Garner AIR Vette to be Auctioned

'68 L88 Racer Previously Driven by Guldstrand, Caplan | Corvette News Blog & Discussions at Vette Magazine

Garner AIR Vette to be Auctioned
'68 L88 Racer Previously Driven by Guldstrand, Caplan
Posted Today 10:43 AM by VETTE Mag
Filed under: Corvette News

No. 44 AIR Corvette

Bonhams & Butterfields is proud to announce that the ex-James Garner/American International Racing '68 Corvette L88 will be added to the epic roster of cars to be sold at their seminal Quail Lodge auction, held August 15th in Carmel, California.

The history of the three James Garner/American International Racing (AIR) cars is unique in automotive history, not simply because Garner's AIR team sponsored them under one banner, and not just because they were all-new L88 Corvettes, but mostly because of the high-profile role of Garner, a Hollywood movie star, semi-pro baseball player, and car fanatic.

Garner's long-standing fascination with cars undoubtedly reached its peak in 1968 when his AIR team purchased three brand-new factory-built L88s. These Le Mans Blue convertible Vettes were the first production models produced by the Central Production Office featuring the new L88 engine with first-generation closed-chamber aluminum heads. These cars, sold to the AIR team, were effectively part of GM's strategy to manage the release of its most powerful cars to a carefully controlled list of approved customers.

The drivers for the AIR team also represented the emerging stars of the day. Car #44 was driven by Dick Guldstrand and the late Ed Leslie, and car #45 was driven by Scooter Patrick, Dave Jordan and Herb Caplan, names that cause a stir even today.

The #44 car, offered by Bonhams, is a magnificent restoration of the original car that Dick Guldstrand first drove at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1968. Upon restoration, Guldstrand was again offered the opportunity to drive it at both the 1999 and 2002 Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca. Sitting in the car, he remarked that it was just as he remembered and that it was a thrill to be reunited with one of the very first cars he'd built. At the Historics Dick drove well, giving the Cobras a good run for their money. And why not? These cars are fast. When the AIR cars first appeared at Daytona in 1968 they set a new course record, neatly wrapping up the first row of the grid in their class. When Jim Herlinger ran the car in 1973, five years later, he set lap records at Willow Springs and Laguna Seca. And the car has apparently lost none of its oomph because today it runs laps faster than it did in '73.

In addition to being beautiful and fast, the historic #44 car is loud. It's one thing to say that the car has appeared (and placed well) in several historic races, but at the Wine Country Classic at Sears Point, where relief is granted from the normal noise limitations, the car tipped the scale at 123 DB. That's louder than a rock concert!

As offered, the car comes with a professionally built aluminum-head 454, built in the same manner as the 1973 engine. The original block and crank from 1968 are offered as part of the sale but are not in the car.

The ex-Garner/AIR racer will be offered alongside such astoundingly rare and historic cars as the '60 Jaguar E2A Prototype, a '39 Ecurie Nice Talbot-Lago T150 C SS, a '30 Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo 6C-1750 Gran Sport, a '28 Streamlined Experimental Rolls-Royce Phantom I Torpedo, a '13 Isotta Fraschini Tipo KM, and an entire collection of Voisin, to name just a few. This remarkable line-up promises to be not only the star auction of this internationally prestigious car week but possibly the sale of the year as well.

The auction takes place Friday, August 15th at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California, with a preview being hosted the day before. Discerning collectors interested in registering to bid, either in person or remotely, may call or e-mail the Motoring Department at 415-861-7500 or motors.us@bonhams.com. Please note that entry to the Bonhams & Butterfields preview and auction does not require a ticket to the Quail Motorsports Gathering.

For general information about Bonhams and its 50 specialist departments worldwide, visit www.Bonhams.com.

Grand Prix gave him an appetite for speed

The North Bay Nugget - Ontario, CA

Posted By malcolm gunn

Posted 1 day ago

The opening scene of the 1966 flick Grand Prix featured actor James Garner in one of the most memorable movie moments of all time.

The green flag drops amid a deafening roar of Formula One machinery. A blur of drivers in their tube-shaped metal envelopes begin their full-scale assault on the streets of Monte Carlo. Split-screen images projected onto the oversized curved Cinerama screen provides an
all-too-real sense of riding along with the drivers as they frantically jockey for position. Suddenly, in a split-second, two cars collide and you're watching, wide-eyed, as one car violently catapults off course - straight into Monaco's yacht-filled harbour. Fortunately, the hero Pete
Aron, played in his usual easy-going style by James Garner, escapes his metal coffin, gasping for air as a trio of scuba divers swims to his aid.

Pure Hollywood fantasy? Well, not exactly. What Grand Prix director John Frankenheimer chose for his movie's opening sequence happened to real-life driver Alberto Ascari at that very spot 11 years earlier while he was leading the event.

For Garner, working on Grand Prix became an example of life imitating art. As a result of the movie he would become hooked on racing and remain actively involved in the sport for many years after this ground-breaking movie was in the can.

Garner's interest in fast cars goes back to his pre-acting days. Born James Scott Bumgarner in 1928, the Norman, Okla., native was driving hot rods around town as a teenager. But this carpet layer's son couldn't afford his own wheels, so he was usually piloting one of his
buddies' modified jalopies.

Following minor stage and small-screen roles, Garner's first of many breaks came in 1957 when he starred in the TV western series, Maverick. After four successful years, he moved to the big screen, where he played the leading man in a number of fluffy romantic comedies
before landing a major role in The Great Escape. This real-life movie vaulted the suave and debonair Garner into bona fide superstar status.

Grand Prix director Frankenheimer actually wanted Steve McQueen for lead roll as Pete Aron, but the deal fell through after a rocky interview that Frankenheimer was unable to attend.

Garner, who badly wanted the part, was picked.

Before shooting began, Garner took lessons from Bob Bondurant, a successful Grand Prix and sports car driver who would eventually begin his own high-performance driving school. Garner followed that with a session at the Jim Russell Driving School in England where he was
joined by some of the other principal actors. The Russell experience taught him plenty, including the fact that the lanky six-foot-three actor was too big to comfortably fit inside the cockpit of a Grand Prix race car. Garner immediately went on a diet, managing to lose nearly 10 kilograms. Even then, he had to drive with the seat removed from the car so his head would be lower than the roll bar.

Frankenheimer's $8-million epic began shooting in late May 1966. The director employed many well-known Formula One stars as background actors, including Graham Hill, Dan Gurney, Jochen Rindt, Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren.

Some of these drivers were also hired to drive camera vehicles that would chase the mostly fake Grand Prix race cars specially constructed by Jim Russell for the movie.

During production, Garner's skill behind the wheel impressed many of the racers involved in the project. Grand Prix opened in late 1966 to rave reviews. Not only was the film exciting to watch on the giant screen, its special effects and camera techniques created specifically for the movie were technical breakthroughs that are still in use today.

Article ID# 977843

HANGING WITH CARROLL SHELBY, JAMES GARNER AND PARNELLI JONES INTO THE NIGHT

JUST HANGING WITH JAMES GARNER, CARROLL SHELBY AND PARNELLI JONES ONE NIGHT AT LOS ANGELES' PETERSEN AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM

Written February, 2003, for Gannett Newspapers

Buick. Chevrolet. Oldsmobile. Ford. Rolls-Royce. Toyota. Peugeot. Chrysler. Honda. Mercedes-Benz. Bentley.
And there are more. All great car companies bearing the names of their founders or important figures in their history.

Why doesn’t that happen anymore? A social event we attended in Los Angeles recently got me thinking about it.
We were visiting the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The gala that evening was a tribute to a short-lived race team which was owned by actor James Garner, organized in the late 1960s after he filmed the feature movie “Grand Prix”, which, along with Steve McQueen’s “LeMans”, are considered the two best racing movies of all time.
In “Grand Prix”, Garner portrayed an American racer driving for a Japanese car company just getting started in Formula 1, or Grand Prix, racing. The story was borrowed from the true-life exploits of American F1 racer Richie Ginther and his association with the (at that time) fledgling Honda F1 race team. Yves Montand played another F1 driver, Toshiro Mifune’s character (Mifune his first big English-speaking movie) was modeled after the founder Honda, and Eva Marie Saint played the always-necessary “love interest” shared between Garner and Montand.

Also in the film were race drivers Richie Ginther, Bob Bondurant, Jim Clark, Bruce McLaren, American F1 World Champion Phil Hill and Brit racer Graham Hill, “Black Jack” Brabham and Dan Gurney. The 1966 movie, directed by John Frankenheimer, contains some of the most fantastic racing scenes ever recorded, featuring all the drivers mentioned above in their F1 race cars of the time.

Garner was at the Petersen Museum event, and there was a showing of a 1969 documentary produced and starring Garner called “The Racing Scene”, which was directed by Andy Sidaris, who headed up ABC-TV’s “Wide World of Sports” racing coverage for many years. Sidaris spoke at the event and introduced the film, which chronicled Garner’s road racing and more successful off-road exploits.
We spoke with Garner and also with Indy 500 winner Parnelli Jones and legendary racer/race car builder/promoter Carroll Shelby.

It’s all fine and well to speak with some of the past stars and heroes of the automotive world, but when it comes to accomplishing some of the feats these men did (and there were, unfortunately, not many women in the auto business at that time), who are the future great stars? Where are the Shelby’s, Jones’s, Iacocca’s and DeLorean’s, even the James Garner’s, of tomorrow?

The sad truth is, they are few and far between.

Today’s worldwide auto industry is one of committees and stockholders, not individuals. Carroll Shelby told me years ago that what he had accomplished would never be done again, simply because no one person or even medium-sized company has the money and equipment to develop a vehicle from scratch. Even if they did, the costs involved with building and then crash-testing test cars or trucks and then meeting the safety, fuel and emissions requirements of countries around the world is prohibitive for any company except the largest.

Think about it….when was the last time anyone started a car company under their own name? There have been a few sporadic attempts over the years, and the DeLorean project got a lot of press because of the overall fiasco it turned out to be (all that interest about a not-very-good car), but today’s automotive all-stars tend to be people like Carlos Ghosn, the head of Renault, which bought Nissan a few years ago and has managed to turn the company into a money-maker.

One of the last of the “old-timers” still working in the business is 72 year old Bob Lutz, now essentially in charge of cars and trucks for General Motors in North America. Lutz, when he was a top executive at Chrysler, before Daimler took them over, gave the go-ahead for wildly successful and sexy projects like the Viper, Prowler and PT Cruiser. A former Marine fighter pilot who collects, restores and flies European fighter jets as a hobby, is just about the final executive at a major car company who has the authority to make far-ranging decisions and is willing to live with their consequences.

(Interesting aside: The “merger of equals” which Daimler claimed their relationship with Chrysler would be when they bought-out the perennially-struggling automaker a few years has turned into anything but that. In fact, on the new-look DaimlerChrysler Board of Directors, there is but a single American left. Daimler, a notoriously conservative company, now loses almost any American-style zest it may have had. One executive once told me that “casual day” at Daimler in Germany meant taking your suit jacket off during lunch.)

The auto world moved more and more towards being run by “the bean counters” in the late 1960s, when government regulations and the prospect of oil shortages hit the industry hard. Suddenly, egos were out the door (one of the prime reasons DeLorean never became president of General Motors), and executives not taking responsibility became an art form. A degree from the Wharton School of Business is now a ticket to the top of the management heap at any car company worldwide, where in the past an engineer, stylist, race car driver or slick promoter could carry a car from concept to production.

Another prime reason for this sad bureaucratic state of affairs is the sheer complexity of modern cars and trucks themselves. No one person, companies believe, can master all the knowledge necessary to bring a project to market, and therefore a committee-upon-committee system is used to create today’s vehicles. And you know the old joke about a camel being a horse designed by a committee. Think about that the next time you see, say, a Pontiac Aztek!

If Bob Lutz achieves a great degree of success at GM, perhaps the pendulum will swing back towards the power of the individual in the automotive world. But the days of John DeLorean meeting casually Saturday mornings with his engineering staff at Pontiac, taking a 389 cubic inch engine from their big Bonneville and putting it into their small LeMans and calling it a GTO, and doing it all on a lark, as sort of a “neat idea at the time”, well, those days are over.

It’s a shame, too, as I am sure we can all agree. What we can do now is learn about our automotive history, appreciate the characters who populated it and turned it into the greatest and most important industrial movement the world has ever seen. And if we’re lucky enough, sometimes sit at the feet of those who had a hand in it, as we did recently at the Petersen Museum, and --- just listen.

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