Stanguellini

Stanguellini is a name that is less familiar to most than, say, Ferrari, Maserati or Lamborghini but the Fiat-based cars of Vittorio Stanguellini were made in Modena from 1946 until 1966. Though Stanguellini might sound to some like one of the made-up names from the writings of Henry N. Manney III, they were real cars for the road and track and even raced at Le Mans.

The photos here were sent to me by Serge Dermanian and his note tells of his recent visit to Modena and the Stanguellini factory.

Stephen,

Last Monday, I drove to the old Stanguellini factory in Modena. Ten hours round trip to pick up an engine for an American collector who is restoring his 1957, ex-Sebring car. Great trip! What a superb building. They have kept the original factory with all tools and equipment plus one section is a museum displaying a variety of old cars. This is one of the engines I brought back to Nice with my car!

Serge

Ferrari photos from Serge Dermanian

These photos and anecdote from my friend Serge Dermanian arrived in response to my post "GTO photos from Chuck Queener". For many years, Serge looked after the cars in the Ralph Lauren collection including, of course, my old GTO. His job was to drive the cars in the collection as often as he liked and to keep them in proper working order. O lucky man!

"Hello Stephen,

I remember, how I meet Chuck Queener! In 1982, I had organized a Ferrari meet, at my Waltham, MA. High Performance Cars Alfa store. I had invited Peter Sachs, who came with a surprise "gift"! Chuck Queener in person, by the road from Connecticut, driving the fabulous, famous, 1956 Paris Show car, a white Superfast. I remember replacing the spark plugs as soon as they arrived.

Look at these 2 pictures! We had a great day that ended in a nearby restaurant & a slide show of ferraris I owned!

Souvenirs..souvenirs..

Regards

Serge Dermanian"

GTO photos from Chuck Queener

Chuck Queener was president of the Ferrari Owners Club in 1971 and had the pleasure--and privilege--of meeting Enzo Ferrari during a visit to the factory in Maranello. From reading my posts, one could get the impression that everyone who ever visited the factory in Maranello was given an audience with Il Drake but I assure you this was not the case as many high-powered people were denied an encounter and, though I won't mention any names here, you would be surprised to learn who they were. Chuck is well known for his incredible illustrations that have been featured in the best automotive publications.

Recently Chuck kindly sent me photos of GTO 3987. They are presented in this post and here are Chuck's notes:

"Number II (4.5”x3” print) has your name and 9810434 which I guess is/was your phone number at the time. I don’t know why I have it except it might have been for the FOC roster. The other two are Riverside after the GP with Zipper and the last one I took at a show in Orange Co. but I’m not really sure. It carries dealer plates and the guy in the hat might be Otto but I can’t remember that either."

CQ
http://queenerdesign.com/

I suspect that the third photo was taken while Otto still owned 3987 but before he sold it to William Reinhardt. It still carries dealer plates but has gone from Mecom colors to resale red. My thanks go to Chuck for passing along these photos.

Clip Joint: Duke & Freddie

Clip Joint was a television series I created in response to The Larry Sanders Show starring Garry Shandling, Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor which is one of my all-time favorites along with Absolutely Fabulous and Fawlty Towers. Clip Joint was set in the studio where the real-life Duke Maltin (cousin to movie reviewer Leonard Maltin) played a fictional Duke Maltin who reviews movies--a sort of inverse reality show before the fact scripted but made to look improvised. Duke's catch-phrase was, "If the director didn't gyp you, I'm going to clip you!"

The show was meant to be a Terry Southern-esque look at the hubris and insincerity of show business and to examine the ego-centric personalities that reside and abide in that environment. The fictional show was always creating enemies amongst a wide variety of offended vested interest groups that would vehemently protest until the Howard Hughes solution was brought to bear and their protest was nullified by adding the party in question to the Clip Joint payroll as a 'consultant'.

The show was produced in three component parts--on-air show segments as seen by the fictional TV audience, direct-to-camera interviews by those working on the show and grainy, cinéma vérité footage captured as though a documentary film crew were shooting the action as it happened. If you think this sounds like The Office, you are right. A few years later, on a trip to England, I saw a show starring Ricky Gervais and thought, "Hmmm..." The US version of The Office had not yet been produced.

One of the clips seen here is a short cinéma vérité scene where Duke receives a visit from an old college buddy Freddie. Duke receives him in time-honored showbiz style. The other clip is the intro to the show and served as a promo. Only four pilot episodes were shot and though it was hard work to produce featuring ten-minute takes where I would wander through the studio with the camera on my shoulder from one cluster of actors to another catching the staged action, it was a great deal of fun. The Clip Joint theme is the work of the very talented Michael Chanslor.

Ferrari FF

Last night I attended the unveiling of the Ferrari FF at the Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills. Marco Mattiacci, president of Ferrari North America, pulled back the fitted, red car cover to reveal a Ferrari that is not unlike the famous Breadvan of yore, at least in silhouette. The FF (Ferrari Four, as it has four seats and four wheel drive) was said to be the only one currently in the US and was striking in silver with dark blue leather. I noted how nicely the camera and lights package would fit in the back with the rear seats folded down as I go about shooting the GTO documentary. Hmmm...

A couple of familiar faces from Elysée Wednesday were present at the unveiling--Roberto Prado of the Ariadne Media Group, who graciously arranged for my invitation, and Kenny Lombino of the Ferrari Club of America. The event was well attended by people who knew what they were seeing and the talk was appreciative of the FF's specification. A Polish prince I spoke with had already placed his order.

I told Marco Mattiacci that I had been prepared not to like the FF for any number of reasons but that, upon seeing the car and getting a sense of it from behind the wheel, I think it will be a successful model for Ferrari. This put a smile on his face and I suspect that he has heard the same sentiment many times. It is truly a high performance car in a thoroughly modern idiom. I would have one.

Photo: John Evans

Matthew Ettinger

Yesterday I sat with my friend Matthew Ettinger and talked on camera about Ferraris, the Ferrari Owners Club, meeting Enzo Ferrari and what it was like living the life of ‘free Ferrari radicals’. We easily filled an hour and could just as easily have filled two or three more. There was never a dull moment when we were enjoying our adventures together and mixing it up with his Breadvan and my GTO. Many of them we can actually talk about.

I always like hearing about people’s encounters with Enzo Ferrari. Mine was much out of the ordinary in the paddock of Monza during practice for the Italian Grand Prix. Ed Niles tells a great story of showing up at Maranello unannounced and miraculously getting an audience with Il Commendatore. Matthew tells of having lunch with Diane, his beautiful wife at the time, and a rep from Ferrari at the restaurant across the street from the factory. In walks Enzo Ferrari and guess which table he selects to sit down for lunch. That’s right, he sits right across from Diane and commences with some polite flirting. Loved the ladies did Enzo!

Matthew was president of the FOC when I joined and he arranged for some outstanding guest speakers at the monthly dinner meetings—Phil Hill, Bob Bondurant to name a couple. Even Franco Lini appeared which led directly to my meeting Enzo Ferrari months later.

Matthew now drives a Ferrari 550 Maranello for which he has nothing but high praise. Apart from the famous Breadvan, he misses his SEFAC short-wheelbase berlinettas. His two biggest regrets are selling the Breadvan and not buying my GTO. My two biggest regrets are selling my GTO and not buying his Breadvan. Now there’s a friendship!

Bleeder & Bates

Working with Chad Glass on the execution of the Carrera Panamericana concept brought back memories of earlier collaborations with artists in producing posters for our projects. The repertory company was essentially a very independent, guerrilla-style film studio and one of my functions was to operate as 'Head of creative advertising' as the major studios would put it.

When I first opened the subject with Chad of working together, I told him that I wanted a bullfighting theme where the car is the bull. I felt the tradition and cultural resonance was ideal for the subject of our documentary. Chad's first rendering was more abstract than literal and captured my imagination. It set in motion a project to do a limited series of Chad's interpretation of the various elements seen in the documentary about which I won't say more at this time. However, we went with a literal representation for the official poster in the style of a traditional bullfight poster after Ron Kellogg expressed enthusiasm for the idea of a bullfighter holding a cape in front of a car. I am very happy with the result and the approval ratings have been through the roof.

Back in the day, having just made a police drama movie very much in the style of a current Michael Connelly novel, the task of creating a poster presented itself and I knew exactly what I wanted--a glossy black background accenting a shiny silver LAPD badge. I felt the visual would be potent and compelling. I wasn't particularly happy with the title Bleeder & Bates (Bleeder being a down & out prize fighter and Bates a homicide detective) which came about by default and I felt the tag line needed to do what the title ordinarily would--sell the concept. One of my favorite films during that time had been William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. and I believed that fans of that film would like Bleeder. Hence the tag line 'A fast place to live. A Harder place to die' made its way onto the poster and packaging. Add photos of a couple of guys with guns and pretty girls along with a Porsche in Martini racing colors going flat-out on Mulholland Drive and the photo gallery was complete. Having authored the concept, I now needed a graphic artist.

The first artist who was referred to me wanted $10K to execute the poster. Why that amount?, I asked him. Because the chrome aspects of the badge are impossible to get right and they are very time consuming, he told me. And if we make the badge flat silver without the chrome, reflective highlights, how much would it cost? $10K, was his reply. Taking it a step further, I asked what the price would be if we did without the badge altogether. Guess what he said--$10K. Obviously he needed $10K and I sent him on his way that he might find it (somewhere else).

I found another artist who, for $1.5K, was able to translate my concept for Bleeder into a very nice visual presentation. I especially liked the way he compressed the letters in the title font giving it extra visual tension and I thought he did an excellent job on the badge. It was exactly what I had pictured in my mind's eye. The poster seemed to please all of us who had been involved with the production. Nice, but the real test was yet to come.

At the time I was wanting to experiment with video distribution and my organization undertook that task for Bleeder & Bates. About two months later, I began getting phone calls from video outlets around the country. They wanted to order more copies of Bleeder and to know if we had other films to offer them. According to several of the outlets, Bleeder was rented every night for the first sixty days that the product was in their stores. Were they doing special promotions? The answer was no--the poster art on the packaging with its striking badge and implied To Live and Die in L.A. reference was doing the job.

I don't think the subject of poster concept and art are much dealt with in film schools but I think it should be. Defining the poster is a great way to distill the essence of a film and convey its attractive elements to the public. I also think the mental image of what the poster will ultimately look like can be both inspiring and instructional for the filmmaker as he or she is making the movie.

Carrera Panamericana poster

Thank you to Chad Glass for his excellent work on the poster!

Carrera Panamericana at Elysée Wednesday

Last night's gathering of Elysée Wednesday set an all-time high for a number of reasons. It was, as usual, a great mix of personalities, intellects and interests. Raphael Finn, whose father Jean-Luc Desreumaux markets magnificent vintage era racing posters, made his first appearance with us. Matthew Ettinger was first on the scene and in great form as one would expect. Richard Mitchell entertained us with his "How I spent Memorial Day" with nothing left to the imagination. Martin Mervel debriefed us on his Timeless exhibition currently at the Pacific Design Center and brought with him Roberto Prado of the Ariadne Media Group who, along with me, had an essay included in the exhibition. Jeanetta Dumouchel, Tom Gurnee and Matthew discussed Cuba, its politics and customs and poet/photographer Elena Secota brought some of her captivating moonscapes to share. Roberto explained how news gathering has devolved into an increasingly smaller number of aggregators and speculated on the future of news and journalism--quo vadis. At one point, we left the table to inspect Matthew's Ferrari 550 Maranello and Richard's turbo-charged Bentley coupe both of which looked stunning together under the lights.

The topic of conversation turned to our Carrera Panamericana documentary when Chad Glass, who was under the weather, emailed the lastest evolution of the poster he is executing for us. It looked great and stimulated a lot of conversation about the Carrera which was overheard by someone at the next table. "Are you talking about the Carrera?" he inquired. It turns out his father, Salvador López Chavez raced in all five of the original Carrera Panamericana races. Seen here is a picture of his father in his Porsche 550.


The gentleman, Tomás López Rocha, had himself raced last year in the current retro Carrera winning his class in a Ford Falcon. The lead photo in this post features me with Tomas and Matthew, who ran in the 2000 edition of the Carrera in a 1954 Lincoln that is a replica of the famous Ray Crawford Lincoln.