Friends and old cars, or is that cars and old friends?

It's been quite a while since I blogged. The reasons are fairly typical - being rushed off my feet at work, a fairly hectic travel schedule, and visiting friends. Good friends KK and AS were in town over the weekend and a good deal of time was spent in debating obtuse topics over lots of wine and excellent food.

KK is a old friend and lives in Munich and what endeared him to me when we first met was that he loves cars and photography, two of my own passions. AS who also is an enthusiastic photographer, combines a passion for motorcycles - another of my many diversions.

But, not for KK the pedestrian pursuit of photography as done with a digital point and shoot and mini-lab prints. He wields an antique Linhof plate camera that uses 8X10 sheet film. The pictures that he produces are ethereally beautiful, capable of extremely large enlargements. Due to the relative immobility of his gear, he specializes in landscapes using very small apertures and long shutter speeds to achieve incredible depth of field. His objective for the visit was to capture the fall colors in the aspen trees in the higher elevations of the Rocky Mountains.

His interest in cars is every bit as esoteric as his inclination to photography. He is passionate about old Mercedes-Benz cars and collects them. His current collection in Munich contains a 1978 280SL pagoda roof coupe and a 1960 190D Ponton amongst other very nice old Mercedes. He is still hopeful that he will make the proverbial discovery in a disused barn of a 1959 300SL.

This is of course the classic-car lover's version of alchemy. The story goes something like this: Our protagonist is helping a friend clear out the run-down farm of a distant and now deceased relative, and upon opening up the ramshackle barn is confronted with a large object covered in a tarpaulin. Upon whipping off the tarpaulin and recovering from an attack of sneezes brought on by decades of dust collected thereupon, he glimpses the bulging and curvaceous flanks of a 1950s Mercedes. Closer inspection reveals a gull-wing 300SL in silver with cracked red leather upholstery, sitting on rotted deflated tires. Then begins the long, painful and expensive process of restoration, culminating in the winning of the Pebble Beach Concours. The transformation of a hunk of junk from the barn to a half-million dollar super sports car. Alchemy indeed.

The colors of the aspen were truly breathtaking this weekend and we tooled along the Peak to Peak Highway in crisp 65 degree weather with eyeball-searing colors on either side of the highway, talking old Mercedes. I can't think of a better way to spend a fall Saturday morning.

Mercedes
Classic Cars
Photography