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

[slodave]

Nice job @ the 2 mintue mark.

If you really want to bring a tear to Chris' eye, put in some no parking signs... "No Parking from Dusk Until Dawn".

[Heel n Toe]

'73 Targa Florio... another brisk drive on a road with lots of challenges, right?

[lfot]

mpantel... What are you using for references on this? Is it a mix of stuff on this thread and google maps?

[Banning]

Originally Posted by mpantel

here is more progress on the track, no marina blue corvette yet. But its a full onboard of the track in daylight from truckstop to 405 freeway. Sorry if i may have pointed out chris bannings house. Also sorry that the gear stick is on the left side, and speedo in km/h. I'm an Aussie and half Romanian.


If anyone has any old photos, please email them to pauly.pantel@gmail.com

luckly i do have black and white aerial photography from the 50's 60's and 70's. grandstands is a huge dirt patch. looks like there is a quarry at doulnuts!?

Doughnuts was once used for a few years as a dumping ground for concrete, etc

At 5 min 25 seconds into, a drive thru the Racecourse is well documented in the video below. We all have seen this but it may prove useful to you.
Details such as greenery, tightness of turns, and more, is visible between Skyline and Grandstands.

YouTube - Mulholland Drive for the Road Enthusiast (excerpt)


On a side note, this from Jeff Hailpern http://jalopnik.com/5799726/emerson-fittipaldis-double+engined-volkswagen-beetle

[Jeremy Cottrell]

I feel an online Mulholland match race coming. It's much safer, and the road is in much better shape!

[lfot]

Maybe this will help.

[mpantel]

thanks for the video. I use this forum as an encyclopedia! its great. Other refrences i use is google street view, google earth for elevation data, and NETR Online • Historic Aerials for aerial photos from the 40's 50's 60's and 70's.

[lfot]

Did you see slodave's videos? These could be pretty handy. He goes from Wrightwood all the way past the 405 up to Dirt Mulholland.

YouTube - Mulholland - Part 1

YouTube - Mulholland - Part 2

YouTube - Mulholland - Part 3

[Ylonewolf]

and video of mulholland maniacs
YouTube - Mulholland Maniacs
Cool video

[Ylonewolf]

SHEEN REVINE

[Banning]

Interesting story from Concorso Italiano

It was a dark and stormy night. The temperature was below freezing. It was the dead of winter between Christmas and New Years, when normal people are returning their Christmas presents and looking forward to New Years’s eve, the Rose Parade and football. But here we were driving across the deserts and badlands that separate Souther California from the center of Texas. It had been raining, sleeting, and then at dusk the sunset through the cold fog set the hoar frost on the cactus and sage brush aglow, like the aliens in a bad B class science fiction film. The question I asked myself was "What are my wife and I doing out here and is it going to be worth all the effort and expense?"

It all started 30 years earlier. Our family would gather in the summer at Silver Lake near June Mountain, CA for a few weeks of trout fishing. One year while passing through the town of June Lake I spied a very exotic looking car that did not register in my memory bank. It was sitting in front of the Vista Motel. I stopped the car and got out to take a good look. I circled the red car analyzing and looking for a name plate. The only thing that lent any identity was a script that said "Vignale" and a cloisonné badge showing some sort of tower monument with a large V overlay. Its low height, voluptuous flowing lines and egg-crate grill said Ferrari to me. I had always wanted a Ferrari, the holy grail of sports cars, ever since being bitten by the sports car bug in the early 1950’s. My 1952 MG TD was fun, but didn’t quite have the panache of a real Ferrari. . As I entered the motel office I could hardly contain my excitement. I was met by a gentleman named Shelly Pfeiffer, who owned the motel. Shelly was happy to explain to me what the car was and how he acquired it.

Before buying the motel Shelly had been an aerospace engineer at TRW and lived with his wife in Manhattan Beach. They were skiers and on an outing to Mammoth they had encountered an Italian expatriate ski instructor named Pino Lella. Over some time Pino and Shelly became friends.

I must digress to include some background on Pino Lella. Pino had been with the Italian Olympic ski team of 1950. After the Olympics he decided to jump ship and stay in America rather than return to Italy. With his good looks and Italian accent he soon became friends with the people in the southern California sports car and Hollywood picture scene. To supplement his earnings and support his skiing habit he often arranged to import and sell exotic cars in the US. This was a fortuitous arrangement since he had been childhood friends with Alberto Ascari and had connections with the Ferrari factory as well as with its foremost dealer in Milan, Gastone Cripaldi.

When Shelly decided he needed a Ferrari, Pino was the man to go to with connections in Italy. In 1958 a deal was consummated with Cripaldi and the 8V was put aboard the steamer Antonio Pacinotti in Genoa Italy, bound for Los Angeles. On arrival Shelly began using and enjoying his new car!

What he didn’t know was that his FIAT 8V had been campaigned in the 1955 Mille Miglia, driven by Mario Bonacina under the banner of the Scuderia Madunina of Milano. Mario Bonacina had competed in the Mille in previous years with lesser cars than the 8V. However 1955 was not to be his lucky year as the FIAT retired before the end of the race. The Scuderia Madunina had been organized by Commendatori Traversi in a bar in Milan in December 1952. Ezio Vigorelli, Italian Minister of Labor became the first president and Marcello Giambertone, business manager of the great Fangio, was secretary. All its cars, from FIAT to Ferrari, were owned by members and were entered in events under the Scuderia name. No cars were directly owned by the team. In terms of participation and member status it was probably the second most important Italian racing team of the 1950’s.

Shelly Pfeiffer, being the consumate engineer, began keeping meticulous records of maintenance and replacement items. It soon became apparent to him that the 8V engine and drive line were in need of an overhaul. He sent many letters to FIAT, Vandervell Bearings and Edwardo Nardi of Turin. He bought parts from many sources, including Ernie McAfee, Hoffman Motors and Bill Rudd. Once acquired, all rotating parts were sent to Vic Edelbrock for balancing. Everything was reassembled and the 8V returned to the road. A short time later the crankshaft broke, the result of an incorrect heat treatment when the crank had been reground. Shelly now faced the ordeal of redoing everything as well as finding a new crankshaft. It had taken over a year to find enough parts for the first rebuild. After sending more letters with discouraging results it was clear that finding a replacement crankshaft would be impossible. Shelly quit the 8V engine.

Enter Alan Johnston, a friend and fellow worker at TRW, who also owned Siatas and 8Vs. Shelly did the research and engineering for a replacement engine and selected a Chevy II 4 cylinder engine. This engine was near the same weight and horsepower and could be easily mated to the FIAT 8V gearbox. Alan assisted in the engine swap and kept the original 8V engine as payment for services rendered. As sometimes happens, within a few years Alan and Shelly’s lives drifted apart. Shelly retires from TRW, buys the Vista Motel and moves to June Lake. Alan leaves TRW and moves away from the area, taking the 8V engine with him.

It had been 10 long years since I had first seen the 8V in front of the motel. Every summer for 10 years I had stopped, had coffee and donuts and chatted with Shelly and tried to convince him that I should own the 8V. Finally in the fall of 1981 Shelly called and asked if I was still interested. I didn’t even ask the price, I just said yes.

After getting the car home I began research and found that Michelotte had drafted the beautiful lines and Vignale had hand crafted the aluminum body work on a FIAT 8V chassis. It had been exhibited on the FIAT stand at the 1955 Turin Auto Salon with a sign stating: TIPO MILLE MIGLIA 55 FIAT 8V. I started to think about replacing the Chevy II with something more aligned with the character of the car, something more on the order of a FIAT/Dino V6. Concurrent with that idea I began making contacts with people who owned rare and unknown marques of Italian autos. One of the best

sources was a young man named John de Boer. He had spent years researching rare cars, including 8Vs and other "etceterini" cars (a term which he invented and which has now become widely accepted). Tony Adriaensens of Corsa Research has also been a source of information. Special thanks must be extended to Pino Lella and his son Michael for their input. The thought of returning the car to its origins became stronger. I began using DeBoer’s listing to search for an 8V engine. I soon found that any engine that was semi complete and available was priced way beyond my capability to pay for it. Years went by without much success. Then a light went on! Why not try to find the original engine? I remembered that Alan Johnston had lived in Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach, CA. Now remember friends, this was not the age of the internet and Google. There was no sitting down and typing a name into the computer and getting a dozen hits to peruse. This was good old style detective work. Go to the towns, search addresses, talk to anyone who might know something, pick up clues from magazine articles, comb registries, etc. I eventually found Alan Johnston in Dallas Texas and contacted him by telephone. Alan was a delightful gentleman of great integrity, and a fount of knowledge about 8Vs and Siatas. He confirmed that yes, he still had my original engine and he had put it in his Zagato 8V. No, he was not interested in selling it at this time! However, if he ever decided to sell it, it would be offered to me first. He was quite emphatic that the engine should be returned to the car that it belonged to. Again, 13 long years passed before Alan called and said he was willing to sell the engine.

The end of the story takes us back to the beginning. It was winter and we were driving to Dallas. When we arrived, Alan and his wife were excellent hosts. We loaded boxes of the dismantled 8V engine into the back of our Trooper and returned to Southern California. It had been a long hard cold week to Texas and back. Yes, it was worth the wait, the time and the effort, knowing that someday all the pieces would be reassembled to bring back that vision of Michelotti and Vignale that appeared in 1955 at the Torino Auto Salon.

In my younger days I used to wonder what had happened to all the beautiful cars that appeared in the world’s auto shows. After being seen once in a blaze of spotlights with eager onlookers they disappeared, never to be seen again. Now I know happily that at least one such vehicle has resided in my garage for the past 30 years and now I can share it with others who love fine Italian automotive art.

[Nine17]

Looks like Chris Banning had a visit from Edmund's Inside Line the other day:

1985 Porsche 911: Chris Banning and His Legendary RSR

The guys over at Inside Line sure have taste. Michael Jordan used my G.P. White '88 for the lead-in to his Friends of Steve McQueen Car Show post:

1985 Porsche 911 Carrera: The Car Show Rules

What Jordan didn't know was that I had driven down from Santa Cruz the day before to attend the event with some friends and drove home that afternoon. Took the scenic route; 800 miles of pure pleasure. Got to hang out with Vic Elford; one of my friends won the TAG/Heuer Monaco watch...

[Noah930]

Cool little read on Chris. Thanks.

[JaqDRipper]

This is the single greatest thread I have ever read on ANY forum.

Gracias to all of you who, like me, lack enough imagination to go ahead and lay it down on The Mul, and have shared your stories here.


- Rob

[lfot]

Did we wake you tonight, Banning?

[ac27]

Banning, I remember a while back you off handedly mentioned that the brakes on the RSR saved your life one time. Care to elaborate, I have always wondered!

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by Banning

This is Phil M's car. He is the Mul Racer on the cover of the Herald Examiner article about Mulholland racing doing an expose on the Mulholland Carrera from around '81. He is also in The Mulholland Experience book.

His slant nose is a very fast car. Phil puts lots of money into it awhile back. But his garage is full and he is going to keep his red Testarossa instead.

He has a beautiful house in Mount Olympus off of Laurel Canyon. Jane and I go to his spectacular parties that he has bi-annually.

Hey Banning, your friend Phil is having one heckuva party right now. Will you and Jane be stopping by? It's a bit like a BET event, though. You two might not blend. I can feel the bass beats from a few houses down.

[Noah930]

Los Angeles PCA chapter's annual concours is being held today at the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. I think the judging starts at 9:30. Cars get parked/presented around lunchtime.

[Banning]

I guess it's time to play catch-up.

After re-designing my front entry which took a year out of life, it's time to get back to Cars and Mulholland.

Lots has been happening, like this below.

Street Racing Mulholland Drive in 1978

More info to follow...

[Banning]

Originally Posted by lfot

Did we wake you tonight, Banning?

I'm outside most of the time and can see Mulholland east and west.
Don't think that I don't notice a loud white 911 blazing by during all times of the day and night.

Some interesting things are about to happen, Motor Trend contacted me last week.

Derek, I need a passenger for something. Do you know anyone foolish enough?