[TooTall]

I've just read through about 15 more pages of this thread. Jeez, the memories. Just some random stuff...

I think I first became aware of Mulholland from a guy that lived down the street from me named Bill Henry. Bill had a really nice Healey 3000 MkII and later (or before) a Volvo 122S. Bill was my brothers age, 4 years older than me. A buddy of Bill's was Jim Carpenter, I remember having a ride on Mulholland in the daytime in Carpenter's Pontiac Bonneville cornering on the door handles and sliding all over the place. I remember catching a ride with Bill and Jim over to a place in Burbank called Autobooks and buying a biography on Jim Clark. That started my obsession with collecting car books.

One time Dave B. and I went over to Dan McLoughlins shop. We went in and Dan was just finishing up a repaint of Peter Gregg's RSR. We were standing back looking at the car and Dave leans over and says to me real quiet like. "Is it just me or are those stripes crooked?" And they were! Also in the shop was Otis Chandler's 917K in Gulf colors. I was just about going ape****! A real 917K!! We couldn't sit in it but we got a real good look. I remember two things, one; it had an ignition key and the head had holes drilled in it for lightness! There was also a piece of paper taped to the sill next to the gearshift. Type written on the paper it said "Instructions for starting the Porsche 917" and them the step by step to fire it up. You vill follow zee instruktions! I've got photos from that day someplace.

There was a guy in my group of friends from the hill we called Barney Bear. A lot of you know who I mean. Anyway, at one point he had a real nice Mini with a built 1275S engine, steel flares, pearl white paint and race tires on Cosmics. One night a bunch of us were sitting up on Beaumont and Barney goes out and starts making runs. he's really hammering this thing. On maybe the second or third pass he goes by and the engine sounds a little off and we see little orange sparks coming out the tailpipe. He pulls in and the Mini sounds sick.
"Barney, doesn't sound good man."
"It's nuthin', fouled a plug or sumthin."
"Barney, man, there were sparks coming out the tailpipe."
"Uhh, just some carbon getting burned off."
He barely made it home. Pulled the head and found it ate a valve. Barney was kind of hard on the equipment. He once blew up a Malibu Grand Prix car.

One night some of us were sitting up at Grandstands and one of the evil Hall twins rolls up in a new Maserati Khamsin. I can't remember if it was Jim or Bob, whichever one spoke Japanese. At one point I was sitting in the passenger seat talking to him and he was fiddling with the radio. It was a nice Becker with SW band and he tunes in Radio Tokyo and starts translating for us. Except he was putting his own spin on it and we were all busting up.

Keep the memories going.

Ciao babies!
Kurt O. (aka "Obe")