I’ve often said I’m not really a “Ferrari guy” but that’s not to say that I don’t appreciate them. I just couldn’t see myself enduring the pain of actually owning one. Not that I have to worry about that though, as the IRS will confirm, I don’t have that sort of income. Or anything remotely close to that sort of income.
The thing about Ferrari’s is that Enzo Ferrari, the company founder and its heart and soul, never saw himself as an automobile manufacturer. Enzo saw himself as a race team manager. He built cars to win races, and sold cars to finance the racing program. His cars therefore are like race cars. They are designed to run like stink for X hours and then be completely torn down and rebuilt.
They are beautiful. They make wonderful noises that is in reality some of the most pleasing road music ever created. They have more soul than anything built by any other car maker. They are universally admired, lusted after, and worshipped. They are just so damn expensive.
This photograph was taken at the Kirkland Concours in 2004. That was the year that early morning rain set the organizers into a panic and they shuffled the cars off the Carillon Point and into the parking garage for fear of getting them wet. Of course the Northwest weather worked against them and the day turned out to be brilliant. Oh well. The cars were well arranged at least, with themes and in some cases approachable and informative owners there to talk to. Except of course the Ferraris… at least while I was looking. The most fun guys to talk to that year were the “Classics” folks. Those pre-war palaces of chrome and straight-eights. Great guys. They also were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Mercedes-Benz 300sl (aka “Gullwing”) so there was probably the largest presentation of 300sl cars that I have ever seen in one spot.
If you are in the Pacific Northwest at the end of the summer, I highly recommend a visit to the Kirkland Concours. (You will note they host their website with my employer, but that is a coincidence that I have nothing to do with! Really.) They really pull a great collection of cars, spanning a range of eras and interests. Normally they are presented in a stunning location on the shore of Lake Washington, so don’t let the above photo put you off.
RANT ON…
“….they shuffled the cars off the Carillon Point and into the parking garage for fear of getting them wet.”
Another reason I *generally* don’t like concours, or concours folks. God FERBID their cars might get wet or, horrors of horrors, DIRTY.
THAT’S one of the (many) reasons I so appreciate you and your Dad, chuck; you’se fellers get’m WET! Get’m DIRTY! Drive the bastard till it breaks! Fix it! Drive it some MORE!
Why the f**k else own an automobile?
RANT OFF……
🙂
Well… mind you the car I’m driving until it breaks is a fairly mundane, mass-produced machine, of which there are tens of thousands still running. A lot of these high-end concours cars are one-of-a-kind, multi-million dollar works of automotive art. While the cars would have survived being wet… the attendees and participants would also prefer to stay dry while they admired the cars you know. 🙂
While at dinner one night on the Colorado Grand I had the dumb luck of sitting at a table with some of the worlds’ most noted car collectors. People like Miles Collier and the like. It was fascinating to listen to these guys talk about the collector car world, and what is “right and correct”. I know that Collier’s museum is filled with race cars that literally look as if they just pulled into the paddock. Talk about patina! Duct taped cracks, and bugs still on the paint! He says this is how they MUST be preserved and presented. This is their “natural state” no? Of course the flip side of that line of thought is to turn back the time machine and get the car back to as close to “factory original” as possible. He has some of those cars too. I can see both side of the issue, and if I had the big bucks, I wouldn’t mind having a pristine 250LM or the like. (Not going to happen so I won’t sweat the risks of driving it. ;))
I’ll never show the 65E in a concours. Mostly because at the core of it a concours IS A COMPETITION, and why enter a competition if you have NO HOPE of finishing anything but last. My car is not in concours condition, and never will be. Now I’ll DRIVE the car TO a concours and walk around to drool at cars with even more pedigree than I can imagine or afford. It *can* be fun.
How else can I get these photos of cool cars anyway? 😀
–chuck