A Car Guy

[LandQuail]

Ever notice how the universe seems to ensure that gearheads meet?

I was working at trying to sum up the life of a young person from my town who was killed in Iraq. It's a tall order, but I think I did alright at it.

Anyway, the young man's grandfather calls me up one day to tell me when the memorial for our fallen soldier, and his grandson, will be. He said he was a Korean War veteran, and I told him he needed to come by a local bakery late next year for their celebration of local WWII veterans and told him about my meeting a B-17 pilot who completed his 25 missions and told me of the horror the Nazi ME-262 Swallow jet fighters posed to his bomber formations.

This sparked a conversation about WWII fighters, which led to a conversation about the Roll Royce Merlin engine, which led to a conversation about cars.

This tired, jaded old 'Quail could scarcely believe the tale the old man wove over the phone:

"You're a gearhead, huh. Have you ever heard of a guy named Phil Hill?"
(Quail: yeah, he was one of the greats. Won the Formula One world championship with, I think, Ferrari?)

"Yeah. Back in the '60s he had a Four and a Half Liter Bentley (!) and I had a Speed Six (~!!). Well, we met up one night at a hotel in Los Angeles and planned out a course and started at the parking garage at about 2 a.m. and we ran all-out through downtown. There was a newspaperman who snapped a picture of us, and I saw a picture in the paper the next day of a big streak with a big story about racing drivers being a terror (he laughed here).

———————————————————————————————————————

From here we mostly just talked cars for a while. He told me about his career as a vintage car restorer, at one point fettling no less than six Lamborghini Miuras a Los Angeles millionaire bought after a drunken excursion to the Lambo factory in Santa Augustwhateverthe****itisa.

I asked him what it was like driving a Speed Six, and what it was like driving one at full chat through the predawn streets of LA. He said it was a very physical challenge, and repeated the of-quoted "Bentley makes great racing lorries" sentiment.

I told him my all-time favorite car was the Maserati A6-GCS Pininfarina Coupe, and he said he'd restored a Bertone-bodied A6-GCS.

He also said he restored (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) the 1907 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost currently owned by the Rolls Museum, the one that never got a coat of paint before the famous London to Brighton race.

This was the one that a journalist saw and said it was so quiet it was "like a silver ghost." Some say it's the most valuable car in the world...

Wow. Just Wow.

Here are the two stories I wrote about the young man who was killed. His name was Sgt. Michael Sturdivant. From everything I heard, he was one of the good ones...
TheCabin.net ·· Conway soldier killed in Iraq remembered 01/25/08
TheCabin.net ·· Memorial planned for fallen soldier 02/01/08

[henk4]

Everything in life seems to serve some purpose.

[baddabang]

Great story as usual, shame it all had to be over the loss of his grandson.

[ScionDriver]

Maybe in someway this could help him cope.

Where my parents live up in Wisconsin there was a young man who got killed in Iraq. Before he had left he was working on restoring an old 70s Chevy pick-up truck. Well upon reading an article about the kid, a local garage/restorer heard about the truck, went and got it and finished the restoration, it was unveiled on what would have been the deceased's birthday, which was also near Memorial Day. Now it sits in his parents' yard with American flags on it. Its a sad but nice tribute to a good man.

[mudder]

Dammit ! Beautiful ! Never heard of this one before...

[henk4]

Originally Posted by mudder

Dammit ! Beautiful ! Never heard of this one before...

Maserati A6 GCS/53 Pinin Farina Berlinetta - Ultimatecarpage.com - Images, Specifications and Information

[NSXType-R]

Wow, that's a nice story there.

Seems like a real cool guy. Like the other member said, shame that the conversation was created because of a death.

[cmcpokey]

excellent stories about the fallen soldier. unfortunately several friends of mine from high school have met their untimely deaths in iraq as well. its a truely sad state when a grandfather, himself a veteran of a war that claimed many lives, survived to bury his grandson.