Greetings from Australia!
Your editor, Dapper Don Weberg, always says he would like more lobster, so from the previous story of “Big Lobsters and MGb GT,” here is some background of the legendary Hollywood Sport Cars and the great time they had.
The dealership was started by the Vandagriff family at 5766 Hollywood Boulevard in 1960 and continued on to 1993. It was created by Charles “Chic” Vandagriff (1928 to 2011), along with his daughter Julie as vice president and son Chris as general manager. At one time it was the oldest continuous Ferrari dealership in the USA and the second biggest Ferrari dealer in the world. As well as the Ferrari franchise, they also sold other European products, including many MGs.
They were committed to modifying and racing potent race MGBs and Sunbeam Alpines and V8 Tigers as SCCA authorised production cars. There are multitudes of success stories about other race cars they competed and won with. A very heavy hitter was the ground shaking McLaren M1a/Mk1 chassis #20/09 with Chevy V8 power, (and a McLaren M6b) which was purchased by Chic Vandagriff in 1965. It was not intended to be a race car, but was later modified by Doane Spencer (crew chief, yes, the hot rodder) and others at Hollywood Sport Cars and campaigned as a Can Am car (raced in the very first Can Am event in St. Jovite, Canada) with Jerry Titus as Series Driver.
The Vandagriff family were very successful businesspeople, but they also had great reputations as being just good, all-around people too. In fact, many mentions have been made of this in numerous articles.
Some of the customers paid up front for new Ferrari and other were somewhat slower with their transactions; a “Daytona Formula Junior” blog in 2004 wrote how Chic would see a certain gentleman on the showroom floor, “Standing in a puddle of drool whenever there was a Ferrari Daytona on the floor.” He would say, “Why don’t you buy it?” The gent’s answer was, “can’t afford it.” Chic’s response was, “start a Daytona bank account and promise to put good money into it each month.” In 2003 there was finally enough in the account for him to buy Daytona #13663! With foresight, a great investment if he kept it! Some people though, would buy on the spot! One day the Ferrari showroom was visited by the five member “Rolling Stones” pop group. They walked into the dealership and purchased two Ferraris each (a total of 10 Ferraris!!). Some other notable Ferrari customers were Steve McQueen, Alice Cooper, and a singer called Elvis Presley. There is also an interesting tale of the first USA Ferrari 400 V12 with an automatic transmission and how the Vandagriffs were instrumental in its creation. The franchise was finished in 1971 though, when Ferrari decided to open Ferrari of Los Angeles as a direct outlet. This would, of course, later become Ferrari of Beverly Hills.
So who knows what Ferrari the Lobster MGb GT shared showroom or yard space with?
Now, take your favourite car for a run and smile!
