Dan Gurney - Doorways to the Past

Sliding sideways in an aluminum time bomb full of gasoline, Dan Gurney became a legend in a era that demanded the ultimate sacrifice from most of its heroes.  That he lived is testament to the power of luck -- and a talent big enough to make room for both victory and survival.  Some few of his contemporaries managed to survive, and continued to drive long past the point at which he retired in 1970.  For the most part is was a mistake for them to continue, their talent diminishing with the baggage of years, their legends eroding away day by day, race by race, like a statue left too long in the rain. 

Gurney was the one who had the sense, and the strength, to step from the stage at the top of his form, like a rocket frozen magically in mid-flight, leaving in the hearts and minds of fans worldwide the indelible image of a star ascending, an American hero at the height of his powers.

Nor did those powers diminish over time, though their focus has been re-directed several times.  Gurney, son of an opera singer and arguably one of the most intelligent men in auto racing, pirouetted gracefully, though not without a talent for brinksmanship -- and the occasional moment of drama – from the cockpit to the corporate suite and the helm of a racing enterprise that has added luster to his legend with successes as a car builder and team manager.

Lending credence to the credo that "When an eagle bends to make its nest, such nests are built as only eagles may inhabit," Gurney's mastery of technology and tactics produced several Indy 500 winners.  And, in 1992, his team won the IMSP GTP driver and manufacturer championships driving Toyota-funded, Toyota-powered cars driven by a new generation of legends; P.J. Jones Jr., son of Parnelli Jones, and Juan Manuel Fangio II, nephew of the five-time world champion.  In recent years, he has focused his energies on an innovative new motorcycle of his own design, called the Alligator, and on the racing career of his son, Alex, who won the 2007 Grand-Am Rolex Series Daytona Prototype championship.

So history marches on, leaving its black-and-white footprints on the walls of the long hallway that connects the front door of Gurney's All-American Racers facility in Santa Ana, California with the shop where his Toyota Eagle racing cars were built... a hundred-foot-long, floor-to-ceiling art gallery covered with frozen moments of time, framed and hung, their very numbers prohibiting more than passing interest by the frequent, awed visitors.

If, as they say, the eyes are windows to the soul, ‚then surely photographs are doorways to the past and on one afternoon that will live forever in memory, Dan Gurney unlocked a few of the most special of those doors, and allowed us to walk through.  On the pages that follow is what we found on the other side.

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Rust and Dust - The stuff that dreams are made of

One of the apocryphal tales that circulates among the ranks of car collectors is of the undiscovered, fabulously valuable classic found in a barn, covered in dust and rust but otherwise completely original.

Two such stories have appeared in AutoWeek recently.  In one a Bugatti Atlantic that was displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and was in storage in the John W. Strauss Collection since 1962 was sold for $400,000 to an ambitious collector/investor/speculator who will no doubt restore it to pristine glory, make a triumphant debut at some near-future Pebble Beach Concours and make a handsome profit somewhere down the line.

http://autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070724/FREE/70720001&SearchID=73290869728059

 

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