bonspy

Being an inveterate fan of beautiful automobiles like the 1929 Bentley pictured above, with its gorgeous boat tail. The instant that automobile came into the films image, I was hooked. My love of older cars was a direct result of my father's love, and he gave me no choice but to adore these older automotive sculptures The first car I was allowed to drive on my own was a 1940 Dodge, with suicide doors and mohair seats. The 3 on the tree, vacuum wipers, and a rear seat that was nearly the size of my bedroom's love seat. Then my father saw a car he considered to be the perfect car for me to purchase as my first car. It was a 1956 Mercedes-Benz 190, 4 door sedan, with a beautiful, nearly new red leather interior. The only real issue with the car were the rusted out rocker panels and my father taught me to "lead" in the missing metal. It took my dad and I almost 2 years to return the body to its correct appearance. Then of course we had to prepare the exterior for a beautiful white paint job. That's the reason I have been mostly devoted to Mercedes-Benz automobiles over the years. I currently have a slightly rare 2003 Mercedes-Benz CL 55 AMG, with lovely lines and a 5.4 liter, supercharged V8 to get it up and down the rural roadways where my wife and I have our little farm. Also, my dad's taste in cars was put to excellent use as the historian of the Amelia Island Concours d’elegance. Dad began working on the Amelia over 25 years ago and his involvement grew year after year until he began to have serious dementia problems a few years ago. At the last Amelia my dad was entirely on point, one of my boyhood racing heroes was the Honorary Chairman, the one and only Jacky Ickx. Dad arranged for me to have passes to the show and to have a room in the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island. That weekend will be remembered by me up until my end. Monsieur Le Mans and I spent quite a bit of time together chatting about his racing career and also my miserable auto racing "near career", which Jacky Ickx thought was as funny as I found it to be. I went to the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School and did my training in Formula Fords with the 1.6 liter engines. After my training, I was invited to race for a small Formula Ford team until the end of the season when we would discuss whether or not I would be on the team for the following year. That went to hell as my teammate totaled out the team's second Formula Ford. Once that happened, a good friend of our team owner, asked me if I would be interested in racing sports cars. It took everything I had to not show how anxious I was to race his sports cars. The one thing Monsieur Ickx was fascinated about was the black and white glossy photo of himself that I got him to sign for me in one of his sports car races in the U.S.A. It was very memorable for him for two reasons; the first one is that the b&w photo was taken at the 1969 Italian Grand Prix, the second reason is that I talked the guy right behind me in line to see Jacky Ickx to take a picture of Jacky signing that b&w glossy. To top it off, I asked Jacky (what can I say, he asked that I call him Jacky and not Mr. Ickx or any other name aside from Jacky) if he wouldn't mind signing the same photo again, and he did not mind at all. Funny thing was that he asked me to shoot a few photos of that now infamous photo and then asked me to send a few copies of it to send to his wife and grandchildren. I must say that he took his time speaking with me, spending more time with me than I ever thought possible. He was so very genorous to spend so much time with me. What can I say, sometimes you meet your heroes and they don't measure up, but with a very classy and incredibly talented person like Jacky Ickx, you can only be impressed by spending any time at all with such a Titan as Jacky Ickx. I must apologize that I was not able to find any of the photos with me and Jacky together. I truly hope the 1929 Bentley with the boat tail feature is in fact the same make and model of the car in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. I've always loved the Bentleys of that era and especially the era of the Bentley Boys! Much appreciation for the mission you've outlined and I shall return when I am able. Oh, here's my CL 55 AMG, that I love.