Bobby Whitlock's 2.2S
Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:55 am
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.
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.
)
