PHILLIP TOLEDANO / Mister Enthusiast

b500 magazine

PHILLIP TOLEDANO

Mister Enthusiast

Aka @misterenthusiast Phillip is a conceptual artist: “Everything starts with an idea, and the idea determines the execution”. Consequently, his work varies in medium, ranging from photography to installation, sculpture, painting and video. An avid collector of rare and vintage watches, boxy cars from the ’80’s and of course his Lancia Integrale Bastarda… T he BMW M1 was the car that changed everything for me. Until that car, I was firmly a 1960’s Italian car collector - 246 Dino, Iso Grifo, Lancia Flaminia Sport Zagato-in short, a man with TASTE (yes, in all caps).

That all changed when I went down to see a dealer in Florida who had a De Tomaso Mangusta, (silver, 4 headlights, $80k..I know, I know) I loved how it looked, but trying to drive it was like driving a sit down lawn mower, but worse. The seating position had been designed for a garden gnome-the top of my head actually was touching the bit where the windshield meets the headliner! Deeply Disillusioned, I shoehorned myself out after the (5 minute) test drive, and cast my eye over the other offerings in the showroom. There was a blue BMW M1 sitting in the corner. I’d never really been very interested in the M1-I found the design slightly ungainly from the rear 3/4 angle, but then again, I was still in the 60’s mindset of curved flowing design, rather than the 80’s aesthetic of angles and wedges. I thought to myself, ‘why not?’

To say it was a religious experience would be an understatement. My head did a full Linda Blair. I mean, this thing was a bloody revelation -the chassis, the driving position, the exhaust at maximum Pavarotti - all of it!.

I Tried to buy the blue car, but the deal didn’t work out. I finally ended up finding an orange M1 in Atlanta that belonged to a gun salesman. He was selling it because his girlfriend wanted him to buy a log cabin. He’d had the car for ten years and had driven it 2000 kilometers. I felt (almost) terrible buying it from him because he loved the car more than life itself. He had a cabinet full of little model M1’s in his dining room, brochures, jackets, velvet paintings (ok not the last one).

Once I had bought the M1, I fell in love with the idea of homologation cars. I sold all my tasteful 60’s cars, and plunged down the rabbit hole of ugly and ungainly boxes and rectangle - Lancia 037, Delta S4, Stratos, Mercedes EVO2. There was something incredibly romantic to me, to be in such close proximity to real race cars. Plus, I kind of loved the fact that unless you knew what a Peugeot T16 was, people would assume I was driving an 80’s shitbox with a crappy body kit.