Cordero Studios
Notes From The Garage: Reeling from the Years
December 1, 2005
For those of us sympathetic to the automobile, a rational context in which to
consider one’s own coming of age—whatever age—is to look at the cars that
populated showrooms around the time we were born. Just for fun, I spent some
time reading the October 1955 issues of Road & Track, Motor Trend, and
Sports Cars Illustrated. The magazines’ editorial content betrays simpler times,
and the ad copy for cars then new to our continent, like Triumph and Jaguar, is
charmingly asinine today. The classified ads made me weep.
This past September, I attended the Palos Verdes Concours, which, along with the Art Center Car Classic and the Quail, has to be one of the best shows on the West Coast (Pebble Beach, of course, stands perfectly and pretentiously alone). The organizers had assembled their usual superb assortment of automobiles, beginning with a 1901 De Dion Bouton. That particular contraption is too old for me, but the notion of something a little older than its driver has real appeal, and it is my intention to fully explore the possibilities. Another Morgan—a genuinely old one this time—may be the solution. One painted pea green, with cycle fenders and Brooklands windscreens and bolt-upright, barrel backseats. After all, if Ponce de León were proffering his fountain’s elixir of youth today, I would willingly partake after driving there, top down, in a Morgan.
Robert Ross
Creative Director
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