What fuels men`s driving passion for cars? We`re not just talking about the weekend waxer who goes to the car show every year. We`re talking about the man for whom engine emissions are the very breath of life. ”Motorhead” is their own vernacular for ”someone addicted to wheels,” as one who would qualify defined it.
This is the guy who has exotic cars stashed in garages all over town, who may not even even know how many cars he actually owns. ”Don`t tell my wife,” begged the man who was writing a check for a Porsche, his 13th car.
”I`ll give it to her for her birthday,” he rationalized. His wife hates cars.
Then there`s the guy who keeps an expensive four-wheeled mistress he can`t afford, one that is the envy of every other man.
This is the one whose wife names a Lotus or a Sprite as the co-respondent in a divorce suit. ”After five years I wanted a new bedspread but couldn`t buy one because his car needed new camshafts,” she tearfully tells the lawyer.
Most women think there`s always something they can do to compete with a 36C, but how does one compete with a V-12? Keep reading. It pays to know your enemy, and there are two new threats to marital conviviality and stability:
vintage racing, and the possibility of personal profit. (Actually, sometimes it`s the woman who becomes the motorhead and runs off with an Aston-Martin.)
”How does one explain why anybody engages in whatever his interest may be, whether he collects cow creamers or needlepoint pillows? I`m not sure why I collect cars,” said Miles Collier, who was described by Richard Hinson, former associate publisher of Auto Week, as ”a third-generation car person who`s got a museum that will knock your socks off.” Collier founded the Collier Automotive Museum in Collier City, Fla. (his family founded the town). The museum features exhibits on the history of the Grand Prix racing automobile as well as ”Cars of Conspicuous Consumption.”
”It is a combination of a number of things,” Collier said, continuing to explain. ”Unlike other interests, cars have more elements that can hook you. There are at least five elements cars offer that are more than most other things. The look of them, the sheer esthetics, is a consideration. Cars are similar to sculpture or other fine arts. Some people are interested in their history. There`s also the craft element; you can work on the car yourself, which is like building ship models in a bottle. Then there is the usability factor,” Collier added. ”With respect to racing cars especially, to drive one well is a skillful thing. There is a certain amount of sensual feedback from the machine itself.
”Cars are part of the Western psyche. You can`t be raised in the last 50 or 60 years in Western Europe or the United States without almost inhaling it with your formula. A car represents maturity, freedom. There`s one movie where one character says, `If you ain`t got wheels, you ain`t nobody in America.`
Cars are invested with more social and psychic power than a lot of other things are. You don`t see people waxing passionate about eggbeaters,” Collier added.
”The car is the most important technological development of the 20th Century. All of this has a tendency to grab people by the throat and get their attention.”
His favorite? ”Probably . . . the same car I currently race in vintage-car races, a car I enjoy driving very much, a Porsche 914/6 GT. I just enjoy driving it. It`s the one I feel I have the greatest competence in. It`s just an old orange thing, but there`s nothing else that is that much fun to drive,” Collier concluded.
There`s another new wrinkle, one that is a formidable excuse for men justifying their interest.
”There are collectors who have gotten into it because of the incredible increase in value. Literally it is better than stocks and bonds right now,”
said Hinson, who now is executive vice president of the Bill Jacobs Inc. auto dealerships. Company owner Jacobs is director of the Concours d`Elegance, an auto beauty show, held in June at Joe Marchetti`s Montefiori estate near southwest suburban Lemont.
”They`re looking at it as a commodity rather than a passion,” Hinson continued. ”Then there are some who collect and never sell, and there are those who bought a car a long time ago and then find suddenly it is worth so much money they can`t afford to pay the insurance or maintain it, and it breaks their heart. Some people bought Duesenbergs for $5,000, and they`re now worth $2 million and what do you do? They are not forced to sell, but they don`t feel they can properly take care of the car. The increase has gone across the board: sports cars, grand classics and even race cars.”
”Vintage racing,” a relatively new sport in which older men and older cars get together on a real racetrack for some more cautious laps than the pros take, ”has become very popular, and now all these gentlemen who wished when they were young that they could afford a race car or a grand classic are now playing Walter Mitty,” Hinson said.
”There are now 25 to 30 vintage races around the country,” Marchetti said, whereas when he started his race 10 years ago, inspired by the great races he had seen in Europe, there was just one other, in California.
”Joe has always been the focal point around whom the local enthusiasts would gather, because Joe is a can-do kind of guy. He can get it done,”
Hinson said. ”He has made his home available to the collectors” as the locale for the two big concours in the Chicago area each summer, the BMW-sponsored one and Marchetti`s own Ferrari Fantasia.
”Big names (in car collecting) have come. The caliber of the cars is outstanding and ranks with the best,” Hinson said of the BMW concours, which is open to all types.
Vintage-car collecting here ”is drawing converts from two different directions,” said John Kleen, founder and president of the Chicago-based Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association, which has 400 members. ”It`s drawing from people who have collected cars but did not realize there were opportunities to put them on racetracks, and also people who want to get out of modern racing and into something less pressured. Vintage racing is oriented toward preservation of the cars rather than (toward) the driver and how good he is. A great deal of camaraderie” also is appealing, Kleen said. ”There seems to be a growing demand for cars at the top end of the spectrum. But I don`t like to talk about dollars. I`ll let other people expound on that.”
Jerry Gordon, vintage-racing enthusiast and hairstylist-owner of J. Gordon Designs in Chicago, disagrees with Kleen on some aspects of racing.
”These are hard-core circuit races, not rallies; everybody`s going for broke, and there`s millions of dollars (in cars) out there,” Gordon said.
”The racing is exactly like it was when these cars were new; these cars are racing in their class, as determined by motor size of the car.
”Everybody has done a tremendous amount of work on their cars to keep them in perfect condition, so people are more careful. But I think that`s a personality thing. If I think I can go for it, I will. I`ve gone for it and I`ve wrecked my Elva,” he added. The cars are insurable, he said, ”but the premiums are enormous, so basically you risk it. I may not race with such anger with that particular car anymore.”
Kleen said enthusiasts break down into the following categories:
”There`s the investor, who is rather new to the hobby. We`re not sure that person is an asset,” an attitude that seems universal among the impassioned participants in the sport. ”There`s the guy who looks at the car and rarely moves it; he may occasionally take it to a show. There`s the racer who goes to the Mille Miglia or to Joe Marchetti`s Chicago Historic Races International Challenge (which began Wednesday and ends today at Elkhart Lake in Wisconsin). And lastly, the enthusiast who isn`t afraid to put the car on the occasional tour over interesting back roads on weekends.”
Do all these aficionados have a common denominator?
”All are just a little eccentric,” Hinson said.
”They do like to show that their taste level is the quintessence of style. (Selecting a winning car) is just like selecting a good piece of art. ”They`re very entrepreneurial, and they do focus a great deal on either their passion or their business. They have an incredible ability to focus on a problem or a circumstance. They will go to great lengths to satisfy their acquisitive nature. They will go to Europe or anywhere in the United States to satisfy it. They will spend inordinate sums, finding, locating, going through the drill of negotiating. Then, when they`re done with that, it`s on to the next challenge.”
Following are a few car collectors who try to describe in their own words what it is that turns on their ignitions. –
