The name Ferrari spells speed.
I’ve been in 4.
Sir Robert Guinness drove his Dino into Dublin for drinks at the Shelbourne Hotel. A quiet purring elegance in a slanting Irish rain. My college companion, Dr. Nick Nepola, raced a GTO down Hyland Avenue for me to catch the Staten Island Ferry back to Manhattan. He didn’t stop for any lights. Tiki Yates made Moscow Road in London to Crackington Heath in less than two hours.
The last time was in New York 2001.
I sold a 20-carat Burma Sapphire to Tony Ingrao, interior decorator to the rich and famous. $160,000 with 5 Gs going into my pocket. Tony’s gay. he thought I was sexy. His boyfriend was out of town and he said, “If you let me kiss you, you can drive my Ferrari.”
I had seen it in his 5th Avenue garage. Bucket crash seats. Ferrari red. He only drove it to pick up young boys. I was 50. The car’s top speed was over 170mph and I said, “One kiss.”
I hit 150 on the FDR and nearly totaled it coming off the 42nd Street ramp. Almost only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes. Tony said I was crazy and didn’t bother to collect his kiss. The next day I caught a 747 to Bangkok.
The $5000 lasted 3 months. The baht was nearly 45/dollar.
Am I gay?
Sonny Barger, the Hell’s Angels president said, “You ain’t gay if you get paid for it.”
That made me straight as an arrow, but I have to ask what the Thai customs officials were thinking when they crushed a Ferrari 456 GT this week. The car had been impounded from a garage in Samut Prakan. No one had claimed the vehicle, which had been stripped of several key components. The head of Customs, who has never driven or owned a Ferrari, deducted that no one would purchase the stripped car and ordered its destruction to prevent thieves from profiting from its re-sale.
The auditor-general tried to halt the destruction. “We thought the car could have served a number of useful purposes. It could have been donated to a vocational school so students could learn about its engine, or it could even have been dumped into the sea as an artificial reef.”
Artificial reef?
They could have parked it in my driveway, but sadly there was no stay for the Ferrari’s execution. The sports car valued at 40 million baht of which 30 million were excise tax was crushed by a back-hoe. The hulk was sold for scrap.
10,000 baht.
My friend Jamie Parker says Thai bar girls have the anti-Midas Touch, in that they can turn gold into lead. It seems that this affliction has spread to the government and I don’t think there’s a cure. Not even more money.
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