Elysée Wednesday tonight--Can you name the painting?

Look for us Wednesday evenings on the patio from 7:30 pm (or shortly thereafter) until about midnight at Caffe Primo, 8590 Sunset Blvd West Hollywood, CA 90069. Underground parking on Alta Loma just east of the Cafe and south of Sunset or on the street.

@atomic80--it is a great quote!

 

^^

No idea, we are car nerds not art nerds :P

 

Stumbling upon this thread and reading it in it's entirety has been the most enjoyable hour I've spent on TS.

Thank you, sir.

 

When the time approached that GTO 3987 was going to a new owner, it occurred to me to keep a souvenir--a piece of the car that was significant and with which I had a personal connection. I felt it should be something that was--at a glance--unmistakeably Ferrari and, to the trained eye, GTO in provenance. The gear shift knob seemed the perfect choice. Unlike Ferrari street machines that were fitted with plastic--or in the case of the Lusso, glass--knobs, the race cars of the era were given solid aluminum knobs. Other than the steering wheel and foot pedals, it was a piece of the car with which I had the most contact in controlling the car.

A few years later, a person who had been allowed into the family departed with a number of my possessions that she inexplicably felt entitled to take. Among them were some hand-signed and numbered colotypes, various antiques I had collected, a spare set of Borrani wire wheels for the GTO and--the gear shift knob. It was the last in a series of inexcusable acts that had been going on for fourteen years.

Last night, I attended a family gathering at which one of my sisters took me aside saying, "I have something for you." She unwrapped three items and laid them before me on the table. The first was a Ferrari Owners Club badge in new condition that would normally be attached to the front bumper of a car. It might have been issued by the Los Angeles club or, possibly, the British FOC of which I'd been a member. The next item was definitely from the British club--a pin that bears the words "Prescott Badge Bugatti Owners Club". Hanging from the blue oval is a small red rectangle with the words "Ferrari Owners Club" and two additional rectangles below for "1970" and "1971". The third and most significant item was the aluminum gear shift knob from 3987.

My sister had discovered these pieces in the course of helping the above referenced person into an assisted living situation and suggested that, "These should be returned to Stephen" and thus they came back to me after forty years.

 

Good God, You must have been grinning from ear to ear to be reunited with a piece of what most gear heads would consider history.

 

Happy ending to what I'm sure was a depressing situation when they were taken

 

Peter Helm was--and still is--one of those characters that are bigger than life and would be entertaining, if improbable, in a novel. He is a rare individual entirely unaffected by peer pressure or a need to conform. We hit it off immediately and forty years later nothing has changed. I first met Peter through Matthew Ettiinger and our get-togethers usually involved high-speed antics with Peter in his Ferrari California spider and Matthew and I in the Breadvan and GTO respectively. Matthew's nightclub, the Plush Bunny, was often the venue but Peter's interests were wide ranging and included Joey Heatherton, remote-controlled airplanes and doing things at all hours of the night. Sunrise was only an indication that things were progressing satisfactorily.

On one occasion, I was following Peter on the freeway after we'd been to Matthew's house in Hacienda Heights. I was a few lengths back with the GTO in the number two lane and was suddenly aware that no one was driving Peter's California spider though it was setting the pace in the fast lane. I dropped into fourth and accelerated to draw next to the spider to find that, though Peter was not in the driver's seat, he was indeed in the car. He was lounging in the passenger seat enjoying the view as the Ferrari sped along being driven, apparently, by the invisible man. Peter had his left foot on the accelerator pedal and his left hand on the steering wheel out of view from other drivers including me. It was a hilarious sight and he drove like that for many miles before getting back behind the wheel. I still wonder if his leg was long enough to reach the brake pedal should it have been necessary.

On another occasion, Peter and I were heading south through Laurel Canyon. As we raced down the Hollywood side, we came upon a slower moving Mercedes-Benz SL. We were going fast enough that slowing down--at least in Peter's mind--was not an option. As we passed by the country market in the canyon, Peter went around the SL and had just enough room to pull back into the lane again before the blind curve at the end of the straight. Unfortunately, the move served to tighten the radius on the turn to such an extent that his Ferrari lost traction and the last sight I had was of the California spinning out as it rounded the curve.

What I expected to see as I came around the bend was Peter and his California wrapped around a tree. What I saw was Peter continuing to pull away from the Mercedes driving--freewheeling--backwards looking over his shoulder and negotiating the series of tight turns near the bottom of the canyon. No doubt the Mercedes driver had intended to impress his attractive passenger that evening. I wonder how impressed she might have been that he was beaten out by someone driving backwards down the canyon.

Peter captured a couple of our adventures with his 8mm camera. There were many more that escaped his lens, I am happy to say. His California spider painted as an Army jeep and his Ferrari Tour de France painted with tiger stripes were epic Peter Helm offerings along with the incident where a traffic cop cited Peter's passenger for speeding down Gower Street in Hollywood one night because he didn't realize Peter's Ferrari was right-hand-drive.

Peter worked on such films as The Longest Day and The Andromeda Strain being directed by Darryl F. Zanuck and Robert Wise. He is an aviation buff and my son and I visited a B17 with him at Camarillo Airport where we also got to see a B25J on which Peter crews and contributes his time for maintenance and repairs. The photo seen here was taken at one of my Wednesday night gatherings. On that occasion, Peter had Joey Heatherton in tow and she trumped some unwitting newcomer's story about Frank Sinatra, as you might imagine.

Every time I see a certain scene in The Big Lebowski, I am reminded of Ottie, Peter's otter that went almost everywhere with him. My favorite Peter Helm anecdote is about the night Peter hit a bump at speed on Mulholland Drive causing the chassis to flex, the passenger door to open and the actress Tuesday Weld to be bounced out of the car. Does it get any better than that for a car guy?

 

Awesome write up!
Thanks for sharing!

 

Elysée Wednesday tonight--Zampanò: If there's any delicate person in the audience, I would advise him to look away 'cause there could be blood.

Look for us Wednesday evenings on the patio from 7:30 pm (or shortly thereafter) until about midnight at Caffe Primo, 8590 Sunset Blvd West Hollywood, CA 90069. Underground parking on Alta Loma just east of the Cafe and south of Sunset or on the street.

 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of conducting an on-camera interview with Ed Niles for the third time. It seems that, even in revisiting familiar topics and anecdotes, there is always something new that emerges that keeps my interest peaked and I always come away from talks with Ed wishing we had more time.

I've known Ed since the first time I attended a Ferrari Owners Club meeting in Los Angeles. I had already owned my Ferrari Lusso long enough for it to have made the transition from silver-blue to red after the blue kept fading and I tired of having it resprayed. That evening I also made the acquaintance of Bob Bondurant who was a guest speaker and saw, for the first time, the Ferrari Breadvan owned then by Asa Clark. At some point, in the middle of the proceedings, Matthew Ettinger made a grand entrance being wheeled in with two broken legs. A memorable gathering for reasons too numerous to count.

It is only a small exaggeration to say that I don't recall seeing Ed in the same Ferrari twice though some of them he owned as many as five times buying them back from subsequent owners. He had more Ferraris pass through his hands than anyone I know. Race cars, production models, one-of-a-kind specials--he owned them all. Most memorable for me were the 250LM (which he sold to Sonny Bono) and the stunning Nembo spider designed by Tom Meade which some regard as the most beautiful Ferrari ever. Everyone familiar with the famous Breadvan will know the part Ed played in bringing this historic car to the USA but new details are revealed with each telling. Did you know that the car was originally destined to a buyer who wanted to remake the iconic rear portion of the car to look like a GTO?

Ed has been a model enthusiast over the years working as a turn marshal at races, a judge at concours d'élégance events, president of the Ferrari Owners Club and has been a very good friend to those who share an interest in all things Ferrari. He is one of the few people I can speak with who has also met Enzo Ferrari. Ed will appear in my documentaries about the Carrera Panamericana and the Ferrari GTO but I really believe he is worthy of a documentary dedicated solely to his experiences and observations--he is the gold standard.