Member Profiles

GCR Monthly Socials

For year’s end 2021 we have a special treat for everyone. We feature the Gold Coast Region’s “second oldest living member” in the history of our club, and what a great feature it is.

“I’m just Lee Wood! Only seven letters, no middle name, and no nickname!”

In working with our members we offer a basic set of questions for them to have them start somewhere. Our very first question is: “Name/nickname?” Lee’s response is well, PRICELESS.

Lee was born in Miami in 1941 and turned 80 this past April. He has spent most his life in Miami or Miami Beach. His profession prior to retiring in 2002 was Funeral Director. The family business, founded by his father, was called “Walsh & Wood.” They were a smaller operation, but they serviced an elite clientele. Although retired for nearly twenty years to the keys, Lee still maintains his professional funeral license. He and Rosemary, his wife, have had a place in Plantation Key, the next key south of Key Largo, since 1959.

Rosemary and Lee have been “going together” since they met in 1958, when Rosemary was just 13! (Lee was 17, so at least they were close in age, sorta.) While attending the University of Miami, Lee remembers picking up Rosemary from grade school in his Lincoln. Apparently, she fit in well with the college crowd. They were married in 1963 after dating for five years. They celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary in June. Their two children are adults. Chris (no middle name) Wood is 47 and living in North Carolina. Holly Wood, their daughter, (“another long story” per Lee, also no middle name) is four years younger than Chris. [Side note: It seems we will all need to get the insight regarding the missing middle name - and the long version of Holly Wood!]

But, what about the Porsches, you may ask? Buckle your seat belts; it’s quite a ride.

Currently, Lee owns and maintains two PCars. The first is a 1962 356B “Normal” Cabriolet in Summit Grey. The second is a 2004 base Boxster (986) in Arctic Silver. Lee’s 356B has been raced, and has been presented nationally in many concourse events, mainly during the 1960s and 1970s. Rosemary & Lee Wood with their 2004 Boxster at their home in Tavernier, FL

The car and Lee have received over 100 trophies at these judged events. Special recognition for the Summit Grey 356 occurred when Lee’s Porsche was chosen for the centerfold of the October 1971 edition of Road & Track. The national magazine covered the 16th annual Porsche Parade in Sun Valley, Idaho in ‘71... more on that later.

The ‘04 Boxster was acquired by Mr. Wood after reading about the car in Die Porsche Kassette classified section. Thinking a second Porsche would be similar to “another hole in the head,” Lee could not resist. The 986 had 34,000 miles at the time and while on paper it may have sounded “blah” (his words, not the writer’s), the car is absolutely flawless. It was new to him and with 225hp it felt fast when compared to the 60hp in the 356B. Lee has enjoyed the Boxster by attending the 2020 North Carolina tour, the Lake Placid “Mural” tour, and the Tradewinds Park Car Show & Picnic. Closer to home they have enjoyed the Tour of the Keys and Islamorada Fish Company, all of which are Gold Coast Region PCA recent events. What pandemic?

Over the years, Lee Wood (no middle name, NMN) has owned a total of four Porsche vehicles.

His very first was a 1961 356B 1600 that was purchased new for $3,600! This was a seriously basic car; Signal Red and black vinyl interior with one option, a single headrest. No radio, but a black plastic plate with “PORSCHE” inscribed covered the hole where the radio would have been installed. The 356 purchase was inspired by his father’s many trips to the 12 Hour Race at Sebring. Senior Wood would watch the 550 Spyder, the Giant Killer, dominate over the Ferraris while being driven by legends such as Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, and Stirling Moss. Young Lee was 21 at the time and he had no real idea of the value of the car.

Back in the early ‘60’s the Gold Coast Region did not exist, only the Miami Sports Car Club, so he joined that group and went rallying. According to Lee, “it wasn’t until 100,000 miles later when I went to sell it, did the awakening happen.” We can only imagine the value of that 356B today.

Along the way, Lee befriended a Delta Airlines pilot who traveled to Germany each year to purchase the latest Porsche. It was a religious pilgrimage in a sense. The pilot’s last Porsche was a 356 Carrera 2, which was sold to GC PCA members Bill and Jean Robinson. This latest purchase by the Delta guy was among the first 911s to reach the shores of the United States, and it was a true head turner! The pilot offered to sell Lee this new 911. This Delta captain also suggested that Lee’s old 356 be sold to members of a new club, Gold Coast Region, PCA. Bam, done!

Mr. Walt Lohmann was President of GC PCA at the time. The club was meeting at the Tropical Acres Steak House on Griffin back then. Gold Coast Region was only four years in existence. Walt took Lee under wing, along with a substantial number of other early members: Stan Pearlman, Bob Simmons, Freddie Ratliff and others. Later they were joined by Buz and Donna Hawn, George Hauser, Jack and Joyce Fuller, Steve and Dottie Kidd, Mike and Barbara Joffee, Dennis DeFrancheschi, Bud and Cauleen Styles. The list goes on and on and is exceptional in quality of members. In Lee’s estimation, Gold Coast became the greatest region of PCA. It’s members were unstoppable on the track, premier in concours judging, totally dominating anything and everything they touched. At the Boston Parade, the Gold Coast Region took 6 of 10 overall awards in competition against all the Porsche Regions in the USA at that time.

Lee (NMN; just 7 letters) Wood is a self - proclaimed Concours Nut! He certainly leans toward stock condition for his cars, but he’s not above painting the fan shroud Candy Apple Red and will add lots of chrome to highlight the beauty of a Porsche flat-4 or flat-6. If it comes

to modifications, look for a re-jet of the carbs, a space-out to wider rims, and the latest rubber. The man understands the nature of the contact patch and car control. He will also add velocity stacks, trick out the suspension and remove most anything that isn’t bolted on. The idea is that when racing, the car needs to be on a strict diet: weight is the enemy. Only carry enough fuel, and plan on running out of gas just AFTER you cross the start/finish line. At 60hp in a 356B power versus weight is crucial.

When asked: “What do you enjoy doing with your Porsche?” Lee responds: “concours events, autocross, and being with Porsche People!” People are the ticket for Lee. He and Ms. Rosie have been around the big block when it comes to participation. They have attended and competed at five Porsche National Parades. These include the Potomac Region in 1969, Northeast ‘70 in Boston, and Sun Valley in ‘71. Gold Coast Region hosted the Parade held at Colonnades in Palm Beach (1968), where Lee was the Chair of the Social Committee. The last Parade was the North Carolina Region at the Biltmore Estate in 1981. Parade events notwithstanding, Lee and Rosemary have visited Rennfest in the Peachstate Region twice. They traveled to all Sonnefest Parades at both Harder Hall and the Holiday Inn in Sebring with Lee as concours chairman.

Speaking of the 1971 Porsche Parade in Sun Valley Idaho, it was quite the event. Lee, Rosemary,and son Chris attended. They drove from Florida to Sun Valley for Parade 71. Full disclosure, Lee and family “towed” the 356 on a trailer cross country. They did not drive the 356 to Utah. Young Ms. Holly stayed in Florida with family as she was a bit too young to attend.

Road & Track wrote an article for the October 1971 issue about the 16th Annual Porsche Parade. The lead photo for this feature article was none other than Lee, Rosemary and Chris Wood in their 356B cruising along with a 914/6 of Charles Wick (GCR PCA First Club President from 1964). We might surmise that nobody from Gold Coast Region had ever been featured in Road & Track, ever, or since. PHENOMENAL!

We had hoped to see the 356B Lee and Rosemary took to Sun Valley.

Road & Track Pic October 1971 Issue, captioned: “Lee & Rosemary Wood’s 356 (son Chris in back), Charles Wicks’ 914/6, both of Florida’s Gold Coast PCA Region, and Dave Hancock’s 911 from California’s Golden Gate Region at Sun Valley.”

Unfortunately, Lee currently has this Porsche disassembled and stored in a garage somewhere in Miami for a rebuild, which he is doing himself. If you talk to Lee, please encourage him to put the car back together! It certainly is a beauty, and as a multiple concours winner, it deserves to be seen and driven. Come on Lee!!!

Additionally, we have a complete copy of the Road & Track article from the October ‘71 issue. We will have the article posted (with credit and permission from the publishers) to both the GCR Facebook site and our website. The local stores in the Sun Valley area ran out of soft bristle toothbrushes! It is a unique look back at Parade from 50 years ago; the entire issue of the magazine is absolutely nostalgic.

Lee raced. He campaigned the 356B virtually every weekend across Florida, always winning first place in Class D! In his race days competitors ran against all sports cars, not only Porsches. The competition was extreme and it gave him a great edge when they took the troops and cars to National. They raced everywhere: Sebring, Moroso (now Palm Beach International), stock car tracks, the Bay Bottom Crawl in Big Pine Key, and in parking lots of every size and shape.

Beyond life with Porsche and Ms. Rosemary, Lee is an avid SCUBA diver and dive instructor. He is a Founding Member and Vice President of The Active Divers Association. ( Photo in Table of Contents images.) This is a dive club of fifty years based in South Florida. Living in the Keys has its advantages for SCUBA and free diving. Lee also is a boater; he fishes, kayaks, and can be found paddling a board around the mangroves one to two hours each and every day. As if that were not enough, he’s also an avid bicyclist and will ride between 2,000 to 5,000 miles each year. I almost forgot! Rosemary and Lee will “camp” throughout the year in their 17 ft. Casita fiberglass travel trailer. It is difficult to keep up with them, and we are only writing about Lee and Rosemary’s active lifestyle.

Mr. Lee Wood is a car nut. He loves driving, working on the machines (probably why the 356 is in pieces), and enjoys their beauty and power. As a kid, he would sit on his dad’s lap and steer. His other car job as a kid was to name every car model and year as they hit the streets. This was possible for many years until the Asian brands hit our shores and proceeded to copy saturate the auto industry with far too many brands and models to consider, according to Lee.

Asking Lee about his favorite “all- time” Porsche, “has got to be the 550 Spyder!”

Lee joined Gold Coast in 1966. Folks tell him he is the second oldest member of our club. He’s not certain of that distinction, but he will answer to being old. Lee does suggest that since becoming a GC PCA member, “I haven’t been the same since!”

At 80, Lee is going strong. He has not lost his passion for automobiles, especially Porsches. You may note that a recent “enews” announcement from Ian Garada reported that Lee will be hosting a Porsche & Pancakes event at The Hideout in Key Largo. Stop in on the first Saturday of the month and spend some quality time with a Gold Coast legend.

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At first, I thought it was simply the water pipe that had burst, cracked, or disconnected, but I needed to get the car up on a lift to fix the problem. This was easier said than done as finding an experienced Porsche mechanic while stranded in a parking lot in Murphy, NC is next to impossible—who would’ve thought?

However, as luck would have it, I was fortunate enough to speak to a passerby who told me about the Appalachian Driving Experience (https://www.appalachiandriving.com/). By this time of day, they were closed but I gave them a call to see if anyone was around. To my good fortune, Kelly answered. Right out of the gate he was ready to help. He told me they weren’t mechanics, but he was more than happy for me to bring my 911 in (about three miles away) and put it up on the lift, use whatever tools he had and hopefully get back on the road.

Once we (myself, my wife, and our dear friends Dimitri and Lucilla) got to Kelly’s place, Dimitri and I put the 911 on the lift. This is where we noticed coolant coming from the rear driver’s side quadrant. Once we removed the water pump hose, (dropping all four gallons of Porsche coolant on Kelly’s floor), we checked the hose and realized this was not the issue, but rather that the water pump bearings had gone and needed to be replaced.

But you see, being part of the GCR PCA club has its advantages! Within minutes of finding out what was wrong, I was able to speak to a Porsche mechanic. He told me what my options were to fix the car, and another Porsche Club Member told me about uship.com, a website where shippers bid to transport your car.

Realizing we were not going to be able to drive the 911 back home, we decided to leave it for a few nights at Kelly’s place until we organized transportation. Kelly assured me it was safe in his parking lot and that he had a security camera pointing directly at it.

All I had to do now was get back to the quaint little cabin we’d rented in Blairsville—sounds easy, right? With no Uber, Lyft, or cab company in the area we were again faced with a challenge. Hold on though; pump the brakes! Dimitri and Lucilla were still with us, they have a 911 convertible, it has four seats—this could work, right? Two up front and two in the back! Bingo!

So, all four our us hopped—or squeezed, really—into the 911 and took the thirtyminute drive (that felt like hours) back to Blairsville. We had the top down of course because as it turns out, a 6’2’’ person doesn’t fit easily into the back of a 911—go figure, huh?

Three days later, we had successfully hired a driver to take us to the Atlanta airport about 2.5 hours away so we could rent a car for the rest of the trip and secure a shipper named Devin to transport the 911 back to South Florida.

Needless to say, this experience could have been a lot worse had it not been for the following fellow PCA Members and Porsche Enthusiasts who went out of their way to help us get our car home safely.

Dimitri and Lucilla Philippakis (911 Taxi Ride, Emotional Support, and helped us keep a smile on our faces)

Bob Varela (Technical Help)

Danny Smithyman (Helped find a mechanic and shipping information)

Anthony (Technical Help)

Bobby Varela (Technical Help)

Kelly (Thank you for loaning us your premises and for keeping our car safe)

It’s people—or friends, as I so affectionately call them—like these that make this wonderful club live up to the tag line, “It’s Not Just the Cars, It’s the People” .

We gratefully arrived back in South Florida on Monday afternoon in our rental, a charming “Miami Blue” Toyota Camry. The ride was smooth and without incidence, but I’m a Porsche guy throughand-through… which is why I’m happy to report that my fixed 911 was picked up that Tuesday afternoon, raring and ready for its next adventure! Appalachian Driving Experience