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Modify a 930? For one owner, it was the only way to create his perfect car
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Films:
This Is The Admiral’s Ferrari 500 Mondial
Good evening, I’m watching right now the show and a little correction: President Trujillo and Porfirio Rubirosa were from the Dominican Republic, not Venezuela, even if the race was held there.
Really interesting, since I don’t believe this fact of the 500 Mondial is known.
Hope the Admiral enjoys his beautiful car for eternity!
Wishing you fair winds and a following sea, Admiral. What a great film and a beautiful reflection of your hobby (and your family for embracing it). Hope to see it one day around Santa Fe. The only down side was wondering how you found it in yourself to put two screws into the stern, err, rear panel for that silly license plate.
What a magnificent car–with a magnificent caretaker to match. Thanks to the Admiral for preserving and restoring and, not least, continuing to drive this beautiful machine. Your evident love for and pleasure in it is utterly infectious. And thanks to Petrolicious for sharing all of that with all of us. Bravo!
El Almirante Phillips! Your amazing car won its class at the ’55 Venezuelan GP and I remember my father telling me all about the three GP (’55-’56-”57) held in our native Caracas, Venezuela. It was certainly the golden age for motor racing and car enthusiasts in the country. I want to thank your family for supporting your love and passion for such beautiful car. Ohhh the twinkle in your eye for #8 is evident from the moment you unhook the straps inside the trailer to later tightening the wheel spindle to finally sitting behind the wheel and carefully checking the gauges as you warm up it up. Thank you Admiral Phillips for making this about your emotional connection with the car and not about the money. We need more of you! Last…thank you Petrolicious. Not an easy task to convey the love passion and dedication some of us have towards an automobile in a video lasting less than 10 minutes. You do this masterfully!!! Until next Tuesday!
Juan – Thank [b]you[/b][i][/i] from Petrolicious for helping us trace the origins of the archival images featured in this video. Suffice it to say, without your help I never would have found my way to an 85 year-old man living in Spain! I hope you enjoy this video all the more knowing that you had a hand in making it possible.
Looking forward to seeing your own “El Hemi” atop this page soon!
The fact that this specific vehicle has been owned by Porfirio Rubirosa!!
The man who lived every mans dream and still lives on in Paris in the fact that the big dark pepper mills in restaurants are called Rubirosas…
A Ferrari driven and owned by the man who bedded women such as Jane Mansfield, Ava Gardner, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Barbara Hutton and who died by crashing his Ferrari in Bois de Bologne, Paris.
If you’re curious of an interesting life story, please do read (oh, beautiful car by the way..;)):
https://www.thrillist.com/vice/porfirio-rubirosa-the-most-interesting-man-in-the-world
Apologies for being the sole voice of descent but in all honesty this one left me a little … flat . Both the car .. the owner .. the video .. and especially the ( cough ) background music all coming together into what I’d call a fairly reasonable albeit mediocre effort . Not that any of it is bad mind you . Its just not what I’d consider good either . Especially in comparison to the standard by which all should be compared to here . I’m speaking of course of the Novo Garage video . Hmmn ………..
For me, personally, the remarkable thing is that someone is able to find the time and the funding to make these videos at all, documenting the rich engineering, social and architectural history of these kinds of cars. Before this video, I didn’t know a thing about a four cylinder Ferrari. Yet, in someways, this car, the Mondial, is kind of a lodestone, pointing towards so much that will follow. And the primary reason that the car exists, in this form, is that this man made the radical decision to spend 2/3’s of a years salary on a car with a seized differential, which had been out in the weather. I am amazed that his marriage survived this. His wife must have truly loved him. The Novo Garage video was very content rich, but the videographers had a lot more to work with in that video. You had two generations of builder-restorers, right in the middle of their work. In this instance, the work of restoration, was done a long time ago. The builder is looking back at his work, he is not in the middle of it. And so the video is, necessarily, going to be a little sentimental. It is an artifact of the situation. Financially Phillips decision, turns out to have been a good one. What he saw, others would see, and one of the cars recently sold at auction for, what, five or six million dollars? At the time, however, his mother-in-law probably wanted to hang him up by his thumbs.
To answer the question: I would absolutely buy and fix a racing car myself. In my opinion, this is the only way to fly.
I will look forward to watching this film later this evening with my father and my son. It surely promises to be a magnificent story.
Can hardly wait… Thanks for sharing. 🙂
As stated by you guys already, great story, great car. I just wondered, in the part where he talks about the next owner, I wonder why his son wouldn’t inherit it if it was such a part of the family? Perhaps it would but they way he was saying what he was saying, it sounded like it wouldn’t.
