What happened to the Mulholland "King of the Hill" RSR?

[Banning]

Originally Posted by jmz

anyone know if Banning is still working on the revised book? Haven't heard from him on here in a while.

I apologize for not posting for over a year.

Fifteen months ago, my mom passed away here on Mulholland where she had lived for almost 60 years. She passed away peacefully in her sleep and I am grateful for that. But it has been difficult. More difficult than I had expected.

A story...

My dad and my mother were hiking on Mulholland one Sunday in 1952. They found a dirt road east of Beverly Glen with almost no houses on it. Back then most of Mulholland was vacant, there were only a few scattered houses in the hills, and many empty lots.
Hiking into the area my dad spotted a nice hilltop sitting all by itself. They walked to it and found a nice spot to build a house.
After looking into who owned all of the then empty lots, my dad borrowed the money to build his dream home here on Mulholland.
At that time you could have bought the entire 23 acre ridge for $7500. Dad just bought the southern end of the ridge, it seemed to be a special spot.

My parents were renting a house in Beverly Glen and my dad had started a Scandinavian Furniture Business called Contempo in Westwood Village.
He had become friends the Architect Rodney Walker who was building a house at Sunset and Beverly Glen (now an empty lot).
Dad would stop by there when coming home from work, and he liked Rodney's contemporary design that was similar to Frank Lloyd Wright's designs.

Rodney Walker designed our house as he did for several of his clients over the years on Mulholland Drive.
In later years, the kids in the neighborhood called it the Glass House because it had floor to cieling glass on all sides.
With an unobstructed view of the south looking towards LAX with Palos Verdes and Cataliina on the horizon, it was the house I grew up in.
Dad took this photo of me in 1961 looking to the south. You can see that threre are no houses in view where today there are hundreds.



This is where I learned to walk, ride a bike, and gained a huge appreciation for the hills, it's nature, and all the beautiful creatures that live here.
I hold all of this in great reverence and respect.

It was somewhat isolated back then, and a long way from School.
I was the first to get on the bus in the morning and the last to get off in the late afternoon coming home from school.

Years passed. The developments followed that raped the hills, took habitat away from the native animals, and brought in traffic.
I was an unhappy witness to this expansion and destruction of the beautiful hills and valleys. But with more and more people coming to Los Angeles, it was a fateful conclusion.

I wish I could share with everyone what incredible sights were lost, almost no one knows today.
Sights like the deep sandstone canyon full of Indian caves with water running in it most of the year, deeply buried now under Beverly Glen Park.
Beverly Canyon, now called Beverly Park. Once an incredibly vast wet canyon we used to hike in, now covered by over 400 feet of dirt. This was supposed to be The Dean Martin Golf Course but never realized.
There are too many other examples to list right now.

Decades have passed. Progress has occured. Things have changed.
Many stories and happenings have occured over the years of which Mulholland Racing was a part of, for many of us here.

Much has happened since my last post and this information is forthcoming soon.

To all of you who love Mulholland as I do, I salute you, we are together in this.

[Banning]

Here is some of the progress I've been making since last year.
August of 2012 was hot just like it was this year. I needed to do something to cool off the house, it gets hot on Mulholland.

I started by creating overhangs on the deck so the Sun would not strike the sides of the house directly. First after getting the wood home, it had to be stained before assembly.






When the frames were done, the pre-stained 2x2's were screwed onto it with deck screws.





Only 4 sides needed protection from the Sun, it looked pretty good when done and keeps the heat of the Sun off of the house's sides.

[Banning]

When I built the Octagon after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake took down the house my dad had built in 1953, I paid to have the house insulated during construction. However they never recommended to insulate the roof rafters, only the ceiling rafters. This resulted in having super hot attic space, kind of difficult for the air conditioning ducts to work properly, lol.

So after creating catwalks to crawl on, Ruben and I fully insulated the roof rafters.
It was difficult because the house had been completed years ago and there were lots of wires, and narrow crawlspaces. Here is a picture of Ruben crawing thru one of the crawlspaces. Ruben is here in Los Angeles studying music. He is from Stuttgart, Germany and loves cars and making things. We have similar interests.

By the way, this particular crawlspace is so narrow, I hit my right shoulder hard while entering one day and pinched a nerve.
Two fingers on my right hand went numb for a year, what a treat.

[Banning]

When I built the Octagon, I piped the house in copper. However the supply line to the house was galvanized 2 inch pipe. After some years it rusted pretty badly and I was getting rusty water inside the house, my wife Jane was complaining understandably.
So I dug a new trench for new 2 inch copper pipe.



Since I had never sweated such a large diameter pipe, I practiced first and then laid the pipe.





When done laying the pipe, we mixed hi-strength Concrete and back-filled the trenches.



Since the run is quite long at 470 total feet, I have done it in segments.
This segment runs around the front of the Garage to the west where it joins the north running segment.

[Banning]

When you have too many projects waiting for you, it can actually slow you down.
This is because the weight of knowing how much work is ahead can seem insurmountable. You know, that "Time for a Cocktail" feeling.

The 1965 Porsche 356C was really slowing me down.
I repaired it to the point where the new owner was able to drive it out, unpowered, lol.

When it arrived to my house it seemed almost unrepairable.



It had sat in a Texas field for 39 years.
A woman from New York had crashed it one night in 1972, (I never found out if she survived the accident).

I worked on this 356 for awhile. Intalled a steering box, linkages, steering column, and steering wheel.
Then changed bent springplates, and installed a proper disc brake transaxle.





After finding a good hood, rear deck lid, and two doors, the car was beginning to look much better.









The new owner will complete the repair so that it looks like new, like this example.




More to follow...

[Banning]

I bought this old 1961 Corvair Rampside Pickup Truck a few years ago.
Dreams of going to the Bug In using this Corvair to trailer the Type 34 Spyder was too tempting.

I learned that it's unique-ness, even though intriguing, didn't guarantee quality.
This car was a mean joke purposely created by the Engineers at Chevrolet.

Many quirks exist, like if you drive over a crest in the road, the shift linkage falls apart (the ball and socket are at 45 degrees to each other). This is due to a determined effort to create many problems in the car, all unnecessary, and all incorporated into design. Looks like someone was really unhappy with their job and wanted to get even. No drain holes in the bed sides??? No wonder they are all rusted out, lol.

Here's what it looked like when it arrived.





After installing the engine, transaxle and new clutch, I focused on cosmetic details.
Someone in the past had painted the inside of the doors bright orange, with a brush, you could see the brush marks.

So, first to do was to get rid of that and paint it the original silver.
Later the entire interior would get the same treatment, it had been painted flat black, yuk.

[Banning]

The cab roof had a 3/4 inch hole in it, in the center. Probably for a CB antenna sometime in the past. The hole was repaired using a 2x2 metal tab fastened and filled with JB Weld, awesome stuff. It still looked terrible.



After some cleaning up, new silver paint to the roof line, and sound-deadening insulation added to the cab cieling, it looked like it should again, nice.

[Zeke]

Keep it coming, Chris. a bunch of us are reading from last night to today. I was going to ask about the 356 in the plumbing pic, but I didn't have to.

[Banning]

There were only a few dents and easy to repair.
However the entire driver's side of the bed was rusted out.
I had to cut out the rusted section using an air chisel nipper.
Then using a mig welder (gas welding would have warped the sheet metal), a new section of sheet was added. A little bondo and Voila!

Here's a shot of the Ramp while finishing paint prep and body work.



Meanwhile the interior work was completed.
Had seat recovered at North Hollywood Upholstery.
Installed a new glove box, interior light, spare and jack, defroster ducts, and seat belts.
All interior sufaces were painted silver except for behind the seat where the spare is.

[Banning]

Most of these Trucks were sold to Pacific Bell Telephone and came in white.
PacBell bought them because it was much easier (on your back) to roll the spools of heavy wire instead of dead weight lifting then into the bed.
Hence they were called Rampsides. Also called the Corvair 95.

Alot of these had the beds washboarded from the heavy spools being put in and out of the truck. This truck luckily has little of that for some reason.

I kept wondering what color to paint it, original? Or?
Some were painted two tone with the horizontal stripe in the body a different color.
One day while getting parts at Larry's Corvair, I spotted a customer car in a photo on the wall.
It was a deep blue truck with a silver horizontal stripe and it looked awesome.

But I remembered a plastic model concept truck I had built in the 60's as a kid.
I had painted it a wild lavendar-purple. So with my sub-conscience kicking in I wanted to do it again and see how it would look in adult life. LOL



I decided to paint the roof and the inset around the rear window in silver to accent the body color.

[Banning]

The bed of the truck needed alot of sanding before any paint could be sprayed.
(I use a Binks spray gun that I got in 1976, it works great).
The top rail of the bed was badly dented and had to be re-worked.
The bed was acceptable with some old imperfections left.





Here it is with the engine cover off.



This is the ramp in the up position.



Ramp in the down position.

[Banning]

In the driveway getting some last details.
The Rampside sold on Ebay a few days after it was listed.





The buyer was from the midwest.
Getting loaded onto the flatbed, I said a bittersweet good bye.







More to come later today.

[Banning]

I had already saved enough money to now publish the second book. (Information is coming soon)
So when I saw this car for sale, it yelled "Save Me Please". I thought to myself, another one again?

It has been highly modified and was getting ready for paint when the owner (a world famous tuner) decided to stop, sell it, and move on.

The car was very inexpensive and I already have some of the spare parts it needs for completion.




It is a 1973 911T Targa that was running last year. It currently has a non-op on it and can be driven legally as soon as it has a motor and transmission.

This is more my kind of project, I love '70 thru '75 911s.



Here we are waiting for the flatbed trailer.
Does anyone recognize what shop we are at?



Alot more to come. We could start a whole new thread on this car.
Just wait and see what we are going to do.....
You're gonna love it!

[Swiss Carrera]

Love these updates - Thanks Chris !!!

[Zeke]

I have seen the graphics on the side of the building and I thought someone would chime in who knew for sure. If I had to guess, it's the shop out toward Ventura.

[Brillo]

Kundensport?

[Zeke]

Actually it's Knudensport, and yes, that's who I was thinking might be in the building. Now I don't think so.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Actually it's Knudensport, and yes, that's who I was thinking might be in the building. Now I don't think so.

Knudensport? Lol,

I don't remember those graphics at Kundensport, but it looks like their buildings and lot.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Flieger

Knudensport? Lol,

I don't remember those graphics at Kundensport, but it looks like their buildings and lot.

Sorry, my dyslexia taking over. He was right.

[Banning]

Here's what the inside of the shop looks like...



I spotted this mild little 911 in the shop, nice color combination.





The Car I bought from them was intended to end up like this example.






Here's the shop's trailer that they use to go to shows with..