days of date of email notification, or an alternate winner will be selected. If any prize notification letter, email notification or any prize is returned as undeliverable, and there is ample time to select and clear an alternate winner, the prize will be awarded to an alternate winner.

5. MISCELLANEOUS: Mesh New England and

Submit your images at meshnewengland.com/contest

1ST PLACE

2ND PLACE

3RD PLACE

Skip Barber Racing School 3-Day driving experience skipbarber.com

1:18 scale Amalgam Collection Car Model Choose from their 1:18 scale collection amalgam.com

Harvey Traveler Collection Tote Bag Your choice, leather or canvas harveytraveler.com

ship of an online photo, entry will be deemed submitted by the holder of the email account. All photos submitted to Mesh New England magazine’s “Driven in the Northeast” photo contest will be used only in conjunction with the contest—in print, digital formats, or in promotional materials. Any photograph submitted will include a photographer credit in print and as feasible on meshnewengland. com. In submitting this photo, you agree that its content does not infringe on copyrights or other property rights of any party. If a person is recognizable in the photograph, you will need to provide a signed model release. You also agree that the photo you are submitting is your own. You retain rights to your own photos to reproduce, distribute, display, etc. It is your sole responsibility to notify Mesh New England in writing if you change your e-mail address. Only photographs submitted via meshnewengland.com/contest will be considered for the contest. Finalists must be able to provide Mesh New England with a print-quality hi-res file of their photograph (at least a 300 dpi @ 8 x 11 inches jpg).

2. ELIGIBILITY: The contest is open to Mesh New England Subscribers 21 years of age or older as of February 1, 2020, and who are legal WWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

receipt, and/or use or misuse of prize or participation in any prize-related activities.

3. PRIZES: Winners will be awarded prizes as outlined below, and winning images will also appear in print in the 2021 Yearbook issue of Mesh New England magazine. Winning entries—including runners-up—will also be included in an extended online gallery. Photographs recognized as runners-up may also appear in the print edition. 1ST PLACE Skip Barber Racing School 3-Day driving experience skipbarber.com

2ND PLACE 1:18 scale Amalgam Collection Car Model Choose from their 1:18 scale collection amalgam.com

3RD PLACE Harvey Traveler Collection Tote Bag Your choice, leather or canvas harveytraveler.com Acceptance of a prize constitutes permission (except where prohibited) to use winner’s photograph, name, hometown, and likeness

its judges are not responsible for late, lost, stolen, damaged, garbled, incomplete, or misdirected entries or communications; for errors, omissions, interruptions, deletions, defects, or delays in operations or transmission of information, in each case whether arising by way of technical or other failures or malfunctions of computer hardware, software, communications devices, or transmission lines or data corruption, theft, destruction, unauthorized access to or alteration of entry materials, loss or otherwise. Mesh New England disclaims any liability for damage to any computer system resulting from participation in, or accessing or downloading information in connection with, this Contest, and reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify, cancel, terminate or suspend this Contest should any virus, bug, technical failures, unauthorized human intervention or other causes beyond Mesh New England’s control corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness or proper conduct of the Contest. In the event of such cancellation, termination or suspension, a notice will be posted. Mesh New England reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any entrant if his or her fraud or misconduct affects the integrity of the Contest.

6. WINNERS LIST: The winning photos will be announced on our website on December 21, 2020, and featured in our Yearbook 2021 issue. Good Luck!

THE YEARBOOK

2020 ISSUE I

MESH NEW ENGLAND

meshnewengland The Yeakbook volume viii, number i

contributors In the late 1970s and early ’80s, while working in TV production, Marshall Buck was also custom-building model cars for himself and a few select customers, one of whom convinced Buck to go into model-making full-time (that gentleman remains a client to this day). Hence, in 1982, Buck founded Creative

Miniature Associates, now CMA Models Inc. Since the start of CMA, he has been involved with the finest high-end automotive miniatures as a collector, model maker, manufacturer and boutique dealer, catering to collectors worldwide. For more than 30 years, Buck also has been authoring feature articles and regular columns on models and collecting for various publications, including Cavallino, Vintage Motorsport, and Sports Car Market, as well as Mesh New England. He is also cofounder and editor of AutoMobilia Magazine. Master restorer Wayne Carini is best known for his shop’s restoration work, but for the past 13 years he has also been known for his television show Chasing Classic Cars, which is shown in 42 countries and is about to air its 200th episode. Carini was born into the restoration business, with his father founding the Model A Restorers Club in 1951, the year Wayne was born. Eight years later, Carini was sanding cars at his father’s shop and has never stopped. Today, Carini enjoys filming his TV show, traveling the world and meeting fellow car friends, and working with 6

Impala and a not-so-much 1966 Mustang. She traces her love of American muscle

his crew restoring cars for his customers. Carini and his family live on a farm in rural Connecticut. His daughter Kimberly was diagnosed with autism at an early age. Because of Kimberly’s autism, Wayne and the entire family have made helping autism charities a major part of their lives.

Jeff DeMarey is on the Classic Car Club of America’s national board of directors, and he is the director of the New England region CCCA. For nearly 30 years, he has run a specialty insurance agency for classic and collectible cars, Stonewall Insurance Group in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. He is also a frequent judge at classic car shows, including the Greenwich Concours (for the last 18 years), the Elegance at Hershey, the Boston Cup (for the last nine years), and scores of Classic Car Club of America events. DeMarey has planned many successful car events throughout the years, including most recently the CCCA New England Caravan in 2016. He is also a “Chowderhead,” a proud member of the infamous Madison Avenue Sports Car Driving and Chowder Society.

Miranda McDonald is the proud owner of a fully restored 1967 Chevrolet

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to when she was a little girl, sitting in her neighbors’ driveways and sketching the logos of their cars’ grilles and hubcaps. She has driven cross-country twice, lived in six states, and traveled through all but eight states. She has decided that, by far, Maine is the best place. As the owner of Focus Firearms Instruction & Safety Training, McDonald works with people just beginning in the shooting sports and offers situational-awareness and defensive-tactics training. She spends her free time with her two lovely daughters (and teaches them how to change the oil) and enjoys tasting new whiskeys.

Cory “C Pez” Pesaturo has an ongoing musical relationship with the Red Bull F1 team, which has led to his friendships with many F1

drivers. He is the only person to ever win the trio of world championships on acoustic, digital and jazz accordion, and he is the only accordion graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music. Pesaturo’s resumé includes four performances at the White House for President and Mrs. Clinton. His first was when he was 12, making him the

youngest person ever to perform at a State Dinner. At 16, he performed with the Brockton Symphony Orchestra and became the youngest accordionist ever to solo with a symphony orchestra in the United States.

Josh Sweeney’s passion for cars and photography was obvious by the time he was 6 years old, when he would keep himself busy by taking pictures of model cars with his Mickey Mouse camera. He eventually got hold of a real camera and started photographing everything,

to the Nürburgring. He has vintage-raced his own Devin SS, Kellison J-4R and B-production 1967 Corvette, and he won an SCCA Championship with a Mazda RX-7. Taylor’s restoration shop, Minisport, has created cars that have been displayed at SEMA and the Detroit and New York auto shows. He and his wife, Jean, have raised more than $2 million for North American charities through Vintage Rallies Inc., which has organized over 100 vintage car rallies.

Linda Zukauskas has giving him a great eye for composition and detail. A friend introduced him to executive director Sheldon Steele and the staff at Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he became an intern and photographed a wide array of collector cars. Today, he does work for Lamborghini, Amelia Island Concours, Mecum, RM Sotheby’s and Bonhams, as well as Mesh New England and Larz Anderson. From track events to luxury galas, you will find Sweeney capturing the moment. Straight from graduate school, Rich Taylor started out as managing editor of Car and Driver. Since then, he’s published more than 5,000 magazine articles, 27 books and hundreds of special sections for Car and Driver, Popular Mechanics, New York Times and other clients. Taylor has won motorcycle and automobile races everywhere from Laguna Seca to Daytona

always loved cars. She graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor’s in English before working as a tech writer for software development firms, then as a freelance writer. While interviewing the owner of a small automotive shop for a local newspaper feature, she was thrilled to accept his invitation to join his vintage racing crew. She took on the title of CCO (Chief Cleaning Officer). She’s having a blast writing about the many ways to enjoy cars— racing, restoring, building, buying, selling, showing— but, for her, it all comes down to amazing stories about the wonderful people she is honored to meet and call friends.

THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

CMY

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from the publisher Welcome from Russ Rocknak.

10 short shifts Our contributors discuss a variety of topics: there is never a better time

than now to make sure your collector car is insured for its proper value, navigating a largely forgotten salvage yard, and where does Mika Häkkinen rank in racing history?

14 nuts & bolts We catch up with Wayne Carini as he follows the collector car circuit

back to the Northeast, where he and his team at F40 Motorsports maintain some pretty serious schedules.

24 a great drive A Cape Ann Weekend. Just a half-hour drive north from Boston is one

of New England’s most beautiful seacoasts, and it’s absolutely perfect for a weekend away.

p.76

32 model review Marshall Buck, our master modeler extraordinaire, reviews a 1:18 scale

1967 Porsche 911S by AutoArt.

36 The Yearbook A celebration of highlights from 2019—eight events that made

a difference in the Northeast.

66 HARLEY J. EARL: Cadillac’s First Design Superstar Harley Earl was

known as the da Vinci of Detroit. In 1954, his tail fins trend was so hot, many Cadillac dealerships around the country positioned the cars so that the back ends faced the front of the showroom.

70 Ride Like the Wind The first Mt. Equinox Hill Climb was run in 1950.

The Vintage Sports Car Club of America took over the event in 1973, and its members have been meeting annually on the mountain’s Skyline Drive ever since.

76 Driven We visit with Kelly Automotive Group President and CEO Brian Kelly

to discuss his favorite topics: his unique car collection, motorcycles and his family.

last word p.88

HERBCHAMBERS.COM We Can Ship Anywhere In The U.S.

p.70

WWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

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2020 ISSUE I

MESH NEW ENGLAND

short shifts

Good Deed Goes Wrong by Jeff DeMarey

ollector cars are my vocation and my avocation. I love them—and most everything else that rolls under power. I travel nationwide representing the Classic Car Club of America’s New England chapter, and in doing so, I get to see and experience a lot of what goes on in our community of automobile enthusiasts. As for my vocation, our business, Stonewall Insurance Group, is one of the largest collector car insurers in the country. With Stonewall, I come across many interesting incidents in which things didn’t go as planned, such as the one described below. Hagerty Classic Insurance, with which Stonewall works directly, shared this example with us. In future issues of MNE, look for more examples from Hagerty of automotive mishaps that serve as teachable moments. VEHICLE INVOLVED: 1964 Ford Thunderbird Convertible THE SENARIO: A complex car, the ’64 T-bird convertible requires special mechanical attention to ensure that everything is working as the factory intended, particularly the top’s operating system. The owner of this T-Bird was in the process of selling the car to a friend, so he sent it to his mechanic, located here in the Northeast, to make sure everything was in good shape and operating correctly. He was thinking about also adjusting the carburetor and the transmission kickdown; basically, he just wanted it to be perfect. He told his mechanic to take care of it and left it for a three-day stay. The mechanic completed everything on his checklist and was backing the car out the garage when the brakes failed. He tried to steer into a sand pile but missed; instead the T-Bird went down the embankment right across from the garage and smashed into a stand of maple trees. DAMAGE/LOSS: The car took a big hit in the trunk. It was damaged so badly that it took four poles on the unibody frame machine to get the trunk open. When it was finally opened, the Hagerty rep was able to get a good look at the damage. He determined that the car was totaled. LESSON: The T-Bird suffered $30,000 worth of damage, and the owner had $35,000 worth of coverage. He wasn’t thrilled with 35K as a value for the car, which goes to show that he should have updated the value and made sure the car was correctly insured. The incident also shows how important it is that you know who your restorer is and what’s happening with your car—and how easily you can lose that car.

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Salvage Run

by Miranda McDonald

I COULDN’T REALLY TELL if the crunching under my feet was from autumn leaves or bits of rusted metal. No matter, the sound was pleasing. A high-flying hawk shrieked in the distance, and rustling in the undergrowth indicated additional, closer residents. I had been walking for miles, and there was seemingly no end to the rows and rows of…cars, trucks, buses, and piles of tires, manifold covers and vehicle doors. This was heaven. For any car restorer, knowing your way around the local auto salvage yard is similar to having that proverbial ace up your sleeve. These honey holes are like gold mines, and finding a vein of the car you are restoring, even if the year and model may not match exactly, is akin to hitting the jackpot. My Impala had a busted-out rear window when I purchased it, allowing in many Maine winter snows to rust out the back seat. The hunt was on for a new seat, and sure enough, there was a row of Biscaynes and Caprices at my favorite yard. Like kids in a candy store, my friend and I bounced from one car to another, seeking the best option. An exact fit would be too much to ask for, and part of the fun is finding what could possibly work best and MacGyvering the rest. Soon, we came upon a close donor, and since the seat was for my car, I was the one to climb into the mildewed, spider-webbed interior. I sat for a moment, touching that back seat and contemplating that vehicle’s former life. Someone’s kids may have sat here. Some teenagers may have made out here. This car was once new, rolling off the assembly line and sitting in the sun at a dealership. Someone drove it home with pride, and then what happened? How did it come to sit in the woods, surrounded by hundreds of others, a mile back from the road? The expression “If this car could talk” seemed appropriate at the moment. Then my friend slammed his hand on the roof, complaining about the bugs, snapping me out of my reverie. Since we had forgotten to bring tools with us (remember how I said we were excited?), we used a rocking motion and a nearby tree limb as a fulcrum to bust the seat loose from its rusted bolts. Twenty dollars later, the seat was on its way to a new life and making new memories. Now my girls sit in that back seat. And no, they will never be teenagers making out on it. Hey, a mother can hope. THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

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short shifts

McLaren era photos by Russ Rocknak

Where Does Mika Häkkinen Rank in Racing History? by Cory Pesaturo

f I told you a horse ran the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes many years ago and to this day has the second-fastest time in the Derby and a top-10 fastest time in the Preakness, you’d probably say, “He must be one of the greatest horses of all time.” But what if I then told you that the horse didn’t win either of those Triple Crown races? Well, there was such a horse. Its name was Sham, and what a shame that Sham was born the same year as the GOAT of thoroughbreds, Secretariat. Most agree that Mika Häkkinen as the only driver during the Schumacher era who could beat Michael fair and square on a consistent basis when the two drove similar cars. Therefore, the question is, was Mika Häkkinen Sham while Michael Schumacher was his Secretariat? The story of Mika, a driver about whom everyone in the F1 paddock has something wonderful to say, is one of struggle. It was not until Häkkinen’s eighth year that he jumped into a car capable of winning the title. The reason he kept getting chances? First, because of the oldest trick in the book for rating a driver: he beat his teammate, in each of his first two seasons, 1991 and 1992.

MESH NEW ENGLAND 2020 ISSUE I

The second reason was his work in two qualifying sessions for McLaren in his third season, against the quickest driver of all time, Ayrton Senna. Häkkinen’s 1993 season didn’t start well, because although he was hired by McLaren, management believed that obtaining Michael Andretti was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. (Not!) That was, until Andretti left the team (was fired) with three races left in the season. In his first qualifying session, in Portugal, Häkkinen jumped at his first true F1 opportunity and shockingly beat Senna by 0.048 seconds, earning the chance to line up third on the grid. Proving that the qualifying run wasn’t just beginner’s luck, he lost to Senna by only a whisker (0.032 seconds) in the next race. Those in the paddock said Mika scared Ayrton in a way that previously only Prost could. After Senna left for Williams, Häkkinen led McLaren in 1994, 1995 and 1996, beating his teammate each time. But those years were wasted in terms of compiling all-timegreat stats, as the McLaren team was not a contender. The first mark against Mika came in 1997, when a young David Coultard gave a better overall performance, but the two championship seasons of 1998 and 1999

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included only three races in which one could say David outdrove Mika. The real knocks against the Flying Finn’s career unfortunately taint both of those title seasons. One is that Michael Schumacher hadn’t yet fully made Ferrari into a powerhouse; the 1996 through 1999 seasons were the build, and 2000 through 2004 were the completed masterpiece. A second knock is that Schumacher was out for most of 1999 with the injury he sustained at Silverstone, so we didn’t get the Mika-Schumi battle royal. Last, and worst of all, with Michael out of contention, it still took Mika until the final race to take the championship from Eddie Irvine, a driver no one would ever have on their top-50 list. In 2000, Schumacher couldn’t be caught, but the Finn still gave him a run for his money. The 2001 season brought a fatal blow to Mika, as Coultard, another driver most would never include on their top-50 list, solidly bested Häkkinen. At the end of the season, at only 33 years old, Mika retired. It is tough to say just how much Mika Häkkinen was hampered by his being born at the wrong time. At his peak, during that three-year span from 1998 through 2000, Mika could consistently go toe to toe with any driver. I have him just making my top-20 all-time list. People should not forget him when talking about the greats because of what he showed in those two races in 1993, and thus how 1993 through 1997 was a lost five-year period when he was truly ready but could not climb into a car capable of winning the title (a la Daniel Ricciardo). We’ll never know. But I can tell you what a funny and truly wonderful guy he is to chat with!

THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

nuts bolts by Wayne Carini

For over 35 years the most dedicated auto enthusiasts have trusted Intercity Lines to transport their prized possessions. Our state-of-the-art rigs keep cars safe and secure. And the same driver handles your car from the start of its journey to the nish, every time.

The Wheels Are Always Turning We catch up with Wayne Carini as he follows the collector car circuit back to the Northeast, where he and his team at F40 Motorsports maintain some pretty serious schedules.

ith our show, Chasing Classic Cars, we take cameras on the road to show people where we go and what we do, but we don’t show them everything. There is a collector car circuit we follow that boomerangs us back to the Northeast and the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance at the end of May. There’s the horse circuit; there’s the dog circuit; there’s a circuit for every type of hobby there is, including a stamp circuit. A circuit makes a hobby really interesting, because you can plan your life around it. It has been a busy year—even though we are not that far into 2020. This is what a schedule looks like for someone following the collector car circuit.

In January, there is Mecum Kissimmee in Florida, from the second of the month through the 12th. This year we witnessed the Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang GT, the one that was actually driven by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt, become the most valuable Mustang ever when it was auctioned for a cool $3.4 million. The atmosphere during the auction was electric. From Kissimmee, we moved on to the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, which took place from January 11 through 19. The Scottsdale event has grown tremendously over the years, and the experience now includes all the major auction companies, cars & coffee events, and cruise nights. It’s essentially the kickoff to the auction

We know what your car means to you, and we know how to transport it safely. We’re Intercity Lines.

Carini sold his 1930 Ford Model A, a period-correct flathead hot rod (top image), at this year’s Barrett-Jackson auto auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, to a lucky bidder who now gets to enjoy it as much as Wayne did. Joining Wayne at the auction were Maine’s own Bentley Warren (far left) and Bentley’s girlfriend and business partner, Lisa, along with NASCAR’s Mark Martin.

season, and it’s the kickoff to the car season. This year, I brought my 1930 Ford Model A period-correct flathead hot rod to run through the auction. Lorem Ipsum

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THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

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The 1968 Ford Mustang GT that Steve McQueen drove in the movie Bullitt became the most valuable Mustang ever when it was auctioned for a cool $3.4 million at Mecum’s Kissimmee Auto Auction. See page 54 for more details.

CMY

photo by Paul Royal

Original HEUER Monaco from 1970 /71 Available Now

I also like to go to motorcycle events, because they just intrigue me. Mecum’s Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction was held January 21 through 26 and offered more than 1,750 lots, including a beautiful 1922 Brough Superior Mark 1 90 Bore that sold for $308,000. That brought us into February, when we visited the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance on the seventh through the ninth. I then had a little time to head back to the shop to see how everything was moving along.

Back at Home Base Regarding restorations, we have to plan very much ahead. For instance, we’re restoring a car right now that will go to Villa d’Este in 2021, and then we have another car coming in that’s going to go to Pebble Beach in 2021, hopefully. We plan out two to three years in advance for what we will bring to the concours, because it takes that long to get the project done and get it done correctly. Of course, we plan everything out, and then a week and a half before the show, we’re still putting the engine in the car. It happens. We work best under pressure. It’s fine. I go home and fret about it, but I don’t tell anybody I’m worried. We’re always shooting for Pebble Beach. I got the packet in the mail from the Pebble Beach Concours, and it lists all the classes they’re going to have. I’m looking at the list and thinking, I’ve got nothing that fits in with the program. That’s good, I tell myself. Maybe I’ll have a year off. And then all of a sudden, the gears are turning. Wait a minute. You know what? I always wanted to buy an electric car, and electric cars are a featured class. Could I find a re16

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THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

This is a unique opportunity for a watch guy or a car guy or a watch/car guy to own a little piece of watch/car collecting memorabilia. This is an original HEUER Monaco from 1970 /71. It is the same vintage as worn on the wrist of Steve McQueen in the great racing film Le Mans. The watch McQueen wore sold just shy of $800,000.00. We are offering this original at only $14,950.

Sharing your happiness since 1948

58 Main Street, Andover, MA 01810 978.475.3330 www.RoyalJewelers.com

Wayne Carini is flanked by two of drag racing’s best, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme (left) and John Force, at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auto auction.

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ally cool electric car and bring it to Pebble? If you don’t have something for Pebble, at first you’re relieved that you don’t have to do anything, and then you’re sort of bummed out that you don’t have anything to bring. There has to be a goal. There has to be a reason. I really don’t need an electric car, but Pebble Beach would be a good excuse to buy one—if I can find something unique, not just a Baker electric or something like that. It’s got to be something really unusual.

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Back on the Road Very quickly we moved into March, when we traveled to the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, whose honoree this year was Roger Penske. I am a judge at this event, and it is really the only national show that I judge, basically because Bill Warner asked me to. I have been doing it for 10 years now, and the only reason I’m doing it is Bill Warner said, “Would you please?” And I said, “Yes sir.” Sure, I judge at other, local events, but this is the only truly established THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

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Mark Donohue’s perfect racing car, the 1973 CanAm champion Porsche 917/30.

national event I judge at. And as I said, the big reason is because Bill Warner asked me to. All I have to hear is, “Bill wants you to do this.” If Bill said go stand on your head in the middle of Route 95 in New Haven, I’d say, “Yes sir.” This year we saw Mark Donohue’s perfect racing car, the 1973 Can-Am champion Porsche 917/30, as part of the Team Penske Sunoco class in the Silver Anniversary Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. The event featured the winners and champions that wore Sunoco’s famous blueand-yellow livery. “It could smoke the tires at 150 mph,” Warner said of the Porsche 917/30. “I remember it blasting up Wedgewood straight at Watkins Glen, cresting the hill going into the Loop at well over 200 mph with its nose still in the air because it was still accelerating so hard! We won’t see its likes again except at a concours or in a museum.” At one time, the primary goal of the major motorsport sanctioning bodies was to encourage high speeds and high performance, then it turned to limiting speed and power and slowing the racers. Penske’s mighty Porsche 917/30 Can-Am champion and the unrestricted age it represents so perfectly were swept away. We also saw a unique and obscure Century X, a product of Buick’s custom styling department. It made its international concours debut in the Harley Earl class. Bill Mitchell was Harley Earl’s handpicked successor at GM Design and Styling. Their association seemed to go beyond the standard boss-employee dynamic. Many called it a father-son relationship. Mitchell was just 23 when Earl appointed him chief designer for Cadillac. THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

376 Hale Street, Beverly, MA 01915 978-232-2128 | concours@endicott.edu misselwoodconcours.com

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art by magneto design

No brackets. Just grudge matches all day from 9am to dusk!

Date: August 28-30, 2020. Friday-Saturday-Sunday!

photo by Josh Sweeney/SFD

A Penske Camaro makes its way onto the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance’s show field.

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His design of the 1938 Cadillac 60 Special was a landmark. But Mitchell was a “Buick man” long before he became a man. His father was a Pennsylvania Buick dealer, and despite being the design prodigy given the reins of the corporation’s premier car division and style leader, Mitchell ached to draw Buicks, and that he did. The Century X was a beauty. After the Amelia Island Concours, we all were looking forward to attending the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance at the end of May (see The Yearbook, page 50). The concours was set to celebrate its 25th anniversary this year, but unfortunately it has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now part of Hagerty, the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance is something we can all look forward to in 2021, as it is one of the premier concours in the country and the largest in the Northeast. “We all love cars and the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, which is a highlight of the year for thousands of car fans across the region and nation,” said McKeel Hagerty, chairman of the event. “But what matters most is the safety and well-being of our friends, families and loved ones.” The concours, he said, will return in 2021 with exciting new classes and features. In the meantime, once public health officials agree that it is safe to congregate again, Hagerty plans to host local car events to engage and energize car and driving fans and whet their appetite for next year’s show. Thinking ahead to Pebble Beach again, I don’t have an electric car in my collection. Maybe we can do something about that. We can get it done. I know a guy in Vermont who may have what I am looking for.

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a great drive

photo by Russ Rocknak

Cape Ann Weekend words by Rich Taylor

photo by Deremer Studios LLC

ust a half-hour drive north from Boston is one of New England’s most beautiful seacoasts, and it’s absolutely perfect for a weekend after the tourists have left. It used to be called the Gold Coast, when the Gilded Age equiva-

lents of today’s Internet billionaires lived there. These “Boston Brahmins” owned large estates, some of which still line the oceanfront from Beverly to Newburyport, interrupted by the distinctly working-class fishing towns of Gloucester and Rockport.

The Misselwood Concours d’Elegance

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This past summer, I was invited to judge at Misselwood Concours (978-232-2128, misselwood.com/concours-delegance), a small but exquisite show held at what once was the summer home of Susan B. Cabot, as in “This is good old Boston, home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells speak only to Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God!” Jean and I turned our working weekend into a three-day mini-vacation. We stayed at an immaculately clean mid-century modern hotel called the Atlantis Oceanfront Inn (978-283-0014, atlantisoceanfrontinn.com) in East Gloucester. This meant that we had to drive our Audi TT 3.2 V6 Quattro Sport some 20 miles to the concours venue—on twisty two-lane Route 127. Quel dommage! In addition, we visited Rockport, Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Rocky Neck, Eastern Point Lighthouse, Good Harbor Beach and Newburyport. We ate lunch at a rustic seafood shack called the Lobster Pool (978546-7808, thelobsterpool.com), near Halibut THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

aeriel photos by Deremer Studios

Point State Park, and dinner at the upscale Gloucester House in downtown Gloucester (978-283-1812, thegloucesterhouse.com). We swam in the ocean, checked out the various marinas, and strolled along the Gloucester HarborWalk. Start your drive in Beverly, where you can pick up Route 127, a charming two-lane that twists and curves past Misselwood, through Prides Crossing and into Manchester-by-the-Sea, a picturesque town seemingly unchanged for a century. North of downtown, turn Right off 127 onto Raymond Street and follow it to the Hammond Castle Museum (978-283-2080, hammondcastle.org). This faux castle was assembled from genuine European medieval parts between 1926 and 1929 by inventor John Hays Hammond. Car people would call it a “bitsa,” kind of like the Cloisters in New York City or Hearst Castle in San

The Merrimack River flows by Newburyport, Massachusetts, as it heads to the Atlantic Ocean.

photo by Josh Sweeney/SFD

Simeon, California. Continue up Route 127 and you’ll come to Stage Fort Park and then Gloucester. As you enter Gloucester, abandon 127 and drive along the waterfront on Western Avenue. The road is bounded by the Gloucester HarborWalk, a paved walkway lined with flower gardens. On one side are Victorian homes, on the other is Gloucester Harbor. The walkway leads past the Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial, the famous statue dedicated to “They that go down to the sea in ships.” Western Avenue includes a drawbridge over the Blynman Canal that, due to boat traffic, seems to halt vehicular traffic for 15 minutes every hour. Don’t fret. Park the car and enjoy your walk along the waterfront. Follow Western Avenue to Rogers Street to Main Street. Gloucester used to be a down-market case study of the declining New England fishing industry. However, 26

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Rockport, Massachusetts

in the past decade or so, it has enjoyed a true renaissance as a tourist destination— cleaned up, pretty and safe. It’s easy to get lost in downtown Gloucester, but that’s okay, because almost every street leads to something interesting—a church, a museum, an art gallery, a cute restaurant. Eventually make your way to the intersection of Main Street and Bass Avenue, where you’ll turn right onto Bass Avenue and then right onto East Main Street heading south. This will take you to, among other things, the North Shore Arts Association (978-283-1857, nsarts.org) and Rocky Neck Avenue. Rocky Neck Avenue leads to the 19th century Rocky Neck Art Colony, various art galleries and restaurants, and at the very end of the street, the historic Tarr and Wonton Paint Manufactory, a favorite subject for local artists that is now owned by Ocean Alliance. From Rocky Neck, drive back out to a T-junction and go right onto Eastern Point Boulevard. Follow it all the way out to Eastern Point Wildlife Sanctuary, where you’ll have a wonderful view of the historic THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

Eastern Point Lighthouse and Gloucester Harbor. From there, retrace your tracks and go right on Farrington Avenue, which leads to another T-junction, where you’ll go left onto Atlantic Road heading north. Atlantic Road takes you on a lovely drive along the Atlantic Ocean to reconnect with 127A/Thatcher Road heading north past Good Harbor Beach, generally considered the best beach in this area. Route 127A will eventually become Mount Pleasant Street in downtown Rockport. In summer, Rockport is impossibly crowded. In autumn, not so much. Park in downtown and walk out to T-Wharf to admire Motif Number One, a rebuilt fishing shack claimed to be the world’s most painted subject. Hyperbole, certainly, but Motif Number One is adorably quaint. Rockport also has lots of restaurants, galleries and cutesy shops. When you’ve had enough, follow Mount Pleasant Street to Broadway to 127 North/Granite Street. Route 127 wind its way to Halibut Point State Park then all the way back to Gloucester. You’ve now circumnavigated Cape Ann! Back in Gloucester, if you get on Route WWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

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133 North and take it to Essex, you’ll be greeted by a classically humble New England restaurant with fabulous fresh seafood, Essex Seafood (978-768-7233, essexseafood.com). The rest of Essex looks exactly like what it is, an historic shipbuilding port. Turn left onto Martin Street or Western Avenue; either one will take you to Route 22 and Paul Russell and Company at 106 Western Avenue in Essex (978-768-6919, paulrussell.com). Paul Russell’s is the premier classic car restoration shop on the East Coast—maybe in all of North America—with a list of Pebble Beach best in show winners and literally hundreds of other concours awards for clients such as Bud Lyon, Ralph Lauren and Miles Collier. From Paul’s shop, head back to 133 North and follow it to until you reach Northgate Road, where you’ll take a right to a T-junction, and then another right onto Argilla Road. This will take you to Castle Hill, the Crane Estate (978-356-4351, thetrustees. org), where the Castle Hill Concours used to be held. Castle Hill is a spectacular Englishstyle mansion along the lines of Blenheim or Castle Howard. It makes Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed look rather, well, middle class. Return to 133 North and follow it through colonial Ipswich to Rowley, where you’ll turn right onto Route 1A North to Newburyport. Newburyport is another resurrected seaport with a charming downtown that’s been beautifully restored into a pedestrian shopping area with shops and restaurants. Water Street goes along the coast and becomes Plum Island Turnpike, which goes across a causeway to Plum Island. There, you’ll find a beach, all the usual beachside restaurants, shops and hotels, plus a national wildlife refuge. The refuge includes a drive through a bird habitat on Refuge Road to spectacular views at Hellcat Trail, Sandy Point and Ipswich Bluff. Refuge Road is paved as far as Hellcat Trail, then it turns to smooth dirt and eventually to tire tracks through the sand that are better suited to your Jeep than your Ferrari. All in all, Cape Ann and the Gold Coast are remarkably pleasant and unspoiled. Jean and I can remember when it was sadly down market and even a little scary, especially Gloucester. Today, everything has been fixed up to the point that Jean said, “When we were moving out of New York City, too bad we never thought of East Gloucester, Newburyport or Manchester-by-the-Sea!” THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

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model review by Marshall Buck

For the Love of Your Automobile.

1967 Porsche 911S

he original Porsche 911 is without a doubt one of the most recognizable shapes in the automotive world. A wellbalanced and timeless design, it looks as good—maybe even better—today than it did when first introduced. Yes, I’m a fan, and I used to own a 911T and an SC. I miss them both. This icon of the sports-car world has been modeled more times and by more companies than I can count. Seemingly every configuration imaginable has been modeled, yet there have been and/or continue to be some voids with regard to either quality or an obscure variation. AutoArt filled one such void about 10 years ago, when it released a 1:18 scale of the 1967 911S. The company had previously released a model of the 1964 911. Back to the S, AutoArt produced a version in flawless fine metallic silver and another in ivory with a black interior, nailing the shape and overall stance perfectly. Fit and

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finish are to the same high level as that of the real car, except miniaturized. Both color variants are difficult to find now, but well worth the search. Although the original issue price was a mere $115, you should now expect to pay in the range of $350 to $500—if you locate one. Such is the price of supply and demand and, of course, desirability. Even though AutoArt seems to have produced a boatload of

THE YEARBOOK

PHOTO BY JOSH SWEENEY/SFD

KACHEL MOTOR COMPANY

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Single Enclosed Trailer Serving the New England Area

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these (about 5,000 of each color), they still sold out and have become quite scarce. However, if you don’t absolutely have to have an early 911S model, the next best thing is AutoArt’s currently available 1973 Carrera RS 2.7 model for only $140. The 911S model features openable doors, hood and trunk, along with posable front wheels and working sun visors! The interior, though very well done, noticeably lacks any bright trim pieces on the door panels. I would gladly give up the working sun visors to have the doors properly finished. Other than that, everything on the inside has been pretty well attended too, including such details as the shift pattern on the gear knob, the floor-mounted pedals, the hand brake and heat controls buried between the seats, very well-scaled gray carpeting, legible gauges, separate 911S badging on the glove box door, and the list goes on. The windows are crystal clear, though with a bit of distortion due to the thickness and type of the plastic used. The windows are surrounded by crisp, superbly plated chrome trim, and both front and rear have simulated black gaskets. Open the engine lid and you’ll be treated to the very well replicated flat-six with all the components and a reasonably good complement of hoses and wires. It’s neatly done, but the liberal use of unpainted plastic parts does detract a little from the overall effect. That said, and to its credit, AutoArt has applied all the many labels around the opening and on the fan shroud. If you turn over the model, you’ll find that the entire engine and transmission have been made and are finished off with the massive exhaust and muffler system. Oh yeah, there’s full underside and suspension (non-functional) detail as well. All the exterior parts, save for the washer jets, are separate pieces. The plastic wipers are a little weak, but not too noticeable given their black color and position. Making up for them are the delicate door handles, which even have separate black gaskets at both ends of each! The lenses for the head, fog and taillights are jewelry to me. The engraving and finish of each is flawless. Very convincing too are the Porsche crest emblems on each wheel center, and the pièce de résistance is the separate multicolored emblem on the nose. It’s a great model that’s worth finding. And no, mine is not for sale. THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

THE FINEST MODELS IN THE WORLD LIMITED EDITION - BESPOKE - ONE OFFS This 1:8 scale model of Ferrari 330 P4 measures 24 inches long and is modelled on the exact car that famously raced at Le Mans in 1967. It is just one of a large range of the world’s most important cars that Amalgam have replicated at scale. Discover the entire collection at www.AmalgamCollection.com

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THE YEARBOOK As we look forward to the 2020 show schedule, let’s check the rearview mirror for a few highlights from 2019.

Historic Festival 37 8/30–9/2/2019 Lime Rock Park, Lakeville, Connecticut

How many ways can you enjoy vintage automobiles? Murray Smith, chairman of the Historic Festival at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, probably packs all of them into this annual Labor Day weekend event. Those lucky enough to attend the 37th edition of the festival enjoyed a mind-numbing array of vintage automobiles as the cars were raced, rolled, or parked. If you’ve never attended a vintage race, then there is no way to describe just how it feels to see your dreams come alive. We have all admired a restored vehicle or looked on a dusty, broken body and imagined what it must have been like way back when. But nothing prepares you for the experience of seeing these often one-of-a-kind, handmade bodies twist through the esses, hearing the engines scream, and smelling that intoxicating perfume, Oh de Petroleum. These cars move as they were intended to move—fast. A 17-mile parade kicks off the four-day weekend every year, and it is perhaps an even better opportunity than the racing to appreciate the cars, because they progress at a dignified pace. Then, they slow to a stop in nearby downtown Falls Village for an impromptu car show. That’s the sort of feel the weekend has. Some visitors reunite with old friends, and others create instant friendships through a shared admiration for the artistry, craftsmanship and engineering of these machines. The whole experience is enchanting. Sunday in the Park and the Gathering of the Marques brought nearly a thousand vehicles (yes, including motorcycles) to the track. Chrome gleamed in the warm sunlight as this year’s honored collectors, B.Z. and Michael Schwartz of New York, shared what they describe as movable art. The collection of

historic festival 37 photos by Josh Sweeney/SFD

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Historic Festival 37, continued Italian postwar GT and sport racers gave spectators an opportunity to get familiar with rarities from Siata, Maserati and Lamborghini. Also on display were a Moretti Spyder, a Cisitalia Nuvolari Spyder, an Alfa Romeo TZ1 and a Duetto, and a Stanguellini sports racer with an interesting history that includes running the 12 hours of Sebring. Historic cars are nothing without their stories. This year, the festival celebrated the 110th anniversary of Morgan, with tales both tall and true from local owners who brought their cherished rides to the park. There were some more notable names, including honored guest Luigi Chinetti Jr., who described his father’s role with Ferrari and his own accomplishments, such as finishing fifth overall and winning his car’s class in a Ferrari Daytona at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1971. Authors Burt Levy and David Hobbs were also on hand, holding court with fans. The next event is coming soon, and there is exciting news: The Vintage Racing Group is joining with the Vintage Sports Car Club of America to create what might be the best festival yet in 2020. —Linda Zukauskas

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Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week 10/4–10/6/2019 Newport, Rhode Island When the final applause faded after the awarding of the Best of Show trophy, there was a feeling of wonder—that is, wonder mixed with relief and elation for an inaugural event of unprecedented scope and scale. From Thursday evening, when the Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week began with a welcome dinner for participants, sponsors and VIP guests at the stately Ochre Court mansion, to its finale Sunday, with the concours at The Breakers, the event’s core theme of History, Luxury & Sport came vividly to life. In between, nearly 70,000 people from around the area, region and country and from across the world converged on Newport to see and participate in events throughout the city, from the Concours Village at the International Tennis Hall of Fame to the mansions along Bellevue Avenue. All had the chance to experience up-close the power that collector cars can have in rekindling memories, helping people make new friends, and bringing a smile to every face. On Friday, all attention was given to The Gathering at Rough Point, where Audrain’s Motor Week began at Doris Duke’s dramatic home on the ocean’s edge at the end of Bellevue Avenue. Attendees strolled the lawns, taking in the array of modern exotic cars, which included the world debut of the latest limited-production Aston Martin, a sleek coupe styled by the legendary Italian design house Zagato. When not being entranced by the form of the Aston and the sound of its powerful engine—or by the Bugatti, Morgan and other exotics parked on the grounds—guests at 40

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Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week, continued The Gathering enjoyed food prepared by celebrity chefs, custom flower arrangements, and great camaraderie in a glamorous yet relaxed setting. That night, the tennis stadium at the Concours Village echoed with the sound of multi-award-winning recording artist John Legend, as he gave his all to the rapt audience under a clear, cold sky. Saturday morning’s dawn saw the Concours entrants gather with their cars near the Jamestown base of the Newport Pell Bridge to begin the Tour d’Elegance. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the bridge, the Tour cars ascended to the bridge’s apex, paused for a historic photograph, then began a 24-mile drive around Newport. The Tour included a stop at Fort Adams State Park, where hundreds of cars had gathered for the season’s largest Audrain Automobile Museum Cars & Coffee. The Tour then continued on to Bellevue Avenue, where it concluded with the cars parking on the closed thoroughfare in front of the Audrain for the appreciation of the large crowd that surrounded them. All along the route, as the Tour cars drove by they were greeted enthusiastically by local residents and visitors seated on lawns or porches or standing on the sidewalks. Newport had never seen anything quite like it: a parade and display of some of the most interesting, beautiful, glamorous, valuable and fun vehicles ever to come together in the city. It was a tantalizing taste of the Concours to come on Sunday. The unique nature of this event was shown to best effect on the wide oceanfront lawn of The Breakers. The carefully selected cars on display ran from Ferrari to Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz to Jaguar. It also included Fords and Chevrolets—and enough rare Bugattis to satisfy the most jaded event attendee. But what made this field so special was the first-ever 30 Under 30 class, which was reserved for entrants 30 years old or younger who had invested $30,000 or less in their cars. The response, from the car owners to the spectators, was remarkable. Audrain Newport Concours & Motor Week had not only arrived; it had made history. —Donald Osborne

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The Boston Cup

9/29/19 Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts On Sunday, September 23, 2012, the City of Boston awoke to find The Boston Cup Classic Car Show’s inaugural debut taking place on the Boston Common, America’s oldest public park. The Common’s treeless expanses and internal wide roadways make it an ideal venue for events such as this one. Now, as it approaches what will be its ninth year on September 27, the Boston Cup has become the Northeast’s premier invitation-only classic car show. It will showcase 100 rare cars that collectively are worth more than $100 million. Preceding last year’s Boston Cup was a Hangar Party, which took place the Friday evening before Sunday’s main event, at the Jet Linx Aviation at Hanscom Field in Concord, Massachusetts. Honda Aircraft Company had its HondaJet on display, and Acura was also on hand, offering test-drives of the latest NSX. The Boston Cup’s founder, Rich Doucette, added the well-received hangar event two years ago to help move the car show toward becoming more of a weekend-long event. Saturday night was the annual cocktail party, held at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, and 6 o’clock the next morning was the arrival time for The Boston Cup entrants. This is a Sunday-morning treat on the Boston Common—even if the pace is more like a New York minute. The

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The Boston Cup, continued core cars invited to be on display behind the barriers surrounding the Parkman Bandstand seem to get only better as time goes on. The Boston Cup’s returning sponsors include Herb Chambers and Bentley, and the event’s VIP list includes Putnam Investments CEO Bob Reynolds, Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, and many other car enthusiasts who prefer to remain anonymous. Last year, The Boston Cup awarded the J. Geils award to David Robinson, drummer for the rock ’n’ roll band The Cars, for his 1969 DeTomaso Mangusta. The car was fresh from the restoration shop operated by Wayne Carini, who was at the show to present the award to Robinson. Carini came with his production team from Chasing Classic Cars to capture the moment for a future episode. Congratulations to the 2019 Best of Show winners: Paul Storch’s 1940 Packard 1803 (American Class) and Michael Ricciardi’s 1956 Porsche 356 Coupe (European Class). On the Common, where world-class automobiles make this historical venue not-socommon, the excitement burns fast and bright. Visit thebostoncup.com for more information. —Russ Rocknak

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Royal Jewelers and Tudor Watches 10/16/2019, Andover, Massachusetts Royal Jewelers of Andover, Massachusetts, and the Swiss watch brand Tudor collaborated on a watch-collector event in mid-October at a carriage house in Andover that is home to a collection of vintage automobiles from England and Continental Europe. The evening featured a dinner served among a 1957 Porsche Speedster, a 1966 Jaguar XKE convertible, a 1961 Morgan Plus 4, a 1957 BMW Isetta, a 1971 Mercedes 280SL and other coveted vintage sports cars. “I find there is a shared passion between collectors of cars and of watches. In fact, many collect both,” said Steve Leed, the co-CEO of Royal Jewelers. “I am the perfect example. If you think about it, a watch movement is a tiny engine. This is a fun setting for a watch collector dinner.” Guests were introduced to the latest watch models from Tudor, while enjoying rare bourbon and scotch. The dining experience was catered by the Lanam Club of Andover and featured wine from car collector William Swanson’s Center of Effort winery in California’s Edna Valley. Royal Jewelers offers the largest selection of new and certified pre-owned watches in New England. Leed is recognized in watch circles around the world as being among the first retailers in the United States to nurture and curate watch collections. He is also one of only a handful of watch retailers to have introduced the concept of certified pre-owned watches more than 30 years ago. Visit Royal Jewelers website (royaljewelers.com) to see the latest selection of new and certified pre-owned watches. As the evening came to an end one of the collectors was overheard saying, “This was a fantastic night. We shared timepiece stories. The dining and wines were five star, and all in the midst of rare classic cars that hold stories of their own.” For more information about Royal Jewelers watch collector events, contact Kelley@RoyalJewelers.com. —R.R. 48

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Greenwich Concours d’Elegance 6/1–6/2/2019 Roger Sherman Baldwin Park, Greenwich, Connecticut Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich, Connecticut, overlooks Greenwich Harbor on the Long Island Sound, providing an excellent setting for the 24th annual Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. Last year’s event celebrated the centennial of the Italian coachbuilder Zagato, and so 29 Zagato-bodied cars lined up along the waterfront on Sunday, displaying their unique and striking beauty. Saturday was a celebration of American cars, with the Concours Americana. The 1938 Packard 1604 Super Eight Mayfair Coupe from the Marano Collection received the American Best in Show Elegance Award, and the American Best in Show Sport Award went to the 1912 National Speed Car of James Grundy. The 1939 Indian Chief Motorcycle of Brendon Romcke was named the Most Outstanding Motorcycle American, while the Most Outstanding Motorcycle International Award was claimed by the 1978 Ducati 900 NCR Formula 1 of David Miller. On Sunday, the Zagato Centennial Awards were chosen by Andrea Zagato, the grandson of company founder Ugo Zagato. The three winning cars each represented a generation of the Zagato family: the 1930 Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 Super Sport Testa Fissa owned by Lawrence Auriana, the 1958 Jaguar XK140 of Bill Pope, and the 2003 Aston Martin DB7 Zagato of Jim Taylor. “It was wonderful to have Andrea and Marella Zagato come from Italy to celebrate the Zagato centennial with us,” said concours chairman Mary Wennerstrom. The International Best in Show Sport Award went to the 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Corto Spider of Scuderia N.E., while the 1936 Delahaye Competition Disappearing Top of Ken Smith earned the International Best of Show Elegance Award. The People’s Choice Award American was presented to owners Sonny and Joan Abagnale for their 1948 Cadillac Series 62 Cabriolet by Saoutchik, and the 1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ of Lawrence Auriana was the People’s Choice International winner. Michael Arnolt, son of Stanley “Wacky” Arnolt, handed out the trophies for the Arnolt class winners, which included the 1954 Arnolt-Bristol Bolide Deluxe of Alan Rosenblum (Chairman’s Choice award) and the 1954 Arnolt-MG Coupe of David West (Spirit of the Hobby trophy). West drove his car from Toronto to be a part of the Arnolt reunion. The Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, which was founded in 1996 by the late Bruce and Genia Wennerstrom, was recently acquired by the collector-car insurance company Hagerty. Mary Wennerstrom, a daughter-in-law of Bruce and Genia, has worked on the concours since the very beginning and will stay on as the event’s executive director. “I think it is very fitting that the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance will now be a part of another great family business,”

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Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, continued said Wennerstrom. “These are genuine car people with an incredible depth of knowledge and passion about the history of classic cars. I look forward to working with them and carrying on the legacy of Bruce and Genia.” The 25th edition of the show has been rescheduled for the end of May in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The 25th running of the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance will boast not just one concours but two, held back-to-back, with a tour, welcome party and Bonhams automobile auction preview,” said McKeel Hagerty, the CEO of Hagerty. “In addition to Sunday’s international and domestic events, we will feature a Concours de Sport on Saturday celebrating race cars and sports cars, with an appropriate emphasis on speed and performance.” Next year’s concours will also highlight several different marques, automotive niches, and one historic rivalry. The Shelby vs. GM class joins Vintage Off-Road, Right Coast Rods and 70 Years of Allard classes, among others, to celebrate the diversity of the automotive world. In addition to looking back at 100 Years of Duesenberg, the event will also give a nod to its silver anniversary with 25 Years of Greenwich Concours, a display of vehicles from the first event. These four-wheeled entries won’t exclude their two-wheeled cousins; the Four or More Cylinders motorcycle class should attract fascinating bikes. The event will be more interactive than ever thanks to Hagerty’s Ride & Drive, which will put show-goers behind the wheel of cool older cars—including a 1965 Ford Mustang and a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS. For those arriving early to Greenwich, Hagerty will host its popular Hagerty Driving Experience, which teaches drivers aged 15 to 25 years old the dying art of operating a manual transmission. —R.R.

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Mecum Auctions 1/2–1/12/2020 Kissimmee, Florida

Is it possible that one of the year’s most exciting collector car auctions is already behind us? If you ask Steve McQueen fans or Mustang aficionados, the answer might be yes. Mecum Auctions’ Kissimmee 2019 brought us the sale of the 1967 GT500 Super Snake for a cool $2.2 million, only to be outdone by Michael Fux’s 2014 La Ferrari, which sold for $3.3 million. This year in Kissimmee, in Mecum’s version of Ford v Ferrari, the 1968 Mustang GT that McQueen famously drove in the film Bullitt beat all comers with a winning bid of $3.74 million. The sale of the Bullitt car had a tremendous buildup, as its now-former owner, Sean Kiernan, took the car on a tour that included visits to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Detroit and San Diego before concluding in Florida a few weeks ago. A veteran of many auctions all over the country, I cannot recall a collector car sale with as much excitement or appeal as that of the Bullitt car. The Mustang drew adoring fans all week as it sat undisturbed

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Mecum Kissimmee, continued and protected in its special “display case,” with a film recounting its storied history playing on massive screens behind it. When it was time to make the short trip to the auction block, it seemed as though the entire Kiernan family and their guests were present. Security was heavy, and camera phones by the hundreds were held high in the air over the crowd that assembled. When Kiernan turned the key, the car’s engine rumbled to life only to be drowned out by the cheers of adoring fans as he drove it out of its special display area and slowly down the auction’s main drag. TV crews and photographers, including me, wrestled for space as the car approached the standing-room-only crowd awaiting its entry to the main stage. When the Bullitt car arrived in the hall, the excitement was palpable. The main lights were dimmed, and then the stage was bathed in a Highland Green light that matched the car’s exterior. The engine revved, the crowd went wild, and as Kiernan had requested, everyone in attendance raise their hand for an opening bid of $3,500, a price for which the car had sold twice previously. The rest, as they say, is history. With the Bullitt car taking center stage, the Mecum experience at Kissimmee continued to expand and be at the forefront of collector car auctions in an increasingly competitive climate. Other highlights included the sales of several curated collections and Danny Thompson’s world-record-breaking Challenger 2 Streamliner (for $561,000), and the addition of a Gallery Collection of fantastic vehicles for sale on the spot. The auction house also delivered in other ways. If cars aren’t your thing, maybe an autographed vintage Fender guitar or a 1930s outboard motor polished like jewelry might be. The mostly local food on site was great, the live bands were on top of their game, and the staff treated everyone as welcome guests. Access to the hundreds of acres of cars was excellent, and if you had a sharp eye, a pen and a ready wallet, the opportunities seemed endless. —words and photos by Paul Royal

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Misselwood Concours d’Elegance 7/19–7/21/2020 Beverly, Massachusetts Beverly, Massachusetts, is a wonderful location for a world-class boutique automotive event. Located on the North Shore, the city is a perfect destination for those who like to both tour and show their cars. The Misselwood Concours d’Elegance weekend began on a Friday evening in July with a welcoming reception that featured a New England– style shore dinner. On Saturday, the Tour d’Elegance took participants on a pre-planned route that showcased some of the best views in the Northeast. The drive was followed by a dinner that preceded the main event on Sunday. More than 100 vehicles, from rare classics to prewar motorcycles, participated in the 10th annual edition of the concours. Car owners arrived from more than 10 states to show their prized possessions. After deliberation, the judges awarded the Best of Show award to Thomas and Vivienne Haines’ 1936 Cord 810 Convertible Phaeton. The Cord 810 was produced for only two years, 1936 and 1937. Praised for its innovation, the front-drive vehicle is powered by a Lycoming V8 engine joined to a four-speed pre-selector transmission. The Gordon Buehrig–designed body features a distinctive

main photos by Josh Sweeney/SFD, aeriel and tour photos below by Deremer Studios, llc

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Misselwood Concours d’Elegance, continued coffin-nose louvered grille and retractable headlights. This particular 810 was delivered new by the Cord factory agency in Los Angeles and had the supercharger trim installed, minus the supercharger. Robert C. Stemple, a former president and CEO of General Motors, was among the previous owners. The Cord was recently restored by Prueitt Automotive Restoration of Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, over a four-year period. Other strong contenders for the Best of Show honor included a 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Corto Spider and a 1934 Pierce Arrow 840A Convertible. “The quality and diverse mix of vehicles made this the hardest decision we’ve ever made,” said Misselwood Concours d’Elegance Chairman Darren Stewart. “There were numerous cars worthy of being our 2019 Best of Show.” The picturesque oceanside event is a scholarship fundraiser for Endicott College students and has raised more than $160,000 in scholarship funds over the years. It was made possible by supporters such as Jaguar Land Rover and Lincoln Motor Company. The next Misselwood Concours d’Elegance will be held this summer, July 17 through 19, and will feature a display of cars from the Back to the Future film trilogy as well as British classics. –R.R.

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Dream Ride Experience 8/24–8/25/2019 Farmington Polo Club Farmington, Connecticut

The Dream Ride Experience is more than just a weekend event; it is a yearround movement of making dreams come true through #DreamRide365. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, August 21 through 23, the Dream Ride Experience is the signature fundraising event of the Hometown Foundation, and the weekend certainly features family fun for all. The Dream Ride Experience continues to be a rolling juggernaut of philanthropy. In 2019, the Dream Ride Experience raised a record-breaking amount of $2.4 million, and to date it has donated more than $12.4 million to the Hometown Foundation. The Dream Ride Experience takes place in August in locations all along the Eastern Seaboard and Canada, and it culminates in a gathering of thousands of automobiles and motorcycles and their owners in Farmington, Connecticut, on the grounds of the Farmington Polo Club. It is a multiday extravaganza that features the Dream Cruise; the Dream Show, which showcases both motorcycles and cars; and a motorcycle ride and rally. All the events benefit a worthy cause: the Special Olympics. “The Dream Ride actually started out as a relationship-building opportunity for me to get close to some of my employees,” said Michael A. Bozzuto, the CEO of Bozzuto’s Inc. of Cheshire, Connecticut. “The next year it grew to an event that we did for charities, and that was actually our first Dream Ride. That was just about 20 years ago, in 2001. The whole thought process behind this was that most people typically have a bicycle, motorcycle, car or truck. With these common tools tied in with the police, firefighters and emergency-response teams, the military, the pet rescue leagues, and then the whole component of people with major illnesses, you wrap it all together and you basically have the community. You are bringing the whole

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Dream Ride Experience continued community together and tapping into that relationship-building process. I think a lot of good happens when everyone knows each other. It’s just like what is happening here. You find within the community some people have part of their lives fulfilled and there is a part that isn’t—there is a need. A lot of the times kids with Down syndrome or who have other major disabilities are hedging something, but they have an abundance of love and care. I bet their friends list is probably pretty short, and that opens the door for us to be there. With the emergency-response people and the military, they have a need to care and help. Putting them together with a person who has a major illness or disability to help fulfill something they couldn’t do before is all part of this process. We have many fire departments getting together as well as over 70 police departments, including the state police [from multiple states] and the chiefs of departments—it’s amazing what you can accomplish, and how it in turn helps the community.” Last year’s Dream Cruise had more than 300 cars, trucks and Jeeps participate, in addition to about 25 firetrucks and the same amount of police cruisers and motorcycles. Together, they gave roughly 400 Special Olympics athletes, kids with special needs, and kids from the Connecticut Children’s hospital rides in some pretty special vehicles. The 12-mile route started and ended at the Farmington Polo Club. It was a sight to behold: all the vehicles and their owners and all the smiles on everyone’s faces as the parade flashed by. “It’s a whole lot of unlikely people getting together, and there is an energy that happens—everyone is just happy to be a part of it,” said Bozzuto. The Dream Cruise was just one part of this multi-pronged event, and it kicked off a weekend that included a fishing tournament and police K-9 demonstrations, to name just two of the many activities. The Dream Show was held on Saturday, and on the field last year were 1,740 cars that entered through the gate, ranging from rat rods to McLarens. The presenting sponsor of the Dream Show, Motorcars Incorporated’s Dean Cusano, also managed the show, which was judged in 12 classes. On Sunday, the Dream Ride motorcycle rally took place. It drew more than 1,000 riders, some from as far away as Canada and Florida. The riders made stops along the way to Farmington, picking up donations and riders. I am sure they were smiling the whole way. To learn how you can become involved, check out dreamride.org. —R.R.

Please welcome Richard Earl as he joins Mesh New England as a contributor starting with this issue. Richard has spent the last 24 years (10 of which were in Metro Detroit) unearthing a story on America’s mid-20th century auto world. In 2003, U.S. Auto Scene did an article on his having information and a perspective no one else has. “So enter Richard, ironically the only Earl descendant to pursue an auto-related career since his grandfather’s death in 1969.” He lives in South Florida and edits the official HarleyJEarl.com website.

HARLEY J. EARL: Cadillac’s First Design Superstar Harley Earl was known as the da Vinci of Detroit. In 1954, his tail fins trend was so hot, many Cadillac dealerships around the country positioned the cars so that the back ends faced the front of the showroom. Tail fins had become a visual prestige marking for the automobile that made the back of a car as exciting as the front. This bold design decision and Earl’s other sensibilities helped General Motors become the largest company of the 20th century. Young car designers who worked for Earl in the 1950s always called him “Mr. Earl.” Only, it came out sounding like one word, “Mistearl.” This was Harley J. Earl (1893–1969), the father of modern automotive design and a legendary figure in the auto industry. The Model T Ford—the automobile that put the nation on wheels—had come and was almost gone by the time an all-new kind of car architect, H.J. Earl, moved to Detroit from the West Coast in 1927. “Hollywood Harley,” as he was known around Los Angeles, had acquired fame building one-of-a-kind custom cars for movie stars and millionaires. In a 1953 interview with automotive journalist Stan Brahms, Earl, who had studied engineering at Stanford, said, “We were turning out about 300 bodies a year, custom bodies, and shipping some to India and Europe. And the motion picture business was 66

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big. After six months, we must have had a half-million dollars’ worth of special bodies in our place.” He said clients included “the old crowd: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Mix and Wally Reid and, well, all the movie picture players, like Fatty Arbuckle and Viola Dana, Pauline Fredricks, Cecil DeMille, and we were really in the business!” Arbuckle, the first Hollywood film star to make more than $1 million a year, paid a mind-blowing record price of $28,000 in 1919 for a redesigned Pierce Arrow. Like a lot of Earl’s other clients, Arbuckle bought more than one of his distinctive custom cars. The man who brought Earl to Detroit was

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the general manager of Cadillac, Lawrence “Larry” Fisher, who decided it was time for more styling in cars. Fisher was one of the seven Body by Fisher brothers, who, during the Roaring Twenties, had become General Motors’ largest shareholders. The guiding genius of Cadillac, Fisher first hired Earl as, the Detroit News reported in 1925, “a consulting engineer to Cadillac.” The relationship turned out to be a match made in heaven, not only for the Cadillac brand, but all of General Motors. One of the reasons Fisher was so excited to bring Earl to Motordom was the unique auto design process he had developed in Southern California, a body-building production method nobody in Detroit was onto yet. As Alfred Sloan Jr. wrote in his autobiography, My Years with General Motors, “[Earl] was doing things in a way that Mr. Fisher had never seen before. For one thing he was using modeling clay to develop the forms of various automobile components, instead of the then conventional wood models and handhammered metal parts used in development work.” THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

Fatty Arbuckle, the first Hollywood film star to make more than $1 million a year, paid a mind-blowing record price of $28,000 in 1919 for a redesigned Pierce Arrow. Then there was the humanizing side to Earl that Fisher was banking on to build more modern transportation products for millions of GM consumers. At 6 foot 6 and 235 pounds, Harley was intimidating to work with and typically met by other engineers telling him, “You can’t do that when building a car!” From the moment Earl arrived in AmeriWWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

ca’s auto capital tensions were sky high between him and GM’s traditional engineers. They weren’t about to relinquish any control to some West Coast Hollywood hotshot artist/engineer. But what these engineers did not know was that Earl had assurances from Sloan, GM’s top leader at the time, and from the company’s largest shareholders, the Fisher family, that he’d have complete

creative control over redesigning and preengineering all the company’s products. Otherwise, Earl may not have given up his highly profitable business in California. The art of secrecy and deception was always part of Fisher and Earl’s plan. This was the main reason Earl won all the important fights with GM’s top status quo engineers, who were always gunning for him.

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He got the idea for the ‘fish tail’ rear lights on the Cadillac from the P-38 fighter plane. ‘When I saw those two rudders sticking up, it gave me a post war idea,’ he later recalled. ‘When we introduced it, we almost started a war in the corporation.’”

In other words, Earl became GM’s tough-asnails chairman of change, who also quickly got down to the business of foiling Henry Ford’s “You can have it any color as long as its black” with a brand-new “design obsolescence” production method. The following excerpt from a 1956 New York Times article provides some insight into the start of Earl’s career in Motown: “Mr. Earl accepted a contract to design auto bodies for the Cadillac division. Alfred P. Sloan Jr., now chairman of the board, gave him his only instructions: ‘make these cars to sell.’ In carrying out this order, ‘I became the most hated man in the place, because I 68

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got in everyone’s hair,’ Mr. Earl recalls.” At the end of the 1920s, GM’s market share was on a meteoric rise, while the Ford Motor Co.’s long dominant position was crashing. By 1931 GM had surpassed Ford to become the world’s largest automaker, and the world’s largest company. At the same time a new kind of creative leader was silently emerging on the US auto scene. Harley’s father, Jacob Earl, was a Southern California auto builder and founded the Earl Carriage Works in 1889, seven years before Henry Ford built his first car, in 1896. The Fisher family business can be traced back to an Ohio carriage-building company

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that operated in the late 1800s. At Cadillac, Fisher and Earl created the business template for car styling for generations to come. Earl’s one-of-a-kind design department gave GM a pivotal firstmover advantage, but soon enough all of Detroit’s major automakers were able to copy and set up similar styling programs by conducting “pirating raids,” hiring away people from GM to run the programs. In the postwar era, the raids came from foreign automakers, too. Even now, as we enter the 2020s, hiring away the design talent from GM with lucrative offers remains a longestablished industry standard. THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

But there was only one Harley Earl—creator of the La Salle, the hugely popular companion car to the Cadillac that ultimately led to this revolutionary artist/engineer designing not only the amazing V16 Cadillacs of the 1930s, but all of GM’s other products. The popularity of his designs vaulted Cadillac over Packard to become the No. 1 luxury car in America—a position Cadillac retained for the next 60-plus years. Earl’s disruptive new car-design technology became a big part of the American dream. Starting as a quiet revolution, it went on to develop over the years into a powerWWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

house story we can now call Detroit’s “Dependency on Design.” This was the secret sauce behind GM’s most prolific era of its 110-plus year history. Opposite of being dull, Earl’s inventive new profession— along with his ceaseless creativity, numerous innovations, and innate sense of style and beauty—helped the entire global automotive economy grow into what it is today. Never seeking to win a popularity contest during a career that spanned designing personalized glamour cars for silentera movie stars to sculpting the fins that sprouted from millions of Detroit’s cars, Earl retired from GM on November 22, 1958.

The Detroit News obituary from April 10, 1969, titled “Harley J. Earl Dies; Car Design Pioneer,” accurately tells Earl’s controversial Cadillac tail fins story: “He got the idea for the ‘fish tail’ rear lights on the Cadillac from the P-38 fighter plane. ‘When I saw those two rudders sticking up, it gave me a postwar idea,’ he later recalled. ‘When we introduced it, we almost started a war in the corporation.’” And finally, what would a Cadillac have been without tail fins? We’ll never know, and we can thank Earl for making that bold design decision and for making Cadillacs, well, Cadillacs.

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RIDE LIKE THE WIND words and photos by Sean Smith The first Mt. Equinox Hill Climb was run in 1950. The Vintage Sports Car Club of America took over the event in 1973, and its members have been meeting annually on the mountain’s Skyline Drive ever since.

V Andy Greenberg drives his Aston Martin DB4 GT to the Mt. Equinox Hill Climb, competes in the car, and then drives it home.

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VERMONT, THE GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE, is famous for cheddar, syrup, fly fishing, canoeing and maybe even Subarus. But what if none of those is your thing? Vermont has another treat for you. For two days every summer, one of those Green Mountains, Mt. Equinox in Bennington County, is used for a hill climb. The mountain’s Skyline Drive, a privately owned toll road, opened to the public in 1947 as an unpaved road. The first Mt. Equinox Hill Climb was run in 1950, as an official Sports Car Club of America event. Members of the club had asked Dr. Joseph Davidson if they could borrow his road for the day. He let them have it for a Sunday afternoon. The road was fully paved in 1953. Davidson was an inventor with multiple patents on composition materials he had helped to develop. During World War II, he headed Union Carbide’s gaseous-diffusion project at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which refined the uranium that was used in the first atomic bomb. Before he retired to his mountaintop in 1960, he was the president of Union Carbide. In 1939, Davidson bought a large piece of land—about 11 square miles—on Mt. Equinox to build a summer home, but the road up the mountain had to be improved. Davidson kept buying land until the whole mountain was his. He ordered the construction of a hydroelectric facility that still provides

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The flagman counts you down: three, two, one! The green flag flies, and you’re off! Now it’s just you and your machine against the clock and Equinox.”

Nick Pardee, in an MG TF, is lined up in front of David Zavetsky in a 1959 Devin Special, David Keenleyside in his Sunbeam Rapier, and Rick McCurdy in his TR3.

Santo Spadaro crests the saddle in his Lancia Fulvia GT 2C known as “Elefantino.” He shared the car that weekend with his wife, Molly.

Past president John Schieffelin in his MG TB

power to the Equinox area, and further shunning the utilities, he created the mountain’s own telephone network. Davidson befriended an order of Carthusian monks and started transferring ownership of the mountain in 50acre parcels to the order. In the end, the monks would own 7,000 acres on the mountain. In 1970, the monks opened a cloistered monastery on Mt. Equinox, the Charter House of the Transfiguration; the hill climb continued to run every year This was no Sunday drive. Professional racers such as Carol Shelby, Briggs Cunningham and John Fitch took on the hill. During one run, Fitch’s steering wheel came off in his hands. Over time the cars got faster and faster, and Equinox could barely contain them. 72

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The SCCA’s insurance became exorbitant, and drivers were not showing up to fill the field. The Vintage Sports Car Club of America (VSCCA.org) stepped in in 1973 and became the hill climb’s sanctioning body. The club has been meeting annually on Skyline Drive ever since. The 2020 Mt. Equinox Hill Climb is scheduled for August 8 and 9.

The Competition The cars that compete in the Mt. Equinox Hill Climb run the gamut from multimillion-dollar Aston Martins to the less valuable Hillman Minx, with Alfa Romeos, Porsches, Allards, Maseratis and the occasional Formula car somewhere in the middle. The presence of such vehicles turns the parking area at the bottom of the hill

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into a pop-up classic car show, to which all are welcome. The public can get up close and personal with some very special machines. On any other day, Skyline Drive is a toll road open to visitors to take in the beautiful vistas of Vermont. It’s a place for quiet reflection and communing with nature, but not when the VSCCA is in attendance. As it was with the SCCA, the Mt. Equinox Hill Climb is no casual drive up the mountain to see the pretty sights. The only sights the drivers are thinking about are breaking points and apexes. Cars go through tech inspection to make sure they are safe and ready to take on the hill; the drivers, wearing full fire suits and helmets, are also safe and ready. THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

When it’s your turn to take on the hill, you present yourself at the starting line. The ham radio operators call out the progress of the car in front of you, and when there is a large enough gap, they clear you to start. The flagman counts you down: three, two, one! The green flag flies, and you’re off! Now it’s just you and your machine against the clock and Equinox.

Tearing It Up The ride starts at 800 feet above sea level, and over the next 5.2 miles, you will climb to 3,248 feet. Get ready for a wild ride. You begin by tearing through a series of quick, sweeping turns that seem to go on forever before you arrive at a hard right known as Caruso’s (named for a driver who came to grief there). You then WWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

pass through the first parking lot, where you downshift as you approach a hard uphill left and drift out to the right toward a ditch you don’t want to end up in. Now the climb really starts. You push the gas pedal to the floor, keeping the engine at the redline while you make a few easy turns with your foot glued to the floor. You are over to the right and drift out to the left as you set up for a long, decreasing-radius right that just keeps tightening up on you. There’s no time to rest, because Equinox throws a few serpentine curves at you followed by a short straight and a left turn. Next thing you know you are actually going downhill, but only for a moment. Instantly you are hard on it again, heading for the first of the extremely tight uphill hairpins. You make the right, keeping your

speed up, giving it everything you can on the short run up to the next turn, a hairpin left. You make it around that turn, with your foot crushing the go pedal again, and then another nasty uphill right comes at you. You downshift hard and correct the steering until you are going straight again and still climbing. You pass the short-course finish line, with the tires squealing on another hard left. You have done 3.2 miles, but there is lots more to come; you are making a run to the summit! To quote Rush’s “Red Barchetta”: “Drive like the wind, straining the limits of machine and man, laughing out loud with fear and hope.” Now it’s the long, hard, very uphill road to the saddle. The road unwinds in front of you. You are in a blurred green tunnel, coaxing as much speed as you dare

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Some cars reach 100 mph, and at the top of the saddle, your car goes light and you are across, but Equinox is not finished with you. ”

Devin Giedra drives the No. 11 Datsun Fairlady (top). Stefan Vapaa captured the fastest time of the day in his Saab Sonett V4 (middle, left). Dorien Berteletti piloted his 1934 Hudson Indy car (middle, right). Benjamin Bragg IV rounds a bend in the Old Grey Mare (bottom).

Whit Smith, one of the new, young members of the VSCCA, approaches the Attention to detail in the shop has made all the difference at the show. Since the restoration, the top of the mountain in his Alfa Sprint. Siata has won at the Greenbrier Concours d’Elegance, Sunday in the Park, Radnor Hunt Concours d’Elegance, Atlanta Concours d’ Elegance, and more. SHOW-READY SIATA PHOTOS BY RUSS ROCKNAK

The Lexus RC F while the bumps toss you all over the road. Your next vision is nothing but sky, until off to the right you catch a glimpse of the summit. As you crest the hill, you know that the road bears to the left. Nevertheless, it seems like a leap of faith to aim your car that way. The world drops away on both sides of you while you cross the saddle, but you have tunnel vision at this point, knowing just a few strands of cable on each side of the road will keep you from becoming part of the landscape. If you have it in you and your car has enough horsepower, this is where you can go fast. Some cars reach 100 mph. At the top of the saddle, your car goes light, and you are across, but Equinox is not finished with you. Back among the evergreens, the road 74

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becomes even bumpier, shaking you and your car to the bone. Next are a quick downshift, another bumpy right, and—in quick succession—a short straight, a hard left, and another hard right that wring every last ounce of power out of your race car. Then you finally see the top. You fly by the checkered flag and stop the clock. You roll into the parking lot, shut off your engine, and wait for your heart rate to drop back to somewhere near normal. If you are really fast, your ride has taken just under five minutes. But even if all you did was take a few seconds off your last run, you are grinning ear to ear. You have climbed Equinox and will relive this ride with your fellow drivers at the top. The ride will stay in your memory until the next time you make this run.

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I must admit, my ride to the mountaintop in the 2019 hill climb was not all that vintage; it was, in fact, up-tothe-moment modern. When the Drive Shop and Lexus offer you an RC F to play with, you don’t turn them down. The Lexus RC F has soul and a helluva lot of attitude. It’s a postmodern 472 hp V8 land shark swimming among lesser road fish. It’s ready to gobble up every Prius in its way. The RC F may be referred to as a GT, but with a top speed of 168 mph and a zero-to-60 time of 4.2 seconds, it is more in the sports car realm. Its size is the only thing that makes it a nonsports car. But it shrinks around you as you drive it. And when I was told I needed to get to the top of the hill quickly, before the race cars were let

loose, it did the job. Period. Mic drop. No matter how you make your way to this Green Mountain, in a modern techno hot rod or a down-and-dirty analog vintage sports car, come visit Mt. Equinox for your racing or viewing pleasure. –S.S.

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DRIVEN We visit with Kelly Automotive Group President and CEO Brian Kelly to discuss his favorite topics: his unique car collection, motorcycles and his family. words and images by Russ Rocknak

Throughout my professional career, I have traveled far and wide to interview a broad range of people. Though they come from all walks of life, they have one thing in common: a passion for the automobile. Spanning several generations, this group forms our community of auto enthusiasts. As a baby boomer (a young one), I have found that most car guys and car girls of my generation share a common childhood experience: They were surrounded by toy cars and trucks, bicycles, minibikes, go-karts and other vehicles that fueled their future passion. Indeed, this observation applies to Brian Kelly, the president and CEO of the Kelly Automotive Group.

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I’ve just always liked cars and motorcycles,

Roland D. Kelly

but before I got into them, I had a bicycle,” says Kelly. “I was a 10-year-old kid, and I used to fix my bikes up whether they needed it or not. I used to paint them up and stripe them. Everyone had a speedometer on their bike, and I did too. I also had a light in the front and a light in the back. I always had the coolest bike in the neighborhood. “I loved cars since I was a young boy,” he continues. “We grew up in Danvers [Massachusetts], and my father was a car salesman. He sold Buicks in Salem [Massachusetts]. He used to take me along with him when I was 5 or 6 years old to his dealership, and back then, all the cars seemed to have big whitewalls. Being the perfect height, I was given a bottle of whitewall cleaner, and I’d clean those whitewalls. I remember Washington’s birthday was a really big deal back then, with all the cherry pies and celebrating. I loved that and got hooked on the car business.”

“My father’s name was Roland D. Kelly, and he flew B-17s and B-25s during World War II at 19 years old,” says Kelly. “Imagine piloting a plane like that at 19 years old? He ended up leaving high school to serve. They allowed kids to leave when they were 17 to go into the service because they needed so many men and women. I had three uncles in the service at the same time. Two of them died the same week. “My father was a great guy and everybody loved him. He treated his employees extraordinarily well, and he treated his customers even better. It was never about making money with him. It was always about doing the right thing. I learned a lot from him. I’m not a bean counter. I don’t sit down at the end of the month and rip our financial statement apart. We simply treat our employees and our customers the best we can. “My father started his first business in 1946 as a mechanic and selling cars.

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Brian Kelly and his wife, Sherry, enjoyed a day at the Boston Cup last September in their 1954 Buick Skylark. What a beautiful red interior.

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I was 10 years old, and I had my own little businesses. I had paper routes, a lemonade stand. I mowed lawns and shoveled snow.”

In time he ended up working for this company that was owned by two brothers who ran three Buick dealerships. The brothers died within like six months of each other. This was about 1964. My father couldn’t get one of the franchises, so he got one of the buildings and then started a used-car lot—the type with a string of light bulbs and 12 cars. I remember he paid $33,000 for it. He specialized in Buicks, because that’s what he knew how to sell.” 78

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Shifting Gears “I was 10 years old, and in my mind I had a pretty good sports career going for, you know, a 10-year-old kid,” says Kelly. “And I had my own little businesses. I had paper routes, a lemonade stand. I mowed lawns and shoveled snow. “I was rolling along with my life, and then one day my father said, ‘We could use your help around the dealership.’ So I kind of let my sports career go—I was never going to

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Buick produced only 836 Skylarks in 1954. To celebrate Buick’s 50th anniversary, each came with a leather interior, full power equipment, special ornamentation, and open wheel wells with Kelsey-Hayes wire wheels. Brian Kelly remembers his father selling one of these Buicks in 1956. He has his ’54 Skylark placed at the center of his collection.

be fantastic, anyway; although, the older I get the better I think I was. “The day my father opened his used car dealership, I was there cleaning the windows with my mother, sister and brother. We did not have a lot of money, so we used newspapers and vinegar to clean the windows. I went from hopping up my bicycles to saving enough money to get my first car at 16 years old. I worked around the business: I swept floors, I washed THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

cars, I went for coffee—all the stuff that a 13-year-old kid could do. By the time I was 15, my father got busy, and so I’d stay there until 9 o’clock at night. Basically, my day consisted of going to school until 2:30, my mother would pick me up, I’d be at the dealership by 2:45, and I’d stay there until 9 o’clock. My father would send me out with customers on test drives when he got busy, because you wouldn’t let people go by themselves. WWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

“I would have my workman’s clothes on and people would say, ‘Well, young man, what do you know about this car?’ And I’d say, ‘I know it came in trade from a lady in Salem, and we put some new tires on it, did a brake job, and put on a new exhaust.’ More times than not, they’d come back and buy the car, and they’d say to my father, ‘He’s a nice young man. He knew what he was talking about.’ One day my father said to me, ‘You know, you need to sell cars. You

could do it on weekends. You could do it on nights.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but geez Dad, I’m only 15 years old.’ And I remember him saying, ‘I know, Brian, but you are tall, and nobody will know how old you actually are.’ My mother took me to Robert Hall’s in Beverly [Massachusetts], and I bought two suits for $59. “I’d go to work at the dealership after school, and I’d empty the barrels. This is before dumpsters. I was in charge of emptying

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Brian Kelly has set up a location where he and his friends can just sit and enjoy the nearly 70 cars in his collection. His car collection is varied, but most have one thing in common: the color combination.

gotiating with my father—he didn’t pay me for the first three or four years, but I was now making $44 a week emptying barrels, doing trash and all the other chores. “He said, ‘I want you to sell cars for me full-time in the summertime.’ I had a car. I had a girlfriend. I had expenses. I had to make $44 a week to cover my bases. I wanted a guarantee. So my father said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you what, you sell cars for me and I’ll pay you $44 a week.’ Well, my first full-time week I sold four cars, and I had about $300 in commission coming to me. Guess what my check was? $44. I learned a big lesson at a young age. “I tell that story to people who say to me they need a guarantee. Soon, I went on commission, and I did really well. It was the early ’70s, and I was making $300, $400 a week selling cars. Back then, that was a lot of money.”

Freebird “At 18, I moved out of the house and into my own apartment,” says Kelly. “I had a ’68 Corvette, I had a brand-new BSA motorcycle and a waterbed. I was living the life. That’s the way I looked at it. And at 19 years

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more months. I got a Toyota point because of my success with Nissan. I got approved by Toyota, I’ve found a piece of land, and I’m going to go out on my own.’ My father said he didn’t want me to do that. I said, ‘But why not? I thought you’d be proud of me for doing something on my own.’ And he goes, ‘I don’t want you for competition.’ That was probably the best compliment he ever paid me. “I was aggressive. I’d get up early, stay late, work harder. I wasn’t the smartest kid, missed the whole college thing, but I was willing to work hard. And sometimes with some street smarts and some ambition, and if you’re willing to put your nose to the grindstone, you can accomplish a lot. “I bought my father out. I paid $190,000 for his business. That was in 1979 or 1980. It took me a while to get approved by DatsunNissan, because I was so young at the time. “I remember all the numbers. I had to sell 75 cars a month to break even, and in our very first month we sold 125 cars! We started out very well and never slowed down. One month we sold 289 cars out of that little dealership on an acre of land. “My father always said that cash is king,

At 18, I moved out of the house and into my own apartment. I had a ’68 Corvette, I had a brand-new BSA motorcycle and a waterbed. I was living the life.”

all the trash and putting it in a dump truck we had. And then I’d go home at 4 o’clock. I was supposed to eat, shower, get dressed up in my suit, and do my homework. Well, my homework never got done. I ate, and I would change my clothes, and then I’d come back to the dealership at 5 o’clock and sell cars until 9 o’clock every night. I also sold cars on weekends. When it was time for Christmas vacation, it was, ‘Oh, Brian, I could really use you. We’re going to be busy this week.’ 80

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That’s how I got into selling cars. “During this time, I went to a trade school. It was called the Claude H. Patent Trade School in Beverly [Massachusetts]. I graduated with the class of 1970. I got a lot of mechanical knowledge attending the trade school, but I was still selling cars nights and weekends. Soon, I realized I could make a little more money selling cars than I could fixing them. I just kind of transformed into a salesperson. I remember when I was neWWW.MESHNEWENGLAND.COM

old, I was saving money at the same time. “I worked for my father for 12 years selling cars and during that time I got married, had three children and built up a great clientele. I paid attention to the details, and when they picked up a vehicle from me it was clean and had a full tank of gas. I quickly became one of the top DatsunNissan sales consultants in the nation and received a lot of recognition and many awards over the years. One year I actually sold 366 cars. “So long story short, I was saving my money and I wanted to buy my own dealership. It’s the same old story. My father and I were banging heads. I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to advertise, I wanted to be a car dealer, and I wanted to do it on my own. I went to him and said, ‘Dad, I’m going to be leaving.’ And he goes, ‘What do you mean you’re leaving?’ I said, ‘I’m only going to be here for three or four

so whenever I was able to make a little extra money I saved it. Over the years as opportunities presented themselves to me I was able to use this savings to acquire dealerships, and today the Kelly Automotive Group represents 11 brands, basically all on the North Shore of Massachusetts.”

All in the Family The Kelly Automotive Group, founded in 1965, now employs about 500 people. It was named a “Best Dealership to Work in North America” by Automotive News. It is also one of the top 100 dealers in the United States in terms of pure retail and customer satisfaction. “The Customer Satisfaction Index [CSI] is a big deal to us, and our stores do really well, as we are leaders in this field and often set the benchmark,” says Kelly. “So, I just like to congratulate the people that get the job done. My son-in-law, Brian Heney, he’s got the financial

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statement in his hand. He’s looking at the expenses, he’s doing all the things I used to do and are not fun for me anymore. He does all that blocking and tackling. “I really enjoy what I do. I have family in the business. I’ve got a son named Brian. I got a grandson named Brian. I’m Brian. And I’ve got a son-in-law named Brian. He does that everyday grind that you need in the business. And we still do deals together. We buy things, we sell things, and he brings a lot of things to my attention. Because of my age, I have a lot of experience, but he’s really in tune with what’s going on today. “My oldest son, Brian, runs the Jeep store, and he just built a brand-new building, a 43,000-square-foot facility on Route 1. My youngest son, Brenden, ran the Maserati and Alfa store for me, and he’s been involved in the business for many years. All three of my boys—and I call my son-in-law, Brian, one of my boys—they’re all in the business now and work hard. My sister manages all the money. She’s also my human resources director and moral compass. I’ve worked with my sister since 1978 or ’79. Our offices are right next door to each other, and now her son Drew, my nephew, is the parts

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In the years when he was busy raising a family, Kelly always had a couple of cool cars, but not what he would call a collection. “I remember I had a ’71 MercedesBenz 280 SL and a Porsche 911 Turbo. I really liked both. I would buy cars, fix them up, keep them for five or six years, and turn around and sell them. I just got so busy with work, buying dealerships here and there, and raising kids and a family— and now it’s all about the grandkids—that I didn’t have the time to build a true collection of cars and motorcycles.” About three years ago when Kelly was visiting his good friend Ernie Boch Jr., he had a flash-of-genius moment while Boch was showing him his car collection. “I looked at all of these cars,” says Kelly, “and was like, ‘Oh man, how cool is this?’ He had a Bentley, a TR6, a couple of Porsches. I said, ‘This is really cool.’ Honestly, it sparked me to say, ‘Well, I can do this.’ “My wife Sherry and I built our house four or five years ago, and I made sure I had six garage spaces. I then went with my son [Brian] to Barrett-Jackson at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, and we bought a 1960 Thunderbird. It’s a beautiful car. To me that was just the prettiest car there.

Ron Janard has been a dear friend of Brian Kelly’s since he was 16 and is the longesttenured employee of the Kelly Automotive Group. Together they manage and care for Sherry and Brian’s collection of cars.

Sometimes with some street smarts and some ambition, and if you’re willing to put your nose to the grindstone, you can accomplish a lot.” manager at our Volkswagen dealership. “My younger brother, Neil, runs all the cars through the auction for us. He runs the wholesale auction department, wholesaling 100, 150 cars a week. He follows up, follows through. He handles all the titles, and he does a great job.”

Collecting When Kelly was a kid, he used to look at cars a lot from a styling standpoint, and he just really liked red interiors. “It seems Corvettes always had a red interior, and they always looked really cool,” he says. “I had a ’62 Oldsmobile Starfire in high school with a red interior. I’ve had several cars with red interiors. To me, it just looks sharper than any other color. The red interior and white exterior just seem to complement each other so well, and to me it makes collecting cars a little more fun and exciting.” 82

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My son and I had a great time that day and created some terrific memories. When we got it home we decided that we had so much fun that we would look for another couple cars. Now we have 67 cars. We’ve sold a few, bought a few cars we didn’t like, and made a few mistakes. It’s part of the process. “We bought the building this collection is in because I needed the parking lot for our Ford dealership down the street. If you look out back you will see we have over 150 Ford trucks out there. “I have some friends who collect art and some who have big boats, planes, helicopters and everything else, and that is great, but I can drive the cars. They’re tangible things I can look at. I can sit in them. People love to have their pictures taken with them. They come in here and want to sit in a car. And they put on a pair of sunglasses,

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and they think they’re on Route 66. “So I guess the biggest joy for me is the hunt, chasing the cars down with the white exterior and the red upholstery, and watching the enjoyment on people’s faces when they come in and see them all. Now, I think I might have some of the coolest cars in the neighborhood, as well as a bicycle or two.” THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

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2015 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG A 577 hp engine with 664 lb-ft of torque gives this AMG the ability to sprint 0-60 in just under 3.9 seconds while providing the most luxurious accommodations. With only 33k miles, it offers a fantastic value.

2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS Special order Viper Green. Less than 10 were built with this color combination. This is one rare GT3 RS. Only 1,078 miles. It is completely original and has been meticulously maintained.

1979 Mercedes-Benz 450 SL Same ASE Master Auto Tech owner since February 1980. Ultimate preservation with only 8,950 miles. 904 dark blue exterior, 204 bamboo interior. Contact: Dennis, (978) 531.2040

1937 Ford Model 78 5 window coupe. 29,000 miles. An unmolested original example that runs and drives delightfully. V8 with original factory aluminum heads and Stromberg 97 carburetor. $39,000. Contact: Mark, (508)

1966 Pontiac GTO Convertible 389 V8, 4 Speed, Bucket Seats & Console. Red exterior, red interior, white top. Frame up restoration. Copy of original build sheet. $55,000. Contact: Mark, (508) 981.6275 1991 Mitsubishi 3000GT SL Two-door hatchback. Every service performed by dealer, never used in bad weather, we just replaced the tires due to age. $9,500 Contact: Andrew, Classic Motorsports (603) 429.8840

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2013 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG Designo Designo Interior, AMG Performance Package. This E63 is one of the most optioned super sedans on the market. This E63 AMG only has 36,597 miles and has been meticulously maintained and serviced.

2008 Tesla Roadster Powered by a 375 Volt Lithium-Ion battery delivering up to 244 miles on a full charge. The rarity of this particular Tesla in a Thunder Gray premium exterior makes it a true collector’s car. Only 2,547 well-preserved miles.

2019 Royal Enfield Continental GT Drawing inspiration from the cafe racers and cafe culture of 1950s and 60s, this new Continental GT 650 Twin recaptures the spirit of the original Continental GT—a perfect blend of tradition & modernity.

2020 Ural Motorcycles Today’s Urals are backed by over 75 years of sidecar experience, distilled in the ultimate motorcycle to share your adventures. With a sidecar and trunk, you’ll have enough room for all your favorite gear (or people).

1983 Porsche 911 SC Targa Summer driven only always stored inside. Interior is clean, roof is in great shape and car overall is in beautiful condition for the year. 93,870 miles. $39,500 Contact: Alton Motorsports (603) 875.7575

• Complete Land Cruiser Restorations • Custom Paint-Interiors-Engines-Accessories • ARB & TJM Products-Advanced Adaptors • Extensive VIDEO library of restorations Established in 1992, Cruiser Solutions pioneered the sale and installation of Aluminum Bodied Land Cruisers. Since then we have grown our product line, restoration techniques and services.

37 Garland Drive, Hampstead, New Hampshire 03841

603-329-9999 www.CruiserSolutions.com

MESH NEW ENGLAND 2020 ISSUE I

Info@CruiserSolutions.com

THE YEARBOOK

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PERFORMANCE COATINGS PAINT & RUST REMOVAL MIL-SPEC PLASTIC & ALUMINUM OXIDE MEDIAS • HIGH-QUALITY CUSTOM BURN OFF OVEN • • POWDER COATING • EPOXY PRIMING • CNC MACHINING • WELDING & FABRICATION sales@drystripping.com • www.drystripping.com 171 Spring Hill Rd • Trumbull, CT 06611 • 203-268-7088 THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

1967 MG MGB GT Coupe Hard to find GT model. Fresh Paint, new chrome bumpers, glass and seals, interior kit including carpets. Tuned-up and ready to go. 4,550 miles. $13,900 Contact: Lakeside Motors (978) 424.4121

THE YEARBOOK

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DRIVE IT, DON’T JUST LOOK AT IT. STIRRING THE GEARS STIRS THE SOUL.

THE PROBLEMS: the cost of the in-depth education involved, awareness of the opportunities available along with career rewards and the social position a “tradesman” harbors in the society of today.

THE SOLUTIONS: develop a national platform to fund apprenticeship and/or formal education, promote the rewards a career in car craft provides, and establish participants’ status as professional practical engineers.

photo by Russ Rocknak

BE A CHARTER MEMBER OF THE AUTOMOTIVE RESTORATION ACADEMY. Call or email: Robert Minnick, 203-940-3084, rpm@rpmgroupltd.com, http://pistonfoundation.org

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MESH NEW ENGLAND 2020 ISSUE I

THE YEARBOOK

THE HUB OF NEW ENGLAND’S CAR COMMUNITY

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ACADEMY