Now I know you appreciate the hard grind I put in for you attending collector car auctions around the world. It’s tough. Free champagne, glamorous persons of all sexes and even better looking, legendary pieces of multi-million-dollar metal.
Look, quite frankly, part of the reason I take on this burden is that we don’t have any similar events in Australia. But now our man, the Trumpster, is coming into the top job everything is changing for the better. Not only is the Don a super entrepreneur, remember Trump the board game (aka Monopoly and what Australian business person doesn’t love a good monopoly?), Trump Airlines and Trump Vodka, he is also a petrol head. Yes, the Trumpster loves metal. He’s owned Rolls Royce Phantoms, Mercedes McLarens and Lambo Diabolos to name just three.
And the Trumpster effect has already had an impact right here in Port Melbourne, the suburb where fun normally goes to die. At 2.30pm on Sunday, November 27, at Srecko Lorbek’s supercar showroom, Mossgreen is auctioning off one of the best collection of cars, bike and auto stuff since Briggsy put his Fremantle car museum under the hammer.
But best of all readers, Jim Nicholls and the Mossgreen team are throwing an exclusive preview (well not so exclusive since I just told the million or so readers of TheWeekend Australian) the Wednesday night before. Yes, Peter Rowland will be there with free canapes, Doug Rathbone with his free Yarrabank Cuvee (the champagne of Victoria) and Pitzy Folks’ free Capi water (the Evian of South Yarra). Note to Mossgreen: please ask Doug to bring the 2005 late disgorged stuff not the non-vintage. Speaking on the night will be Harriet Edquist, who put on NGV’s sensational Shifting Gears show and Bryan Thomson.
Look if you can get Lurbek or Mossgreen to give you an invite it’s worth going just to hear Thomo speak. Outside the sport he is the least known most famous race car person in the country. Making his money from selling Volvo trucks, Thomo has spent nearly 60 years doing eight Bathursts, helping set up Winton raceway, racing a V8-powered VW fastback 1600, and owning and racing the Lou Molina Monza which you can buy on the Sunday for $300,000.
OK. Now we have run through the important bits let’s look at what Jim Nicholls will be selling. Along with the Bugatti radiator grill, a really weird Carlo Bugatti-designed chair and assorted Michelin men, is the 1996 Julien and Boyer bright blue Matra Honda land-speed record car. This is a snip at around $35,000. You can’t drive it anywhere but imagine having it parked outside Andrew McConnel’s Cumulus in Flinders Lane. You could sit on the bonnet in your matching Ralph Lauren jumpsuit, ciggy in one hand and soy latte in the other.
There are serious Lancias, a couple of Fezzers, a super Sunbeam Alpine Le Mans replica, a beautiful 1929 Matchless Silver Arrow, a 1934 Lagonda Rapide, which at $250,000 will be sold to a European buyer, a 2007 Dodge Viper FIA-GT3 for $120,000, and the star of the show for me, the 1930s Chamberlain 8 racer which at $350,000 is easy pickings for a US buyer.
Anyway before then you have to get to South Australia for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival that starts on Thursday. (Why do people from Adelaide have TGIF on their shoes? Toes Go In First!) It will be HUGE. There’s the Prima Tour where Formula 1 Driver Pier Luigi Martini and Stuart O’Grady in his AC Cobra will be driving through the Adelaide Hills, doing hill climbs, doing very fast airport runs and drinking and eating a lot. Then there’s the Victoria Park Sprint. How good is this? All sorts of really wealthy people in equally wealthy museum quality fast cars running around the streets of the city named after Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (a suburb just south of Henley Beach).
Remember Ferrari and McLaren F1 driver Stefan Johansson, March and Ferrari driver Ivan Capelli, Transfield driver Guido Belgiorno-Nettis and our own WART driver Dean How? They will all be behind the wheels of the cars that made them famous … well except for Guido because Transfield is a company so he will drive his Ferrari F1 car instead.
But I know what you really want to be in Church City for. Yes, WART lovers Michael McMichael and I will be steering a BMW M635CSi in the Classic Adelaide Rally. Fans, don’t be confused. This is a much better piece of kit than our LeMons BMW which is now safely back in brown snake heaven.
This is a shortened version of the original article. To read the rest go to: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/motoring/new-vroom-of-the-2016-trumpster-sweeps-all-before-it/news-story/4661ee26e489830dc856a473e81aeb76
