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| Peregrinations of The Alfatross ca. 1960-2022 |
Hit
the Road (1971-1978)One of the Alfatross’ brake
lines split almost immediately and I had no idea how to make my own. From that point on, we were gypsies. I don’t
remember how I got it from Chapel Hill to Hendersonville, NC, 250 miles away,
but it certainly wasn’t under its own power. My parents allowed me to store it
in their garage while I figured out my next move, but made clear it was only a temporary
arrangement. Years passed. Eventually I installed a tow hitch on my 1973 VW bus, made a tow bar
frame to fit the Alfa’s front bumper mounts, disconnected the drive shaft,
bought new tires, and headed west for College Station, TX, a little over 1,000
miles away. It was the first of a series of such ridiculously risky, long, open
road hauls made out of desperation.
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| To infinity and beyond! |
The
Road to Hell Is Paved with (Misguided, Ridiculously Optimistic) Good Intentions
(1978—1993) At university in Texas, I
was fortunate to rent a small house with a garage just large enough to store
the Alfa, but even so, it spent part of its time outside on the driveway when
displaced by other projects. It was during the more than 10 years we lived
there together that The Alfatross received her name. A visitor stopped by while
I was working on it and innocently observed that someone in my low socio-economic
station of life would be better off without such an Alfatross around my neck.
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| Cocooned like a butterfly chrysalis |
The next move was from College Station to Dallas, TX, in 1990. This time, while towing The Alfatross very slowly with the VW bus, I resolved to either get serious about making it drivable or getting rid of it altogether. I got in touch with Martin Swig, Keith Martin, Peter Marshall, Hans Joseffson, and other authorities, all of whom impressed on me The Alfatross' rarity and historical importance. When a local exotic car dealer offered to trade a used Ferrari for it, I gained new respect for The Alfatross as an investment instead of just my personal cross to bear.
The Alfatross was in stasis,
marking time in College Station and Dallas. The next move was to Corpus
Christi, TX, located on the Gulf of Mexico at the same latitude as Tampa,
Florida: hot, humid and not an ideal place to keep an old car, but I had a
little more time, money, and space to work on The Alfatross and her
stable-mate, a 1973 Porsche 911E Targa. Still under the mistaken impression
that that I could do most of the restoration myself, with the exception of
paint, bodywork and the engine, I began to experiment with sub-contracting. During
the almost 20 years we were there, a recurrent concern was hurricanes. Although
evacuation orders were not uncommon and The Alfatross’ garage was only 15 ft.
above sea level, we always opted to stay. It was a relief when the opportunity
to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, presented itself. At an elevation of 7,000
feet and an average rainfall of 15 inches, its natural environment is much more
stable.
The
Road to Enlightenment Runs Through Tunnels of Darkness, Ending at the Gates of
Harsh Reality (2008—2016)
For this move, I loaded The
Alfatross into the back of a U-Haul truck and chauffeured her to her new purpose-built
home, “The Shed”, 1,000 miles away and far from natural disasters. Here we
finally got serious about her restoration. By this time I had come to grips
with the realization that restoration of The Alfatross to her original glory
was going to take a lot of time, space, specialized equipment, connections with
restoration professionals, and money. Lots and lots of money . . .
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| Oh, the indignity of it! |
Some other considerations were dawning on me too. The Alfatross was more than just another old car that needed a bit of sprucing up. I wanted to restore it to its original condition, but keep intact the "personality" it had acquired over its lifetime.
Sorting out a
problem late at night at The Shed, with coyotes howling outside in the darkness,
my original sense of purpose started to waver as The Road entered one of the Tunnels of Darkness. When the restoration is finished, what comes next? At some point The Alfatross will need a new steward.
Once I complete the empathetic
restoration of The Alfatross, my part in its life would be finished, except for
making sure its next steward is the kind of person who will take care of it
responsibly in keeping with its uniqueness. Letting it go to the highest
bidder—a stranger, maybe even a Russian oligarch with 300 other cars in their
collection—would not be a satisfying outcome. Picking your car’s next steward
is a noble aspiration, but how do you make that work?
I can think of only one
precedent—but it’s a BIG one and it happened just a few months ago: An unnamed
private collector bought at auction a special 1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SLR, known
as the Uhlenhaut Coupe, for $135 million EUR. It was not the price tag or legendary
car that got my attention. It was the
fact that MB was able to specify a list of conditions the buyer had to agree to
before they would part with the car. MB picked the buyer, not the other way
around!
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| The Ulenhaut MB 300 SLR |
Was
the Road Not Taken the One That Should Have Been? (2016—2023)
I try not to think too much about the roads not taken over the last 52 years, like opportunities to sell or
trade the car for something else, or let someone else do the restoration while
I just wrote the checks, or even when to call it finished. Sure, there were ruts
in the road, dead-ends, blind curves, bridges washed out and parking tickets,
but for the most part the roads we did
take were good enough.
