Rogues Gallery Journal

As we begin the final slide into the holiday season so too will the sun set upon these wonderful gatherings of 2011 crowned with a colorfully robust Autumn season. With that I wish to report that far more articles , galleries , and videos are in production & being assembled for web publication than have appeared here so far ….
……and that’s just from the 2011 season .
( Fr’instance there was this entire Summer passed and I never missed a Saturday , so right out of the gate I feel it is incumbent upon me to produce the evidence of this ) .

Meanwhile , with proof positive of the social dynamic of simple word-of-mouth networking , we have seen many new 1st time participants joining this already colorful tribe of regulars. I also mean to bring imagery of as much of what I’ve video-captured as I can with added cross-referencing from the archives for a more comprehensive presentation of all of what 2010 brought us than I had the free time to publish a sampling of here thus far.

Thus I’m looking to alleviate this winter’s quieting down of activity by publishing evermore rogue’s gallery entries in order to share the capturing of all of the rich experiences that have been enjoyed during each & every one of these past Saturday mornings.

Please know that I have also taken pleasure in getting to know more owners while hearing & recording as many of the great stories behind their cars that you have allowed to be shared with me . Thus they will be shared with this broader tribal gathering whom I am sure will enjoy these tales as much as I have because all of your participation make this what it has become and continues to be , namely “A Gathering of Passions for Cars Less Ordinary* …
… and that , in turn , makes Great Falls all the more unique.

Stay tuned…

For a reasonably comfortable , but still overcast , morning this past Saturday the weather finally proved to be reasonable enough for the first rather well-attended gathering in at least a month. This is to say the full length of the main parking boulevard filled along with some honorable mention spillover into the parking areas along the north & south approaches. I must say that it was a welcome feast for the eye after what felt like a long spell of lackluster weather for an April-full of Saturday mornings.

With this return of the flock showing itself full of pent-up desire to express the coming of Spring there was , as on any Saturday morn , this one sports car that readily caught attention because of its curious uniqueness. Obviously an early arrival , as the car’s steward already had snagged one of the prime parking slots , here was the unavoidably intriguing presence of this some kind of mid-to-late 50′s to early 60′s European sports car and Ferrari was the name often name mentioned at this point.

As the video shows my attention was momentarily caught off-guard and away by a Ferrari Testarossa appropriately positioning itself into the very next slot to this curious species of classic road beastie and curious to more than just my eye . Thus the video seamlessly proceeded to return to attend to this welcome curiosity and none too soon as it effortlessly became well-surrounded by others also wishing approach this new-comer. The tipping point came when the engine was revealed by open hood and there sat this clearly marked Corvette engine which begged the next question which was ‘What is a Corvette engine doing in some kind of a Ferrari?’

The answer coming from the knowing driver/presenter was ” Because it’s not a Ferrari.”
It’s a Corvette”.

After the fact I’ve come to learn that the usual suspect predecessor to the historic and well-pedigreed Shelby Cobra is this very rare 1959 Scaglietti Corvette, as in only 3 were ever crafted , that graced our recent Saturday morning gathering.

The brief story told of how this aspirant race car came to be had to do with 3 Texan race car enthusiasts , including Carrol Shelby along with Jim Hall & Gary Laughlin , deciding to have a sports car constructed to challenge the Euro-sports cars in the age of the dawn of the Corvette 50′s. After arranging to buy and supply 3 bare-bones Corvette chassis they commissioned the services of one Sergio Scaglietti to craft the Italian body to enfold these 3 Corvette chassis in something that became more than a shade too close to the design of the Ferrari Tour de France race car. Word was that Enzo Ferrari , who was employing Scaglietti’s craftsmen as well , was none too pleased with this adventurism on the part of some well-connected American sports car enthusiasts along with the possibility of this particular upstart Corvette prototype potentially going into production . Further , according to Mr.Chuck Wray who brought this rarity for us to enjoy , Enzo Ferrai made this displeasure known to Senior Scaglietti and how that displeasure would apply to any future renewals of their contract.

Add to that the fact that , although GM’s Harley Earl and chief engineer Ed Cole liked & approved the idea , the top brass at GM did not and the Chevrolet division’s official policy change resulting in eliminating racing car sponsorship did the rest. With that single decision we have the reason why there were only three of these 1959 Scaglietti Corvettes ever crafted together . Thus we were all treated to the rare chance to see one so up close & personal and capture at will on film , tape , or video chip. And then it was gone, off to be delivered to its owner.

Having fired my curiosity further by just this brief background story I was drawn to do some internet research and soon discovered that the metallic blue Scaglietti Corvette was the only one of the three constructed with a 4-speed transmission. So , ‘Yes , Virginia, there is a Santa Claus’ . Thus many thanks to the generous Mr. Wray whom granted us the pleasure of seeing a true bona fide *one-of-kind* piece of American sports car history graced with a distinctive Italian accent. In this spirit I look forward to hearing more of what Chuck Wray’s rather extensive 2 story craftsmens’ studio ( shop just doesn’t cut it ) of car restoration was commissioned to do with this Corvette.

Obviously there’s more to this story involving the circumstances of the era and the personalities involved as well as the changing of various collectors’ stewardships and , as this entire web effort will be a continual weekly work-in-progress , I intend to, by & by , develop & add more to this story as time permits so stay tuned.

Finally made a return visit to the Old Brogue earlier in mid-March when the weather just began to feel as if Spring was definitely on the horizon , but then we all know what Mother Nature has dealt us all since and continues into this weekend. Thus what passes for Spring makes the Spring Saturday mornings we all expect by now continue to be mere sweet nostalgia.All the sweeter then to come upon this surprise gathering of 3 Countach’s flanked by the late model Gillardo appropriately dressed in black to continue the ebony & ivory thing going on.

The first white Countach is of 1988 vintage owned by a gentleman of whom I have video of when he first brought his prize halfpast halfway into 2010 and has since become a welcome regular. I will want one day to get the full story behind his seeking out , finding , and then nurturing this species of road beast as I’ve come to learn that the Countach’s engines have a reputation to burn hot and ,  as a result , occasionally burst into flames due to their original fuel delivery system , especially if left too long without firing it up and running it. Talk about running on fumes. More on that in a later article.

The third and last Countach was of 1989 vintage and the last of that line. The owner , as you will hear in the pending video of this particular gathering , informs us that the engine of this particular Countach was still built by Italian craftsmen. This has since changed to Audi. Not a short-coming by any measure , but still something of the intrinsic aura of a no longer completely Italian-made thoroughbred was now different though not exactly diminished. Performance is what performance does and Audi technology is no slouch by any measure.

That aside truth be told these Countch’s have always had my attention as far as their design styling for quite a while . They always looked to me like the promise of the futuristic personal road crafts just short of maglev hovercraft that was so ham-handedly suggested , but just short of promised , to the post-”2001: A Space Odyssey” generation by the clients of  the Madison Ave. promotional media of the day. ( anybody recall that the commercial passenger space-liner arriving at Kubrick’s space station was labeled PanAm ? I rest my case ).

Thus I will wish to do a more in-depth article on this particular breed of exotic road beast as I develop another theme section for this web-site entitled ” Concept Cars Future Past and Future Now” . And in that on-going series the Lamborghini Countach certainly has a well-earned place in that evolutionary chain of being. Its very styling certainly pointed a promising direction to what became a rather credible path in the way of sports car design trends in the later quarter of the 20th century . DeLorean certainly got it ( while the FordGT already had it ) as opposed to the designs most of  Detroit was cranking out in the 1970′s.

This thoroughbred roadster continues to be one of those choice arrivals that always gets the center of attention whenever her owner brings her around. I don’t know about others , but for me she triggers a reminiscence , from the BBC’s “The Avengers” , of the car of choice by one John Steed with the equally classy yet more jaguaresque Emma Peel riding shotgun .
This grand entrance of the 1929 Bentley Roadster was also well-timed in its return as I had just upped my game with a new Canon HD camcorder and , upon seeing the return of this classic racy piece of street machinery, I remember the first thought that came to my mind ,
” Yes , Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”.
I just couldn’t have asked for a better subject for a repeat visit if just for the opportunity to finally do her some justice with the HD. That said needless to say , as these stills & video will show , I went from stem to stern and back again with this old girl….
…..in a nice way I mean.

Thus having respectfully had my way with Dame Bentley , though it was all on her sly invitation given the roguish flash of skirt bearing her engine and all , you could say that I’ve been all kinds of anxious to replace all of the now old images shot with the even older Canon GL1 ever since the upgrade to HD video just prior to Autumn 2010.

As I have already stated this is a work-in-progress and thus I will , in future , be providing more of an addendum regarding the background information on the history , with links , and the particulars of her mechanics , preferably straight from the owner. I believe I know this much from memory though , she’ll still do over 100mph.

However for the purposes of this re-acquaintance and introduction to this Brogue’s rogues’ gallery it’s enough just to share these captured images laced with my musings on the forever appealing Dame Diana Rigg couched in all of the british racing green leatherliness of that front seat & outer coach adorning a true grande dame of british road machines.

It’s milky white body bathed in new dawn light accentuating it’s unique features you could say that from my first visit to the Katie’s Coffee House the Kaiser Darrin was the car that really captured my attention first if for no other reason than I had never seen one before nor even knew of its existence. All I knew was that I had to video-capture it because it was as unique as it was a thing of beauty.

The Kaiser Darrin breed then turned my head yet again when , later on in the season , I was more than amused to see that this first Kaiser-Darrin was one of a matched pair. By “matched” I mean to say that , from what I recall according to the proud collector & steward of these twins , they were consecutive factory assembles with numbers to go with them.

Now if I am in error then I’m ready to be corrected by a comment. Otherwise I’ll just get confirmation when the next opportunity presents itself. The reason I even recall that from a year ago at all was because it was such a fascinating fact that couldn’t help but add yet another level of cachet to their appearing together in public , something I can only assume had also occurred to the proud papa when he first chose to adopt them and give them a new home.

There’s a great story and video there of having the privilege of visiting that new home as a guest with a descendent of the designer/engineer “Dutch Darrin” whom I introduced to the owner because he had especially come down that Saturday morning due to his discovering that some collector had a pair of these Kaiser Darrin’s and he wanted to see them for himself for the obvious reason. Well upon hearing this our collector , in turn, generously invited us to see “the Twins” in the new home he had built for them since he hadn’t decided to bring either one of them that particular Saturday.

What followed was a great impromptu sharing of the history by the collector of these twin Kaiser Darrins’ , along with why their particular history inspired him to make the Twins his own , with someone directly connected to that history on the one day he chose to just show up made this resulting wish come true being , in its own way , perfect. I mean it just doesn’t get any better than that.

And my good fortune in all this is that I was able to capture it all on video , but that’ll just have to wait for the time being as I have yet to upload that digital content off of that miniDV cassette to my digital editor and , as important , I have yet to request the owner’s permission to even add that mini-concert of captured moments to the Rogues’ video gallery , so stay tuned….