Behind the scenes
Of course Danni doesn’t swear. That wouldn’t suit him either. Danni may be American, but he is more of an English gentleman; he is also a doctor with a very special, probably quite lucrative, area of expertise. But on this early Saturday morning, Danni would like to use a few expletives, because the wooden, leather and fabric sunroof of his 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II won’t open. And his son doesn’t answer the phone. It is precisely this extraordinary roof of his Sedanca de Ville, designed by H.J. Mulliner, that makes his Rolls so special: the driver/chauffeur can/must sit in the fresh air while the passengers make themselves comfortable in the elegant cabin at the back. The humidity, he suspects, while we push and pull together, ‘it’s so much more humid here in California than at home in Georgia’. Or something may have warped during transport, because Danni drove his classic car from Atlanta to Pebble Beach in the trailer himself, around 4,000 kilometres, he and his son were on the road for three days, using a big Dodge Ram as a towing vehicle; his wife then came by plane. She is still asleep now, and Danni can’t talk to her about his trouble.




Danni is an exception among the participants in the 73rd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Only a very few of the collectors and owners who are allowed to exhibit their vehicles – by invitation – on what is perhaps the most famous golf course in the world, drive their precious vehicles themselves. But for Danni, it goes without saying that he actually wanted to drive the Phantom to the beauty contest on its own axles, but he was then strongly advised against it. The jury prefers clinically clean vehicles, no dirt from the road, please. He also had a problem with a carburettor on the 7.7-litre inline-six engine; it would have been tight. It is certainly not the case that Danni could not have afforded a professional transporter. He is not one of the celebrities in the scene, but he has a fine collection, some very nice Rolls-Royce and Bentley, of course pre-war, but above all really old vehicles, with which he can also drive the London-Brighton-Run. And he gives courses on how to get the carburettors to work again on these ancient vehicles; as a doctor, he seems to have a knack for it. But that doesn’t… open the roof on the Rolls.





Otherwise, the mood is very relaxed on this Saturday morning in the huge car park above the exhibition grounds. More than 100, sometimes enormous, tractor-trailers are lined up here, with the individual trucking companies lovingly grouping their vehicles and parking them with centimetre-perfect precision – there is, after all, something of a trucker’s code of honour. Ben is one of these professionals. He has been driving valuable classic cars across the United States for two decades as a subcontractor for a well-known auction house. For this year’s Pebble Beach, he first picked up a Maserati 300 S in New York, then drove to Florida, loaded a Lamborghini Miura, and then crossed the continent half-empty: ‘11 hours driving, 10 hours break, that’s our code,’ he says, adding that he was on the road for a whole week. Now he is waiting for the owner of the Lamborghini to get off the two-storey trailer first; the Maserati collector is already there, drinking a coffee at the entrance to the car park, where a Mexican family has set up a small kitchen. ‘Sometimes it’s difficult,’ says Ben. “Not all customers are equally cooperative; some of them are very alone in this world.” He then talks, surprisingly candidly, about famous collectors who like to do it themselves, about others who send their mechanics or curators, and about those who have no idea but have beautiful properties. ’Sometimes you have to drive across the property for ten minutes before you get to the garage.’ He has driven across America with more than $100 million worth of cargo, he says, six cars, each insured for more than $15 million. But he only looks at the insurance policies after he has delivered the cargo, and then he wants to know exactly what he has transported: ‘Before that, I don’t care, I don’t want to get nervous.’ He also says that modern hypercars are the most troublesome, ‘they’re all so wide that it sometimes takes hours to get them into the trailer; we have to remove the rear-view mirrors, sometimes it’s two millimetres on each side.’ Yes, there have been scratches too, ‘a stupid Aventador just recently,’ but he has never had an accident.



Right where the Mexicans sell their burritos and have set up a few tables and benches, two wooden crates stand lonely and abandoned. While I chat a little with the Maserati owner over a (terrible) coffee while he waits for the Lamborghini owner, suddenly something happens. Four gentlemen, who, judging by their nervousness and attire, are undoubtedly Italian, inspect the crates, open them and shield the contents from view for the time being. They don’t want to talk, but two tow trucks arrive and two red sports cars are pushed out of the crates. I can’t believe my eyes – are those really the two Ferrari 330 P4s, chassis numbers 0856, 3rd at Le Mans in 1967 with Mairesse/‘Beurlys’, and 0858, 2nd at Le Mans in 1967 with Parkes/Scarfiotti? I ask the man who is clearly the boss of the team in Italian, but he waves away irritably: ‘Nononono’. While the two vehicles are being manoeuvred onto the tow trucks with millimetre precision, a third, similar vehicle pulls up. I recognise it: a Ferrari 412 P, chassis number 0850, belonging to an American who likes to take the car for a Sunday drive. The last 412 P to be auctioned went for over 30 million dollars – the 330 P4s must be worth even more, since, unlike the ‘private’ 412s, they were used by the Scuderia Ferrari. ‘The wooden boxes are custom-made,’ explains the very cool, well-dressed Maserati owner from New York. ’That’s quite a hassle when I want to bring a car to Europe. And you can only use them once. The effort is enormous, it soon costs six figures, with insurance and all the people you have to hire for it, I don’t do it anymore». I later find out that the two P4s have recently been owned by a German shoe factory heir. And they were not flown in for the beauty pageant in Pebble Beach, but for a more private celebration of ‘70 Years of Ferrari in America’.





How many Ferrari Jim has owned in his life, he probably no longer knows himself. He has not only friends in the industry since he tried a bit too hard to declare another P4 Ferrari an ‘original’, but his contribution to the scene remains great nonetheless. Jim is already on the square at 7 in the morning to supervise the unloading of his own truck. It is full, half a dozen classics have made the journey, not just his own vehicles. Although he has a whole team of mechanics and cleaning cloths with him, he still lends a hand when his ‘Modulo’ is unloaded. This is his favourite child (for the time being), he saved the prototype – and he is understandably annoyed when the twelve-cylinder engine doesn’t start. The space in front of the truck is immediately transformed into a workshop; of course, the team of professionals has everything they need for such situations. The two guys from BMW Group Classic are not quite as well equipped. Their 1972 Turbo Concept, which was flown in from Munich, also refuses to start. But it is absolutely necessary that it does, because only vehicles that can drive to their location under their own power on Sunday are judged at the Wies’n in front of the elegant Pebble Beach Hotel. But they don’t let themselves be ruffled so quickly. They know how temperamental their unique prototype is. And their truck driver has brought his own coffee machine. A little further back, a young couple are clearly more helpless. It’s their first time at an event like this in their recently purchased Ferrari 275 GTB/6C ‘Alu’, and they don’t know anyone they could ask. But then the Italian car starts up after all, and the weekend is probably saved. Danni, on the other hand, still doesn’t have the roof of his Rolls-Royce open at 10 o’clock, and his son hasn’t shown up yet.





Some of these transporters are quite eccentric, standing with a grim expression next to their truck, making it clear that there is nothing to see here. Others have set up camping chairs, are grilling bacon for breakfast on a portable grill, and are happy to report that they have two Duesenbergs in the trailer and another Talbot-Lago. One doesn’t know what he has loaded, but that’s not surprising, not everyone knows Serenissima. The more relaxed truck drivers gather with the Mexicans; they know each other, and often the same precious vehicles have the same destination. After all, there is a big meeting, a concours, an exhibition somewhere in the country almost every week. Some always transport different vehicles, others are the servants of one master. Another Ben drives the huge and inconspicuous truck of the heir to a really large department store chain. There is space for eight vehicles, but they are not allowed to be unloaded until the boss arrives. He arrives in style in a classic Ferrari, drives across the square quite fast, honks: I’m here now. He has his dog with him, which he gives to one of his employees, and he drives every car out of the trailer himself (otherwise they are usually pushed). Everything goes to plan, and after an hour or so he gets into a Mercedes 300 SL Roadster and drives off honking. The other Ben says: ‘He’s really cool, he knows all his cars and understands more about them than his mechanics. He also gets his hands dirty. The Benz is his toy, he drives it every day, it actually comes with him everywhere. You should see how he drives it into the trailer, crazy. And don’t worry, he’ll ask you if you want a ride, you better not have eaten beforehand’. And orders a burrito, the boss is gone again, he doesn’t have to ride along, just wait until he can load again on Sunday evening. But that’s what the honking billionaire will do again.





This year’s ‘best of show’ at Pebble Beach, a Bugatti Type 59 from 1934, is also very fast. For the first time in the 73-year history of the Concours, an unrestored vehicle won the most sacred of all prizes, and for the first time it was a European, the Swiss Fritz Burkart. He had no problem with transport; he owns a house a few miles down the road at 17-Mile-Drive, and he came directly from there on Sunday morning; you could hear the magnificent Bugatti coming from far away. Danni, by the way, was able to open the roof after all, and he also found his prodigal son; the wife was awake by then, but it was not enough for an award.












This is a Story from our Print-Edition radical #2.
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