How is April working for you so far? Guess it started off with the (near April) Malaysia Grand Prix. On the podium were Seb Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. That was quite a change from last year when standing on the podium were Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Seb Vettel.
Then the usual April Fools’ jokes? Ring Mr Lion at the Zoo? Get sent to the local Bunnings for the long weight? Buy a Great Wall Ute? The fun never stops, does it?
OK, your only chance to stop the April blues is to make sure you’re booked in next weekend at La Torretta Lake Resort & Spa on beautiful Lake Conroe just one hour north of downtown Houston. Right now you’re thinking: “What could be happening in Texas that could drag me away from the Bulldogs and the Crows, the Bulldogs and the Tigers? And Australian politics?”
Only the 2015 Concours d’Elegance of Texas and Worldwide Auctioneers auction, that’s all. Lake Conroe is not Pebble Beach but there are some really interesting cars, a putt-putt golf course floodlit at night, the Lay-Z River rapids, the Pollywogs pool and the Cowboys & Cars Charity Strolling Dinner set around the pool (the big Mediterranean one, not the Pollywog one).
The star of the Concours for me, and worth the $800 a night in the Calgiari Suite on top of the 20-storey La Torretta tower, is the 1968 Porsche Racing 308 short-tail coupe. In 1968 “Quick” Vic Elford drove this car to an amazing win in the Nurburgring 1000. Elford started from 27th on the grid in a field of 76. It was raining, but he and Jo Siffert won the race by three minutes. There are probably only five of these Porsches still alive. Dave Gooding sold one last year for $4 million.
Given the HAGI car index tells us classic cars went up 121 per cent in the past five years (beating every other form of legitimate investment), Vic will be standing beside a piece of machinery worth close to 10 mill.
Like Italian bodies with an American heart? Look out for the 1957 Dual Ghia. Eugene Casaroll made millions by developing the idea of trucking new cars from US automakers to dealers. His other idea was to take a Dodge Firebomb concept car, have Ghia in Turin hand-build 101 bodies around the V8 engine, and sell them to Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Joey Bishop. Hollywood columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote, “A Rolls-Royce is the Hollywood status symbol for those who can’t get a Ghia.” I think RM Auctions sold this car for $500,000 in 2013.
Another car worth seeing is the one of two 1955 Moretti 1200 Spider Michelottis built. The other one was passed in at Artcurial in Paris this year at under $500,000. Moretti started off building motorcycles, then city mini-cars, but the Spider was his finest achievement before he went broke.
Then, once you have broken through April, life picks up again. On May 9, it’s the Shit Box Rally with your own team from The Weekend Australian’s Life motoring section taking off for a quick drive from Canberra to Townsville. While you’re waiting for our reports to come through, tune in to Nat Geo People on the same day at 7.30pm. The rally is a feature-length documentary showing how 249 cars, 498 drivers, and The Weekend Australian BA Ute, drove thousands of kilometres from Perth to Darwin and raised more than $1.4m in just seven days last year.
Finally, it’s one of the two greatest car events on the global calendar: Historic Winton. On the weekend of May 30, Australia’s largest race meeting features more than 400 cars and bikes from the 1920s to the 80s. And one of the world’s most historic cars, the SBR BA ute, will be there. Just come talk to us for your free copy of today’s The Weekend Australian, an autographed photo of production editor Mark Southcott and his Mini Moke and a pic of motoring editor Phil King from 2011, which is the last time we saw him in the office.
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