ON A ROLL

The romance of Hollywood’s and Washington’s golden age was often played out in the backseat of deluxe cars

Aided by her loyal manservant (also her former husband and director Max von Mayerling), Norma Desmond re-turned to the studio convinced that Cecil B. DeMille was interested in film-ing her script for Salome with her in the lead role. In a scene that surpasses most cinematic illustrations of dramatic irony, Desmond found out that the studio had been calling, not to discuss her long delayed comeback but, to borrow her Isotta-Fraschini—a vintage 1929 Tipo 8A Castagna Transformable. Sunset Boulevard, and a handful of other classic American films, illustrates how cars bookmark the pages of the passing of an era. Filmed in 1950, Sunset Boulevard references movie stars’ fascination with luxury automobiles. Both Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino drove Isotta-Fraschinis, a marque that was also featured in 1934’s Death Takes A Holiday, the basis for 1998’s Meet Joe Black.

Spotlights were trained on such vintage deluxe automobiles at Bonham’s June 7th auction held at Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. Among them was Jay Gatsby’s yellow 1928 Rolls-Royce 40/50hp Phantom I Ascot Dual Cowl Sports Phaeton, driven by Robert Redford as Gatsby, in The Great Gatsby. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, the car was a symbol of excess and materialism that gripped America in the early 1920s, between the graveyard that was the Great War and the precipice of the Great Depression.

The car literally advanced the plot: it created a bridge between the East and West Eggs, the fabled play-grounds of the blued-blood establishment and the ascendant middle class; it also traced the routes between the disparate lives of the privileged Bu-chanans and the working class Wilsons. In the end Daisy Buchanan hit and killed Myrtle Wilson, her hus-band’s mistress, while driving the Rolls-Royce. Tom Buchanan then misled Myrtle’s husband George by claiming that Gatsby was on the driv-er’s seat when it happened. Seeking revenge, George rushed to Gatsby’s mansion and shot him dead. What could have been a denouement led to an undoing: ties were severed, friend-ships hastily abandoned, and dis-tances stretched to where the yellow Rolls-Royce cannot go. In the 1974 movie, the car was featured prominently, often as harbinger of liberating truth or fatal blow.

A Hollywood Pedigree
Another stunner at the auction was Clark Gable’s Packard Darrin—a 1938 Packard Eight Business Coupe that Howard ‘Dutch’ Darrin transformed into a Convertible Victoria. Sources claim that little was left of the original Coupe after Darrin and his team were done with the refurbishment. Auction notes describe the car as a traditionally built coach with ash frame and aluminum-paneled cowl. Since it left the Gable estate, the car has changed hands a few times: a military officer had sold it to Earnest Sulek sometime in the 1960s. Sam Broadhead acquired it from Sulek in 1962. A careful restoration was done on the car, including a close duplication of the cowl’s wooden frame.

During the bodyworks, the car was identified as one of two Convertible Victorias that Darrin had made. Ted Leonard acquired the car in 1982 and was its owner until the recent Bonham’s auction. Documents accom-panying the sale attest to the car’s illustrious provenance. The Bonham’s auction featured other lots from the Ted Leonard collection, which is dis-tinguished by fine motorcars with ce-lebrity pedigree.

A Statesman’s Stately Car
Although without a Hollywood lineage, President Woodrow Wilson’s Roll-Royce Silver Ghost also drew at-tention from the crowd. President Wilson received the automobile as a farewell present from his supporters when he left office. The range was produced from 1906 to 1926 and col-lectively named 40/50 hp, with one particular model, Chassis 60551 registered as AX 201, christened Silver Ghost. The press picked up this catchier moniker and the original name of the line was eventually dropped. The Silver Ghost is the predecessor of the Roll-Royce 30hp and the successor of the Phantom I. Some models from the range still run today, a testament to the line “Best Car in the World” that influential publication Autocar bestowed upon Rolls-Royce automobiles in 1907.

Other crowd pleasers included the Le Mans Special once owned by racing legend Fitch Whitmore, and rarities such as a 1963 Porsche 356 Carrera 2 Convertible — one of only 28 built, a 1953 Jaguar XK120 Roadster, refinished to a very high standard in its original colors of pastel green with a suede green interior.

The sale totaled USD5 million, the largest ever realized at Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. It also comprised the biggest number of lots. Among the top sellers were 1963 Porsche 356 Carrera 2 Convertible, which fetched $381,000; a 1953 Jaguar XK120 Roadster sold for $106,470. Gable’s Packard Eight Con-vertible Victoria sold for $282,000 to a private collector, beating four bidders who were present. The Gatsby Rolls-Royce was sold to another telephone bidder at $238,000. A bidder in the room secured President Wilson’s 1923 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Oxford Touring Car for $161,000.

Peripheral Collections
Scott Hanson’s Plates, circa 1998, headline the automobilia section of the auction. The Carmel California sculptor created a map of mainland America from license plates of each state. It sold for $3,965. Bidders eagerly snapped up automobile related posters, artwork, models and parts. (Bonhams offered the first edition of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, printed in 1925 and with the original dust jacket, at their Madison Avenue gallery on June 10, as part of the Books, Maps Manuscripts sale. With estimates between US$80,000 and US$100,000, it was a chance to own a Gatsby memorabilia if the Rolls-Royce was slightly out of reach.)

“Collectors recognize that it is rare to see cars of this caliber, and history assembled in one sale, and the bidding action certainly demonstrated keen interest from around the world,” Rupert Banner of Bonhams Manhattan Motorcars department said after the sale. “The sale also demonstrates that in this market, cautious pricing provides the best results.”

The top lot of the sale was a 1934 Bugatti Type 57 Stelvio Drop-head Coupe, which sold for $419,500. The crowd literally held their breath as intense bidding for this lot from collectors assembled under the tent and those on the telephone ended with the car going back to Europe. The highlight of the event though, was when racing legend John Fitch, aged 92, took the podium to give background information on his 1952 Fitch-Whitmore Le Mans Special, which lead a “charmed life” he said, to a standing ovation from the crowd. The car fetched $403,000.

“It was amazing to have this living legend join us at the event, and the crowd was thrilled to see him hop into his Le Mans Special – illustrating the spirit and sprite of someone far younger than his 92 years!” Mark Os-borne, Bonhams west coast motorcar specialist said. “A one-of-a-kind event certainly, and we are proud to add the excitement of the auction to the enjoyment of the famed Greenwich Concours d’Elegance.

Up Next: Cadillac
What will draw attention next would probably the staple of Hollywood’s top garages, the Cadillac.

Perhaps the most avid collec-tors of such cars among celebrities was rock ‘n’ roll king Elvis Presley, whose first car was the famous pink and white Cadillac—remembered in the Aretha Franklin hit Freeway of Love. Presley gave Cadillacs to friends and associates from his ka-rate instructor to his then wife Priscilla.

At his funeral, a bright white 1977 Miller-Meteor Landau Traditional Cadillac carried Presley’s body to the Memphis cemetery, followed by 16 Cadillacs bearing the bereaved family and mourners.

Adulations have been sung to that American icon from the Dreamettes in Dream Girls who rhapsodised:

I got me a Cadillac car
Cadillac, Cadillac
Look at me, mister, I’m a star!

To the Puerto Rican ladies who proc-laimed America the land of promise, in West Side Story, with an exuberant:

Skyscrapers bloom in America,
Cadillacs zoom in America,
Industry boom in America!