Bobby Whitlock's 2.2S

[23e Heure]

Last night I attended the UK premiere of the Eric Clapton documentary "Life In 12 Bars".

The producers got access to scads of Clapton and friend's 8 and 16mm home movies, much of it shot at Clapton's home in Surrey.

At one point a signal orange 911 shoots up Clapton's drive and Bobby Whitlock jumps out, grinning.

I had a look at Whitlock's autobiography, in which he reveals that Eric bought the car (a 2.2S) and - when Bobby took a liking to it - gave it to Bobby as a gift.

He tells a fun tale about taking the car to the house after he and Eric had finished their first gig as the (yet to be named) "Derek & The Dominoes" line up:

After the gig I offered Catherine James a ride back to Eric's with me in my new car . She accepted my offer and we were off.
It always rains in England, and that day was no exception. It had just stopped and we were tearing down the A1.

As we went through Esher the car aquaplaned and started to spin around. I just looked at Catherine and she was looking back at me. There was nothing that I could do except not panic and hold on.

We were doing about ninety when this happened. I watched as the picnic table sitting on a knoll go by my front windshield three times before we hit the grassy knoll.

I never turned the wheel. Instead, I slammed it into third gear and put the pedal to the metal and that car came off of that knoll and back onto the road and caught hold of it like a slot car. It came out of the hole like a rocket.

Catherine was holding on with both hands, her eyes wide open so much that they looked like they were going to pop out. She was completely white-knuckling the whole ride.

Just before you get to Eric's house there is a tunnel that goes down to a single lane. The stone walls on either side of it are about twenty-five feet tall, and it's a winding road where you have to stop and take turns letting the other car through. It is just a half-mile series of S-bends.

It was a very good thing that no one was coming the other way that day because we drove straight through them at a very high rate of speed. I was going very fast, way too fast to be driving after the rain.

We never stopped once and never slowed down at all, and not a word was said the whole way there. It must have had something to do with the combination of the output of the car and the intensity of that blow that I had taken before we left London.
Either way you look at it, I should have never been behind the wheel that day.

We made it to Eric's relatively unscathed, but Catherine was looking pretty shocked and kind of green around the gills, and there was grass and dirt caught up all under the front and rear of the car. We had just literally cut a path through that freshly rained-on wet grass and kept on going. She never rode with me again.

[Tosh]

A3 goes to Esher...

[23e Heure]

Yeah, well Bobby and the others took a lot of drugs, road numbers probably get a bit fuzzy when you write your memoirs decades later

He goes on to tell how he then went on to break the steering and simply gave up on the car... And immediately chopped it in for a Ferrari

I went into London the very next day, after cleaning the Porsche up as best I could, and took it to a dealership. They weren't interested in it because of the little mishap I had with it.

Fair enough, I thought, so I got back in it to go home. As I was turning sharply left into a very tiny mews my left front wheel got caught on a cornerstone. I was going very slowly as I was in the middle of London, but rather than back it off, I tried to gun it through and the left wheel popped out, and almost came completely off! It had broken the tie rod end.

That was all the excuse that I needed. I left the car sitting there and called a hire car and had them take me towards Eric's place out on the Al, but not all the way there.
You see, there was a beautiful red 330 GTC Ferrari that I had been seeing and longing for every day that I drove into or out of London on that S-curve in that little village near Eric's. It was secondhand and two years old, but looked immaculate.

It was still in the window when I had passed earlier on my drive into town to try to get rid of the Porsche, so I had the driver take me there and drop me off because I had a plan that I knew would work.

I walked into the dealership and had my car registration in my hand. I told the salesman that I had a brand new Porsche 911S 2.2 sitting in a mews up in London and told him where and what had happened, including the spinout. I told him that I would swap him even for the Red Ferrari. He said, "It's a deal!" I gave him the registration and signed it over, and he did the same with the Ferrari, and I drove it away to Eric's.

When I got there he couldn't believe that the salesman traded without even seeing the Porsche. I had wanted that car ever since I saw it and now it was mine. Eric knew that I had wanted it so he didn't mind that I had swapped the car that he had bought for me. He was happy that I got the Ferrari because he knew that I wanted one just like his.

That car rocked!

I found a pic of the 330, but couldn't find the 911.

[inaglasshouse]

Hmmmm. A signal orange 2.2S you say.
Registered before June 1970 (date of the the gig to which you refer).
Anyone know the Reg?
Cheers, Richard.

[23e Heure]

I think you get a very brief glimpse of the plate during the doco.
So, worst case, you can wait watch that when it’s available for rental/purchase.

As for the colour... I’m 90%sure it was signal orange. The footage is old cine film tho, so it could be signal yellow, or bahama...

[Lightweight_911]

I might have been at that gig in 1970 !

I saw Eric probably ~50 times live in his 'early' days (& will be at the Hyde Park concert again to see him & Steve Winwood play - 50 years after I saw them together in Hyde Park the last time )

Was the film any good ?

[23e Heure]

For Clapton fans it's a definite must see.

Overall though the doco is sadly inconsistent.
The first 90 mins are excellent, charting the years from childhood through to the Dominos' demise.
It digs really nicely into his upbringing, and provides great insight into his musical influences and development.
There's heaps of enjoyable footage of him at work and at (decadent) play with his various bands, peers and girlfriends.
Hendrix, Harrison... and of course lots about the Patti Boyd tug of love

Once he comes back from Miami, plays the Layla album to Patti and she still won't leave George, not only does Clapton lose himself to substance abuse, but the film then gets lost too.

The years and albums from from 74 to the end of the 80s are covered in a dismissive 30 second montage.
I know he was on the bottle - and harder stuff - for those years, and it may all be a blur to him too, but as a bio it definitely felt wrong to treat 15 years as a blink and you missed it.

Then the tone all turns rather mawkish over the (truly tragic) loss of his son, and finally ends with what feels like a completely different bolted on 15mins PR film about his rehab centre and other work for good causes.

There was a Q&A afterwards last night with Clapton and the director, hosted by Jools Holland.
Eric has never been much of a talker (he always uses his guitar to do that instead), so there wasn't much insight provided, but there were loads of his original cronies in the audience, which made it feel warm and fuzzy at least.

You should still see it. Andy, if you were at the Blind Faith concert at Hyde Park in 69, you may even spot yourself in the audience

[Disco]

I'm sure he's not, but that Bobby bloke sounds like a right tool to me.

[mycar]

Does the film capture Eric's 'Wogs out, coons out, keep Britain white' rant from '76 ?

[Jonny Hart]

I just don't get the appeal of Mr 'woman tone'. All too clean cut and wanky.

Gimme The Stooges or the MC5.

[23e Heure]

Does the film capture Eric's 'Wogs out, coons out, keep Britain white' rant from '76 ?

It certainly does.
And a load of other look away ugly footage of him off his head on stage, abusing the audience and generally acting like a complete tool.

How he dealt with his personal demons aside, it can’t be denied though that he is/was one helluva musician.

[Darren65]

Great story James, thanks for sharing

[inaglasshouse]

It's my car. Which is nice.
Although the previous owners don't seem to have spent their time polishing it. Tut tut.
Thanks for the tip-off, James.

[210bhp]

Result!

Regards
Mike

[23e Heure]

Cool!