DeTomaso Mailing List: June 98, Message #385

Hi guys,

Last night was one of the most memorable automotive experiences of my 
life, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Any long-time San Francisco-area automotive enthusiast will have at one 
point or another heard whispered references to The Candy Store.  This is 
an extremely small, exclusive and more or less secret organization of 
high-end automotive enthusiasts, an extremely private club.  Despite 
their small size, their members are influential enough to be able to 
command incredible guest speakers at their meetings.  In the past I've 
heard that Bob Lutz spoke (while he was still chairman of Chrysler); 
Carroll Shelby, Phil Hill, etc. have been speakers as well.

I never dreamed that I'd ever be able to even FIND this outfit, not to 
mention actually gain access to their Inner Sanctum.  Last week, wholly 
by accident I stumbled across a fellow who knew how to get in, and he 
gave me their address and the name of the fellow to contact.

And so it was that last night I found myself on my motorcycle, heading 
for a dinner party held at their Secret Clubhouse.  They are located in 
a small town about 10-15 minutes south of San Francisco.  After driving 
past this town's rather large Auto Row, I turned onto an alley and 
crossed some railroad tracks.  Before me was a city park with tennis 
courts, etc. and across the street, on the corner, was a rather large, 
old brick building, completely unmarked.  The windows were all blocked 
by curtains, preventing anyone from seeing what lay inside.

This is The Candy Store.

I walked through the double doors located on the corner, and was 
absolutely amazed.

This building was originally an old Packard dealership, and was located 
on the Main Drag; as the town grew the main street was moved to the 
other side of the tracks and the dealership then closed.  The building 
was empty for many years, until a group of fellows purchased it to serve 
as their clubhouse.  The inside was styled to represent a Spanish villa, 
and the doors I had just walked through emptied onto an incredible 
simulation of a courtyard.  The floors were Terra Cotta stone, and the 
offices of the dealership were at the back of this 'courtyard' on the 
second floor.  The wall looked like an exterior wall of a villa, with 
heavy wood beams, and small balconies off of each second-floor office 
window, with beautiful flowerpots on each one.

But what immediately struck me were the cars gathered in the courtyard.  
Next to the door was a 1926 Bugatti Grand Prix car.  Next to that was a 
1938 SS100 (SS very quickly became a politically-incorrect name for a 
car company, and thus the Swallow Sidecar company decided to call 
themselves 'Jaguar' instead!)  Alongside that was a late '30's E.R.A. 
Grand Prix racer, then a 1922 Hispano-Suiza, a 1952 Siata roadster, a 
1911 Cadillac tourer, a '30's Rolls Royce, and one of the two Lance 
Reventlow Scarab Grand Prix cars, and several others.

It goes without saying that each of these cars was prepared to Pebble 
Beach standards.  Simply immaculate!

After signing in, I wandered through the courtyard, then through an open 
passageway into what had been the service department of the dealership.  
This was truly a feast for the eyes!  In between Nigel Mansell's 
Williams F-1 car and Niki Lauda's F-1 Ferrari was a 100-point '55 Jaguar 
short-nose D-type.  Another 30 or 40 cars were neatly parked, including 
the obligatory '60's berlinettas (Ferrari 275 GTB/4, 365 GTB/4 Daytona, 
Jaguar E-type, Aston-Martin DB-6, etc.), as well as beautiful pre-war 
Rolls, early '50's Cadillacs and Buicks, late '50's Ferrari Spyders, a 
Model T delivery truck, an old Ducati, and on and on…

As I wandered among the cars, waiters came and brought me hors d'oevres, 
and the bartender poured me a drink.  I could get used to this 
lifestyle!  There were tables set up on part of the floor, and 
eventually the 60-or-so people present sat down for dinner.  I found 
myself sitting next to D. Randy Riggs, who is the editor of Sports Car 
International magazine.  We talked at length about the magazine 
business, and as he is on POCA's mailing list, he was familiar with my 
work with Profiles.  I pitched him a few story ideas, in response to his 
queries I gave some constructive criticism of the editorial content of 
SCI, and by the end of the evening, had more or less talked my way into 
a job interview next month! :>)  So I may be following directly in Matt 
Stone's footsteps, fingers crossed!

Eventually, there was an 'ahem' at the microphone, and then the guest 
speaker was called up.  This time, the speaker was Craig Breedlove, who 
I'm sure most of you know is the American who is the only five-time 
world land speed record holder, first to 400, 500 and 600 mph, and who 
recently failed in his attempt to be the first person to drive at the 
speed of sound.  His backyard seat-of-the-pants effort was eclipsed by a 
full-on assault on the record by the British, a joint operation between 
their aerospace industry and military forces.  He showed some video and 
gave an extremely interesting talk about not only his personal 
experiences pursuing and continually advancing the land speed record, 
but also some insider information about the successful British effort.  

After his presentation was over, I got an opportunity to speak privately 
with him.  His entire operation is headquartered only about 20 miles 
from my house, in the small town of Rio Vista.  I mentioned to him that 
some POCA members are very enthusiastic supporters of his efforts, and 
to make a long story short, he agreed to open his shop to us all for a 
private tour!

So I will be organizing a joint Capitol Panteras/PCNC/Nor-Cal Shelby 
Club/River City Shelby Club event, where we will meet at my house in the 
morning, convoy to his town, have a car show in the large parking lot 
across the street from his facility, get the full tour, then all come 
back to my place for a big barbecue.  With all four clubs intvited (the 
Nor-Cal Shelby club alone has over 650 members) it's gonna be a HUGE 
event!  Plan on bringing your own chairs!  I'll hammer out the details 
next week, but the tentative date is Saturday, 29 August.

As I rode home in a light rain, I was still reeling from the experiences 
of the evening.  The people I'd met, the cars I'd seen, the 
opportunities that had presented to me (and to all of you as well)...all 
in all, a very worthwhile evening!  I even managed to accidently pass a 
cop on a motorcycle while jamming along at about 85 mph; he caught up to 
me and simply hollered at me to slow down!  Gotta love it! :>)

More details on the Breedlove tour will be announced in the next few 
weeks, and a flyer will appear in the POCA newsletter.  Yer all invited 
to come on out here and check it out!

Mike



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