Hording stuff. There was a guy on the road out of Saint Germain en Laye (France) and he liked Mopar and always had some Challengers parked outside. I stopped in and saw he had a white Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertable for 220K francs. Now this was a lot for me in 1984 so I passed it by and the car is now “known” and wound up in the USA in some private collection and “worth” several million. But, this always gets me thinking about the “guys” who have large collections of cars including many hemi Challengers, ‘Cudas, and not just one but dozens of the same car.
Knowing how few exist I always get mildly “upset” of these horded private collections hidden away and usually “off the road”
Thats the way it is I guess, some really need to own as many as possible but do we really need more than 1 of any given car or anything else that we like? “Nothing stranger than folk” but for me, no.
To see “unhorded” stuff, luckily we have museums. And, with items correctly documented, they are a strong holds of precious creations with stories/histories allowing anyone to see and understand what we have done. I believe museums are very important and especially for the young in school who very often don’t know anything about the past (and the present for that matter). I teach in Paris and try to get the students to go to the Musée des Arts et Métiers. This is a sleeper musium in Paris and it is the best... but so few know. Go there and be humbled. You think you’are so hot! Look what was done 150 years ago with poor gas lighting in dark little rooms and by hand.
I collect some stuff, old prototype racing bikes, some cars and a few slot cars. Only one of each and thats just fine. Recently I saw someone post on one of the slot forums what looked like a years production of rare Cox slot cars (exaggeration) but a lot. I said to myself, now I know why I can never find “that” particular car since this person and surely others have “horded” them away. Now I don’t want to piss off the ones who do this , its their own deal but my first reaction is wow, that’s really cool later followed by my thinking “what a jerk”. So I guess I don’t like hording…coud be jealously too but not really.
Anyway, finally getting to the end. When I was at Art Center College in Pasadena in the late ’70’s, we were doing some fullsize car projects (drawings) and suddenly there appeared a very tall guy and a fine wife. This was Dan Gurney who had come to visit the school and the auto design department. My memory was of a very nice guy, interested and asking questions about what we were doing. Many in the Auto business were/are pretentious S.O.B.s (Lee Iacocca comes to mind when he visited us at Chrysler advanced design studio in CA, with his model wife and he was the complete opposite of Dan Gurney) But, Gurney seemed just a normal nice guy and we all said “cool”
I always liked his stuff, was a fan and even once got a AAR ’Cuda into the Citroen design studio but thats another story..
So here I have talked about hording, museums, and Dan Gurney and that leads up to my real sneaky “sort of” motive! Can someone find me a Cox Dan Gurney Ford? Anything original but nice and who cares about the box? Maybe some one has 10 of them stashed away and could live with 9? I promis it will be the only one, no hording and not hidden away. I always bring in slot car models to the schools where I teach (often the Cox Cheetah) so students can draw and learn perspective/proportions and of course the history behind each model! When I die, I'll give the Galaxy slot car to the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris!!, I. promis!
The end.
