Automotive

Let me show you some of the participants and the scenery: here's an XK 150 which has a wider grille, better brakes and more room inside.

A bit fatter in the bum and more civilized...



And a Cadillac (shades of Briggs Cunningham) which was surprisingly fast.



The Big Red car is a Chrysler 300 - a real monster of a car in the Fifties



There was a pack of Panteras and this really fine lightweight all alloy Jag. Its owner keeps it in England and has his collection manager fly it over when he wants to drive an event. 

"Cheaper than registering it in the US" he said ... I asked around to find out what this guy did for a living ... "Microsoft employee #5" I recall was the answer.



It was a very pleasant group to be with - no big competition or egos, just mutual enjoyment of the cars and scenery.







After going into a few historic, scenic places we headed for a small car show in the center of town. It was not related to our event, but it was great fun to see what the locals drive.

Taos is a bit like the Glastonbury of the US, if you like to channel your local ley lines into the cosmic vortex.





BTW our event was organized by Denise McCluggage (shown below) a well-known automotive writer, and our guest speaker was Phil Hill, F1 world champion in 1961 and 3 times Le Mans winner.

Denise wrote from the San Francisco Chronicle in the early 1950s. While covering a yacht race, she met Briggs Cunningham, who built the first American cars to race at Le Mans. She bought an MG TC, and began racing at small club events. In 1954 she moved to New York to write for NY Herald Tribune. Buying an Jaguar XK140; she began to race professionally, and earned respect as a driver. Her trademark was a white helmet with pink dots. She won the grand touring category at Sebring in a Ferrari 250 GT in 1961, and took a class win in the Monte Carlo Rally in a Ford Falcon in 1964. She also participated in the 1000-km race at the Nürburgring. She drove Porsches, Maseratis, and other racing cars of many marques, often with another woman driver, Pinkie Rollo. She stopped racing in the late 1960s but continued writing and helped start AutoWeek magazine. 

Back at our hotel we found an unhappy man with a Aston Martin, unable to keep it running. For novice mechanics, let's just say the thin air at 7000+ ft elevation plays havoc with the fuel mixture in a carbureted car, and when you have a high-strung engine with multiple carbs like he did, well...

He complained there wasn't a good mechanic within 500 miles, and I'm sure he was correct, as he lived in the high desert a few hundred miles south of Taos. Steve and I jumped in with both feet, as we were expert SU carburetor tuners (at least in our own minds) and we had the car running like a champ within a half hour. The guy was so excited he gave us his card and said "After the event, stop by my restaurant and have lunch on me!"

Please come back for the return trip report

Cazalea

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