Good morning, culture heads.
Today we are going to ditch the grease, dirt and raucous noise of the plebeian world of the car for the loftier climes of the arts: painting (pictures, not floors and ceilings), poetry (sentences where the last words rhyme with each other), books (with more words than photos), movies, sculpture and music.
Basically, Baby Driver is a movie with the usual scenario of a good person (Ansel Elgort) forced to do bad things by a really bad person (Kevin Spacey) in a fast car (red Subaru WRX). Car persons can leave after the best bank heist getaway car chase in movie history (there’s no CGI, only real driving) because then Baby Driver descends into a plot.
Watch for Mount Waverley actor Flea, who, as he says, plays “a dastardly nihilistic bank robber with no moral compass who is very displeased with the state of the world, so wants to rob banks, and whoever gets in his way needs to be eliminated”. They breed ’em tough in Mount Waverley. Five stars, particularly if you have the Coopers, followed by the bottle of NZ pinot in gold class before you go in.
There are many great Australian history books: The Tyranny of Distance by Geoffrey Blainey, The Colonial Australians by Dave Denholm and, my personal favourite for a light read while working on the BMW rally car with Michael McMichael, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth by Johnny Quick and Bob Garran.
I can tell you there’s nothing that passes the time quicker (no pun intended) when you’ve put the cylinder head back on and discover you’ve got three parts left and have to take it apart again than a trivia quiz on high court cases citing the 1901 edition.
For instance, last Sunday, Michael, pretending to be looking for a spanner, suddenly looked up and yelled at me: “Are salary receipts of federal government employees subject to state stamp duty?” Readers, as you know, a pretty easy one there. “Of course,” I shot back. “No, D’Emden v Pedder, 1904!” Laugh? We hadn’t laughed so much since we found Brownie the deadly snake in the passenger seat of our LeMons car in our shed in the Adelaide Hills. As you know what we did was yell at Brownie through the shed door, leave the door open, run away and hope he would leave. We were laughing so much, calming medicine was needed, so we headed to the Cudlee Creek Restaurant for a few Coopers ales, which must be good for you because the brewer is a doctor.
But the greatest history book of all is ‘Gelignite’ Jack Murray, written by Jack’s son Phil. For those of you new to this country or who went to a private school where they only teach the history of England, Wales and Scotland, Jack Murray was the most influential person in the motoring world (well, the Australian world) between the period 1928 to 1983.
Murray really embodied the term larrikin but he was much more than that. A natural sportsman, he was a champion boxer, wrestler, AFL player, power boat racer, water skier and one of our most successful racing drivers. But most of all, he is remembered for the Redex Trials and, of course, gelignite. The Redex Trials were real rallies. In the 1950s more than 240 cars would set off to drive 15,000km around Australia on unbelievably rough roads. Less than half would finish. Jack and his co-driver would celebrate arriving first into a town by “letting off a plug of gelignite”. During the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon, Jack dropped some jelly in Bombay (Mumbai) harbour because he said “the locals liked crackers”.
The highlight of the year in the sculpture caper will be next month’s sale of 13 of Ferrari’s most beautiful works. Of course, the place will be RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction celebrating the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. From a single owner, the collection represents 50 years of the Italian master. Let’s just look at one, the 250 GT SWB Lusso, regarded as the most beautiful Ferrari ever made. Think of the impact at the 1959 Paris Salon when the Pininfarina-designed, Sergio Scaglietti-built piece of metal was unveiled. There was an aluminium-bodied racing version and a steel-bodied streetcar, the V12-powered 175KW, Lusso. Ten years ago, these were selling for about $10 million. Next month expect to pay north of $16m.
It’s unlikely the collection will break the record for the most expensive single-car collection ever sold during one auction. Two years ago, RM auctioned 25 cars from one collector for $85m. Bestseller was a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM that went for $22m.
And in nothing much to do with art: a major correction. Last week I suggested Bob Pearson had been racing for 27 years. What an insult! Bob started racing in 1966 at Towac Park, Orange, NSW in a VW. In other words, he’s been going around the track for 51 years. Readers, this means there’s hope for many of us. The 71-year-old Pro-Duct Air Conditioning king has decided to buy two Porsche 718 Cayman S to race next year.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
