28 minute read
Dream Garage
BY KATE CONSTANTIN
FOLLOW YOUR
(Three-Pointed) STAR!
The 2021 MERCEDES-BENZ 300 SL CLASSIC
A car for all seasons, all roads and almost all drivers
Randy Elber traces the curves in his 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster.
Above: Dannie and Craig McLaughlin give the Classic two thumbs up.
This should be the caveat for the 300 SL Classic tour!” joked John Willott, President of the 300 SL Foundation, when he called to invite me to ride on the 2021 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Classic tour. In hindsight, I can see why: in the space of five days participants aged from 32 to 92 encountered sun, sleet, and snow, climbed to over 14,000 feet, and covered over 1,200 miles. “These cars were built to drive,” said John. “They need exercise!”
The 300 SL Classic was the brainchild of Tom Thornhill, long-term owner of a 1955 Gullwing and marque enthusiast, who recalls, “One night in 2017, I was having a few drinks with Craig McLaughlin at the closing dinner of The Colorado Grand, and he said, ‘I’ll do it!’ The 300 SL Foundation and Board were formed and the Classic was conceived!”
Craig, director of the 300 SL Foundation, purchased his dream car—a 1957 300 SL roadster—in 2011 in San Francisco, where it had been garaged since 1977. “When I was a kid,” he says, “my parents bought me a slot-car race track and it came with two cars, a Jaguar XK 120 and a Mercedes 300 SL. I fell in love with the SL and my fate was sealed!”
Together Craig and Tom mapped out a route, sent the information to Gull Wing Group members and other 300 SL enthusiasts, and in the fall of 2018 the first 300 SL Classic explored northern Arizona. A roaring success, it was followed by the oversubscribed 2019 Classic through Monument
— Craig McLaughlin
Valley, Zion and Arches National Park of Utah. The third Classic took place this past September, when 47 coupes and roadsters, 100 drivers and navigators, two hospitality directors, three photographers, two luggage and soirée hosts, and a crew of four marque mechanics, complete with a fully stocked Mercedes-Benz parts truck and flatbed, drove from Colorado Springs to Santa Fe, New Mexico. “This is the most fun you can have with a 300 SL—but it is not for the faint of heart,” says Craig.
The mystique of the 300 SL, with its iconic Gullwing doors and voluptuous profile, is globally appreciated. From 1951 through 1952, the race iteration of the model took first and second at Le Mans and a clean sweep of first through fourth at the Nürburgring. Production started in 1954 and continued
Dean and Allison Rogers power through the rain in their 1955 Gullwing.
Steve and Kimmy Brauer pose in their 1961 Roadster.
George Bunting’s Gullwing poses with doors spread wide at the top of Ridgway Pass in Colorado, with a stunning view of snow-capped peaks in the distance.
until 1963 by which time about 1,400 coupes (more often, called “Gullwings” for their uplifted doors) and 1,858 roadsters had been built. “These cars aren’t just rare and amazing to look at,” says John Willott, “but they are the scions of a postwar racing champion. To see almost 50 of these cars on the road at the same time—it doesn’t get any better than that.”
DAY ONE Colorado Springs to Aspen (196 miles)
Shifting gears to day one of the tour, after a brief drivers’ meeting, participants departed from the Broadmoor—an opulent hotel built in 1918 in Colorado Springs—and headed for the open roads of Colorado, route book in hand and adventure in heart. The first leg was up Pikes Peak in the celebrated tracks of the Stutz Bearcat of William Brown, who, in 1913, first scaled the infamous 12-mile, 14,115-foot peak in five hours and 28 minutes. For this segment of the tour, I sat beside John Willott in his gorgeous 1955 silver Gullwing, as he artfully passed three 50-foot semis on the elusive straights between 360-degree switchbacks, whilst ascending a 7% gradient, toggling between first and second gears.
Most of the 300 SLs scaled Pikes Peak in under an hour, stopping at the summit just long enough to appreciate the effects of 43% less oxygen on the human brain and the 3-liter, 6-cylinder engine of the SL. “You can feel the decrease in power,” John remarked. “That said—mission accomplished!”
John’s Gullwing was built for Prince Paul von Metternich of Austria and it was built specifically for racing. The car ran at Le Mans in 1956, having already participated in the Italian Mille Miglia, where it came in 2nd in class and 6th overall,
Brown Maloney, a hard-core all-weather driver, kept his top down no matter the weather.
Bob and Dave Baker in their 1955 Gullwing.
bearing the same number John uses today: 504. John’s father, a master machinist, purchased the car in 1966 and set about transforming it into the ultimate everyday driver. “My dad threw a rope over the limb of an oak tree in our yard to hoist the body off the car,” recalls John Jr. “He laid out sheets on the living room floor, one for the engine and another for the transmission. Great days!” John Sr. rebuilt the wiring harness and added an extra-large fan for cooling, a sports cam and electric fuel pumps, as well as hand-crafting a beautiful wooden dash. In 1969, John took his high-school friend, Ann, for a spin. “When we got back, I asked her how she liked it,” says John. “She said, ‘Can it go any faster?’ That was the moment I knew I would marry her!”
A Gullwing is dwarfed by the mountains of Colorado.
— John Willott
Above: Glenn Rudner and Mary Beth Beasley brought an amazing all-original 1955 Gullwing, posed here at a lunch stop at Midway Schoolhouse in Paonia, Colorado. Right: John Willott and Kate Constantin stand beside John’s 1955 Gullwing at the top of Pikes Peak, elevation 14,115 feet. Willott’s car passes boulders stacked like monuments.
Having scaled Pikes Peak, the descent was a breeze—for most. In line for the parking lot at the top, Martin Button and his co-pilot Sandra suffered a stalled engine and, to add insult to injury, their starter quit. The steep road was alarmingly narrow with harrowing drop-offs on both sides. Quick as a flash, Sandra signaled to the cars behind to hold while Martin coasted the 300 SL backward down the slope, dropped into reverse and popped the clutch to bump-start the car. With the engine running, they did a 9-point turn on the narrow roadway and took off downhill to the jubilant clamor of onlookers!
(Thanks to the marvelous machinations of the mechanics from the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center—Nate Lander, Nick Antonio and Robert Webster, under the direction of Mike Kunz—a new gear reduction starter unit was fitted and the lovely ivory roadster was raring to go the following morning.)
Next we motored by the Garden of the Gods with its towering edifices of red rock pushed up through the surface of the earth some two billion years ago as tectonic plates collided. Lunch was in the little town of Buena Vista, then we continued west through the breathtaking Twin Lakes and over Independence Pass at 12,095 feet, surrounded by giant boulders of pink granite. Superb planning and benevolent weather facilitated the most stunning scenery, set against aspen trees turning from green to gold and sending sheets of gilded pennies flying in the wake of motorcars.
Above: Kate Constantin in Brown Maloney’s roadster.
After 196 miles of high-adrenaline motoring, we arrived in Aspen, where the 300 SLs lined up in the basement parking lot of The Little Nell, an exclusive boutique hotel named for a mining claim made in the late 1800s. The luxurious ski resort was once a hub of silver mining and was the first town west of the Mississippi to get electricity, in 1885.
As we took the elevator up to the reception desk, we came across Helmut Reiss and his co-pilot, Danica. “What a day!” remarked Helmut, owner of the “Black Prince,” a 1962 roadster that overheated and had to be flat-bedded to Aspen while Helmut and Danica drove a 21 AMG GT 63 coupe
Drivers found themselves dodging cascades as well as raindrops.
Above: George Bunting on the rooftop garage of La Posada de Santa Fe.
provided by Mercedes. “Our car broke down, but we still got to see some of the most beautiful countryside in America in a fantastic Mercedes!”
Once again, thanks to the trouble-shooting masterminds of the mechanic crew, the Black Prince was back on the road for day two, with a new thermostat and two very happy occupants. DAY TWO Aspen to Gateway (235 miles)
Bright and early on day two, I co-piloted for Brown M. Maloney, owner of a lovely 1957 roadster that he purchased in 1993 with 74,000 miles. “I love these cars!” said Brown, who has toured both Australia and Israel with the roadster. “They have everything: beauty, sex-appeal, performance, gravitas and track heritage! The 300 SL is really just a thinly veiled racecar.” At the drivers’ meeting we learned that there was some inclement weather awaiting us on the road to Gateway, 235 miles west of Aspen. “No problem,” beamed Brown. “We won’t get wet with the top down if we drive fast enough!”
Sure enough, we made it through the Redstone Historic District with only a minor dousing, and on to Paonia, where my navigation skills were sorely tested as we drove past our lunch stop—twice! Following a tardy but sumptuous lunch, we motored on by Grand Junction and made it to Gateway Canyons Resort—just in time for cocktails at the resident automobile museum. All around us, glowing in the setting sun, the austere buttresses of red rock stood like sentinels posted across the landscape.
DAY THREE Gateway to Santa Fe (403 miles)
The third day of the tour placed me in a superb 1956 silverover-red Gullwing with George Bunting of Baltimore, Maryland. Although George could find no documented history for the car, a small spherical light on the righthand side of the top-dash, used to signal the car’s identity to the pit mechanics, suggested that the car may have been raced. “This car is moving sculpture,” remarked George as we set out for Santa Fe, New Mexico, under very heavy skies. “The iconic styling and engineering were way ahead of their time . . . but the windshield wipers really suck!”
The rain came down in sheets as we departed Gateway Canyon and drivers ahead of us texted snapshots of snow on their windshields. (“Don’t worry,” texted Martin from 50 miles ahead, “If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, just wait half an hour!”) Luckily, we did not encounter snow— only dense fog, driving rain, and hail. George used the wipers intermittently with the lights, so as not to drain the battery. “In a Gullwing you have two choices,” he explained, “enjoy visibility with the windshield wipers going or with the lights on! You can’t do both!”
On the world-famous Million Dollar Highway, we cut through great forests of aspen that oxidized the valley walls with a translucent blush. The route climbed to over 11,000 feet, well above the tree-line and through lunar landscapes, looking down on the lilliputian villages of Silverton and Ouray. George skillfully navigated hairpin bends, skirting the mountains on single track roads with signs that warned “Watch out for falling rocks and wildlife,” while veering around murky rock-laced cascades emptying out onto the road before us. “Note there are no guard rails up here,” commented Shawn McGregor, the flatbed driver who followed us up the pass and stopped with us at the summit to take photos. “That’s to enable the snow plows to push the snow off the edge of the mountain. There’s a memorial up here somewhere in memory of all the snow plow drivers who didn’t make it!” With this information nervously absorbed, we set off for Durango and lunch.
THESE CARS AREN’T JUST RARE & AMAZING TO LOOK AT, BUT THEY ARE THE SCIONS OF A POSTWAR RACING CHAMPION. “
— John Willott
Jan and Michael Friberg’s Roadster nears Gateway Canyons Resort in Gateway, New Mexico.
Above Right : Craig and Hanne Ekberg wait patiently, as do others, while a road crew removes loose rock from a cliff face above our route. Right: Sandra and Martin Button sporting pullovers from the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Way to represent!
— Craig Ekberg
Over a burger and root beer float, we chatted with the most senior members of our little group, Egon and Tila Hagemann, aged 92 and 91 respectively. Egon and Tila emigrated separately from Germany to the United States in 1959, met over Kaffee und Kuchen, and have been to every 300 SL convention in the US and Germany since 1992, often in their 1957 roadster. “We’ve been driving together for a long time,” smiles Tila as she takes Egon’s hand at the table, “and I’m still a terrible navigator!” Egon nods and says, “That’s true, but we always get there in the end. I’m a great driver, but she still tells me how to drive after all these years! I don’t like to see brake lights ahead, so I get up close to overtake. I like to say I have never rear-ended anyone, but one or two cars have backed into me!” Egon winks.
Back on the road we head for Santa Fe via Pagosa Springs and Espanola, bypassing the “Uranium Drive-In” gas station and stopping at one of the few stations to carry the high octane/ non-ethanol fuel these cars need to operate efficiently at altitude. Close to 6 pm we arrive at La Posada Santa Fe, ready for some libation while comparing notes with old friends and new acquaintances. This year’s tour was equally divided between those who had participated previously in a 300 SL Classic and those who were newcomers, such as Glenn Rudner and Mary Beth Beasley, pathologists (forensic and pulmonary respectively) in Manhattan. Their car, a 1955 Gullwing, is an unrestored “barn find”—literally; it was discovered in a barn with 18,000 miles on the odometer. Marque specialist Randy Elber not only found the car, he made it run and drive. “And not just drive, but drive up Pikes Peak no less!” enthused Glenn. When asked what two pathologists discuss over dinner, Glenn revealed, “Dead bodies and diseased lungs! Oh, and cars of course!”
The 300 SL of Ed and Tina Knoll complements the craggy monoliths.
DAY FOUR Santa Fe Loop I (254 miles)
Day four rolled around, and I found myself seated beside Craig Ekberg (also known as Sir Craig) for a circular outing from La Posada up through Taos to Red River for lunch. Craig’s 1955 Gullwing was fully restored in 2000 and is fitted with a racing kit. “These cars are 70 years old, and back in the day they were the fastest cars out there. They are meant to be driven—fast.” In addition to his passion for driving fast cars, Craig is the team captain of the Tiger Squadron, a formation flying team of 20 pilots who execute precision acrobatic demonstrations in a variety of vintage aircraft.
In 2019, Craig took his Gullwing to England and decided he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit the Goodwood Motor Circuit. He arrived at the end of the day when the Lotus race team was leaving the track. “I asked an official if I could take a spin around the track,” recalls Craig, “but he said ‘no.’ I told him I had come all the way from California to drive the Goodwood track, and I showed him my CA license plate. He told me to wait there.” The official disappeared and after a few moments returned, jumped in a Porsche Cayenne and told Craig to follow him.
“We tore around that track and it was fantastic!” says Craig, “One of the highlights of my life!”
Sure enough, Craig put his Gullwing—and me—through our paces, winding the engine up to 6,000 rpm before overtaking, and cruising at speeds just “slightly” north of the limit. Notably, unlike the Italian supercars that hunker down and crouch through acceleration, the Gullwing seems to lift and soar, defying its mighty 2,800 lbs of bulk, in an almost out-of“metal”-body experience. Needless to say, we got to lunch and back to La Posada in record time.
DAY FIVE Santa Fe Loop II (213 miles)
The final day of the tour was a leisurely trip out to the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort in Bernalillo, via the small bohemian village of Madrid. Bob Baker needed a navigator, as his son, David, had to return home. Instead of a navigator, Bob got me, quite possibly the worst map-reader in the group. Somewhat predictably, we overshot the lunch stop.
Shortly after Bob acquired his 1955 Gullwing, he took it on a rally in Utah where the group encountered a sandstorm. “We got totally sandblasted, and the fine sand got into every corner of the interior,” says Bob. “The bumpers looked like brushed aluminum, and I was really concerned the sand had gotten into the engine.” Bob had the car fully restored in 2010 by the in-house restoration atelier at the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, California, where they assured him that the engine was perfectly fine. “These cars are fantastic; just look at the aerodynamic design! Plus, they are reliable. I don’t care how beautiful a car is, if it is wed to the flatbed, it’s no good to me!” As we motored back to base through heavy Santa Fe traffic under a hot fall sun, the temperature inside the
An overview of 300 SLs converging at the Midway Schoolhouse.
Gullwing cabin rose significantly. “It can get to be a sauna in here,” Bob commented, lifting his door to cool the interior at a red light, much to the amazement of motorists all around us. “The payback for having excellent visibility is the ‘Gullwing greenhouse’ effect.”
The Classic culminated in a lavish dinner at which prizes were awarded and money was raised for the various charities supported by the Gull Wing Group—the Make-aWish Foundation and McPherson College. Students in the Automotive Restoration Technology Program at McPherson are restoring a 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300 S Cabriolet in the hope of having it invited to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2023, and the Gull Wing Foundation raises funds to support the program and ensure the longevity of dying restoration skills.
New friends and old said their farewells, exchanged contact information, airdropped photos, and lingered on the patio to prolong the five-day event for a few more precious moments.
“It has been fantastic,” remarked Sandra Button. “Great cars, fantastic venues, amazing scenery, all types of weather, and some very memorable driving. All in all, a wonderful adventure with great friends.” Her husband, Martin, added, “We are ready for the next tour in 2022. Drive while you are alive. You can sleep when you’re dead!”
PANNING
Guilliams treasures this McFarlan TV 6, which was most likely a Special Sport Phaeton when it emerged from the factory.
My Life with McFarlan
BY JOHN GUILLIAMS
FOR GOLD
Housing a glass tube to indicate radiator temperature, the standard McFarlan moto-meter bears the insignia of a thistle, denoting the family’s Scottish origins.
I have always loved automobiles—the history, engineering and design have piqued my interest ever since I was a boy—and the McFarlan in particular has played a special role in my life.
Why? I love a good antique car lead—and to be a McFarlan enthusiast, you have to be a detective, because these cars are ultimately rare and exquisitely nuanced. Although the McFarlan Motor Company produced about 100 automobiles annually between 1909 and 1928, there are probably only about 20 existing in the U.S. today. How is that not fascinating?
All that said, the McFarlan did not feature early in my automotive history. I was raised in Orinda, California, and had an affinity for engineering. In 1965, when I was 15, my physics teacher would have me work on his car during physics class (and I always got excellent marks!). A local father also hosted a Boy Scout group focused on restoring Model A Fords. We would work on antique cars on the weekends, and we were constantly asking at service stations and garages if they knew of any old cars we could buy and restore. I called it “panning for gold,” because you never knew what “nugget” you would find in an old barn or garage. We found a 1917 Mercedes, a 1910 Rausch and Lang electric, and many old Fords—but most of the time the buyers for William Harrah’s collection were one step ahead of us, with much deeper pockets. Nevertheless, it was fun. In about 1967, I wrote to Boys’ Life—the Boy Scouts magazine—to tell them what we were doing, and they sent world-famous Life magazine photographer Phillipe Halsman to photograph us! Fabulous automobiles were just woven into the very fabric of my life.
Soon, I took an after-school job with a local gentleman named Owen Owens, who was often a participant and would soon be a Best of Show winner at the Pebble Beach Concours. He asked if I was interested in hauling a 1935 Lincoln from Tulare, in the central valley of California, to Oakland. Always up for a challenge (and a paycheck), I loaded the 5,500-pound behemoth onto my flatbed and very carefully towed it to his Oakland facility, called “The Garage.” A converted old muffler shop, The Garage was a hub for classic car collectors in the Bay Area; I recall that Lorin Tryon, Co-Chairman of the Concours for nearly three decades, had his Packard Darrin Convertible on view there for some time. Owens and his friends gathered there every day, bringing their automobiles for repair or storage, and I did everything for them, from hauling and driving to painting and repair. Owens would say, “I have this car I need you to move. You can take it to school and then bring it to The Garage afterwards.” So I would drive to school in a 1956 Cadillac, or a 1936 Packard Convertible Coupe V12, or a 1929 Model A Town Car. . . . Basically, I was paid to play.
Jack Dempsey, seen here in a McFarlan Roadster, was among the many celebrities who favored the marque.
Above: A driver’s perspective of Guilliams’ special sport phaeton. Right: Remnants of this badly weathered mid-1920s McFarlan may serve as patterns for needed replacement parts.
One day, Owens’ friend Scott Newhall, Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and already a Pebble Beach Best of Show winner, asked me to move a car for him—a 1925 McFarlan Twin Valve Six, Type 154. I was stunned when I saw it; it was the most amazing automobile I had ever seen. It was monstrous—a Knickerbocker Cabriolet—with room for five passengers in the rear compartment, having auxiliary seats that tucked into the driver’s partition, and elegant upholstery that was still in good condition. I think it was originally black and green, and it had an aura about it; it was not ostentatious, but a thing of beauty and quality—the epitome of wealth and elegance in the roaring twenties. (This very car now belongs to the National Automobile Museum, formerly the Harrah Collection, and will be on the Concours show field in August.)
That was my first experience of the McFarlan, and I was smitten.
Over the next 38 years, I continued my work restoring and repairing automobiles, while also researching the McFarlan marque. During the same period, I studied engineering and conservation of natural resources at the University of California Berkeley, built a home in the Berkeley hills, designed and built a railroad and grist mill for a friend, and— with my wife and family—planted a vineyard and built a home and winery in St. Helena. It was a busy time.
I managed to collect a few cars over the years, including several Cadillacs, a Cunningham, and three Rolls-Royce motor cars. Then in 2007, two friends were at an antique car swap meet in Bakersfield and came across a couple of McFarlans—two out of a mere 20 existing in this country! They told me about them, knowing my penchant for the rare marque, and, without hesitation, I bought them both, sight unseen. I was fascinated.
In the late 1920s, when the Ford Model A cost around $500 brand new, the McFarlan had a price of around $10,000, depending on custom features, and was the auto-idol of the rich and famous, including Jack Dempsey, Fatty Arbuckle, and Al Capone, who bought one for himself and one for his wife. McFarlan was one of a select few American marques—along with Pierce-Arrow, Cunningham, Packard and Rolls-Royce— that catered to the top echelons of society in the 1910s and ’20s, and yet so few people in America, or the world, have ever heard of McFarlan today. To purchase two examples felt like an honor and a privilege.
One of the cars was a 1923 TV 6 Roadster—or so I thought. On inspection, I surmised that the car was original from the rear fender panel forward. But the side panels behind the doors featured an intriguing series of bolt holes and a female light socket, which was correct for a Special Sport Phaeton, according to a sketch I had acquired. I knew immediately that the car had been modified. This car remains unrestored and still wears the TV 6 Roadster body to this day. (Interestingly, at some point, mechanics also made it into an “electromotive” car. They removed the transmission and installed a monstrous electric generator that powered a DC electric motor running the rear axle. There were more than 20 batteries in the rear of the roadster, and as you applied the accelerator, it rotated a circular oak beam studded with brass bars that, in turn, engaged the batteries to increase power to the rear axle. What a feat of engineering!)
Above: Charlie Chaplin bids a woman good day alongside a McFarlan phaeton.
Guilliams first glimpsed a McFarlan when he was asked to move this 1925 Town Car, now located in The Harrah Collection of the National Auto Museum.
Right: This magnificent 1923 McFarlan Knickerbocker Cabriolet, once owned by Fatty Arbuckle, now resides in the Nethercutt Collection. Below: A McFarlan taillight. Below Right: An engine valve cover.
The second of the pair from Bakersfield was a Sedan, but the discovery of a pink slip for the chassis (talk about panning for gold!) shows it originally had a Roadster body—and I plan to restore that bodywork to it.
With this restoration at the top of my to-do list shortly after the acquisition, I located a gentleman in upstate New York with a stash of McFarlan parts, including transmissions. I drove a Penske truck to his place during a snowstorm and discovered a veritable McFarlan gold mine. There were original coils, headlights, and even a chassis complete with radiator, engine and transmission, which was so rusty it sank into the truck bed. I drove that truck all the way back to California feeling like I had struck gold!
In all, I now own four McFarlan automobiles, including the two aforementioned from Bakersfield. The third McFarlan I acquired is a chassis with serial number D2000V (for the fall of 1920), which could well be the first McFarlan TV 6 chassis built in Connersville, Indiana. The fourth is a 1925 Roadster Type 142 that was badly damaged in a fire when a battery charger in the trunk ignited. Unfortunately, the upper wood body and the upholstery were lost, but the lower body framework is intact.
I call all these enormous wood-framed automobiles “road locomotives” for a reason: they had to be extremely rugged to function. In the 1920s, roads were largely dirt and gravel, and a car had to be substantial to be able to fly along at 45 mph bearing monstrous engines, titanic weight, and elegant coachwork and interiors. It’s no wonder few marques were able to provide an appropriate product.
The McFarlan engine was an important element of the marque’s initial success; the 573-cubic-inch Twin Valve Six with three spark plugs per cylinder (which closely emulated the much-admired Pierce-Arrow Dual Valve Six) was renowned for its dependability and durability, as well as its over-the-top aesthetics with 48 nickel-plated head nuts. With so much power under the hood, stopping was an issue. In order to tame the beast, McFarlan introduced hydraulic brakes to the TV 6 series in 1923, well ahead of many of its peers— and just two years after Duesenberg.
The idea, of course, is to restore all of these lovely automobiles to their original specification and condition. But the events of life—not the least of which was the Glass Fire that ripped through our home amidst burning 11,000 acres of Napa and Sonoma Counties in September of 2020—have delayed my plans.
Meanwhile, I continue my research and my endless hunt for McFarlan history and objects. In addition to tapping into the huge community of likeminded collectors and historians, I “pan for gold” on the internet, constantly trolling eBay and the like for memorabilia and documentation, such as photos of Jack Dempsey and Charlie Chaplin with McFarlans, original catalogues and brochures, and even a postcard of a McFarlan race car mailed from Healdsburg, California, while the McFarlan race team toured the West Coast.
At one point, I bought the firewall ID plate from Jack Passey’s McFarlan for $5—another gold nugget! And just this past December I purchased a radiator cap complete with motometer for a McFarlan radiator. (The moto-meter, mounted above the radiator cap, is a glass tube filled with red alcohol, which indicates the radiator temperature.) The insignia for McFarlan is a thistle, denoting the McFarlan family’s Scottish origins, and it is front and center on all McFarlan radiator caps—except this one. This cap is engraved with the name A.H. McFarlan (for McFarlan Motor Corporation creator and president Alfred Harry McFarlan, who lived from 1881 to 1937), and it is quite possible this is the radiator cap from his personal car.
People ask me, “What is so special about the McFarlan?” The honest answer is that a McFarlan automobile probably isn’t that different from its peers—Pierce-Arrow, Packard, Cunningham or Rolls-Royce. The designers and engineers that created these pieces of art had skills and methods that
Guilliams sometimes refers to his McFarlans as “road locomotives” because they had the power and reliability to move the massive creations over often rugged roads. Below: This letter from Scott Newhall, then-editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, is among the trove of McFarlan correspondence and documents collected by Guilliams.
are largely lost in today’s auto-community—such as how to sweat-solder nickel onto a part—and when you discover some nuance or technique or document, it is like driving a time machine and unlocking the secrets of a bygone era. These magnificent marques of the early 20th century are all worthy of adulation, but the McFarlan is so rare and so unknown outside of enthusiasts’ circles that it feels deserving of my time and effort to discover and reveal as much as I possibly can.
I am panning for posterity.
2022 CHARITY DRAWING
One of the primary objectives of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is giving back to the community and those in need. Through the annual Charity Drawing, a select group of charities can raise much-needed funds by giving donors the opportunity to win cars donated by our generous sponsors—and the charities get to keep 100% of the proceeds.
Our Charity Drawing Partners:
We Thank the Manufacturers who are Participating in the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Charity Drawing:
