Ducktailing it to the Targa

[bjmullan]

And this one as well.

[Tp81]

Nice

[Darren65]

Gentlemen,

Great photos, excellent thread, an absolutely awesome trip and a wonderful feature in CP too Mike!

An all round proper job, many thanks for sharing

Cheers,

[23e Heure]

Thanks Darren, not finished just yet: more to come on this thread, and at least one more magazine article too. Blimey.

[Darren65]

.....Keyser mounted a camera on the bonnet of his yellow Toad Hall ST:.......The very same ST that Porsche Classic recently (over) restored, and which many DDKers have spotted displayed at recent events:....

.....am I incorrect in thinking that Keyser also had a LY 2.4S which was (rather than the ST) actually the camera car.........and this 2.4S, until recently, was portrayed as the actual Toad Hall ST.......until that is, the real (recently restored) TH ST was found?

I think I also read that Jürgen Barth verified the Keyser 2.4S as the actual Toad Hall ST.......until that is, the real TH ST was found?

Probably all wrong of course and totally confusing but sounds fun all the same! .....

......sorry to go off track!

[23e Heure]

Yep Darren, you are correct that Keyser had more than one yellow 911 in his Toad Hall stable.
I exchanged lots of emails with him years ago, and according to him his S got fitted out as an ST in period, with parts suppled to him by Porsche.
And he also had another one delivered later, factory built.
Then in the years since, details about the cars - and everyone's memories - seemed to have got mixed up.
The Speed Merchants camera car got shunted quite badly at one point too, and then rebuilt. Probably doesn't help things ;-

[210bhp]

Thanks Darren.
It really was a unique experience. The planning over the years germinated from James talking of his love for The Targa and his description of Sicily itself and it was really latching onto his enthusiasm which ultimately made me take the 'idea' of doing the trip and putting it into reality. Without James I think I might still be sitting at home thinking about it.

Many years ago (pre internet days) Mark Waring found a white over blue RS in Sicily with very low mileage, I think about 19000 miles, and I lusted after it. He sold it to the USA I believe. Might have been a record price for an RS then, perhaps as much as £45k.

I remembered that car 20 or so years later when I was investigating the history of my car because I discovered that it also was sold new in Sicily. I love the detailed history search for all those interesting bits of detail. I won't bore you with all those details but I must mention Andrea Stramentioli from Milan who helped by the bucketload over many years helping me to piece together a lot about my RS. The early 911 Italian registry must also get a mention for tracing and sending all the registration and owner details too from official microphesh records. Andrea phoned the first two owners who were still living at the same Palermo addresses as in 1973 and they remembered the car. I had a pretty full history of the RS by the time all this was done.

Fast forward ten years or more and the trip was to become reality. James wanted to show us the history of The Targa and his knowledge is immense. It was all very interesting and really got into the vibe of the event, the place, the people and the automotive history but all along he knew that I wanted to do the trip for my own reasons. These basically were,

To visit any previous owners of my RS if they were still around
To visit the very place where my RS was sold new, the old dealership.
To try and meet the owner of that dealership if they were still around
To try and answer some of the questions I had to fill in the last bits of early history
To run some of the roads I imagine my car covered in its first four years on Sicily
To take lots of photos to add to the cars bulging history file

I had found the addresses of the old dealership and the first three owners on google maps and with 'street view' had a pretty good idea where I wanted to go for pictures. The dealership of course is long gone in favour of the standard new corporate Porsche outlet but the gates were still there next to a cafe on a busy street in the west end of Palermo. The first two owners addresses were also in the fashionable end of the city on wide boulevards.

I had tracked the owners name of the dealership and at the time it meant nothing to me. Armando Floridia. I thought just a regular Sicilian businessman but it was James (with his immense knowledge) who twigged who it was. He had been a racing driver. With a bit of delving James noticed he was on Facebook and encouraged me to contact him. I eventually did and a meeting was set up. I'd thought he might not be interested but nothing could be further from the truth. He said he would meet us at the cafe next to the old dealership!

Meantime, Andrea had send me an old grainy photograph of an early SC with an original 'Floridia' dealer sticker in the rear window. Enter Nigel and James again. I can't thank Nigel enough for his skills and James for his expert production because between them they produced an 'aged' Floridia rear window sticker (and several spares) which now proudly sits in my rear screen. The colour are right, the size is right and the fading is perfect. I don't know how you do it guys but from an old grainy photo your skills are unbelievable.

And so we went to Palermo to meet Armando Floridia...........

Regards
Mike

[sladey]

Great story, great pics, thanks for sharing

[Gary71]

Indeed. Lovely stuff

[911hillclimber]

When I was a school lad, my Technical Drawing folder had a million pictures stuck to it of the Targa and Le Mans etc all over it. I was car mad then.
This story stirrers such memories, and even makes you wish just to go to the place let alone do it your ways, all very compelling, and so good you share it all.

Tracking history of old cars close to you can be quite a journey too as I've found with tracking the history and chassis number of my old Lola sports racer car which looks like a mini Targa race 908, quite deliberate, and the closest I will get to that school boy dream from the late 60's.

Brilliant.

[210bhp]

Thanks chaps.

Armando Floridia was a nice guy, a very nice guy. I could have driven to Sicily to no avail but Armando made the whole trip sensational for me. I could not have been more delighted with our conversation and the information he gave me. He was delighted to see the RS, he was overjoyed with the gift of 'his own' Floridia rear window stickers. The conversation flowed as if we had been friends for years and this was all down to his amiable personality. He made us all feel very much at home in his native homeland (of which he is justifiably proud) even though we only talked for an hour or so. His English was pretty good (just as well, my Italian is non existent) and we laughed as he recounted stories from the past. The whole thing was accompanied by a few cups of wonderful espresso coffee from the cafe bar who's owner had also become interested in the conversation before him. Armando and I poured over the Italian history folder I had taken with me of my RS and he and his friend jabbered away in Sicilian, discussing different points, and then summarizing back to me in English. It was indeed everything I could have asked for.

Armando Floridia is no ordinary Sicilian businessman. He might have been the sole concessionaire for Porsche on the island (and his father before him) but he was also a racing driver. Not any driver, not some local club driver but a driver who actually raced and WON the Targa Florio itself. Johnny Tippler who was recording our trip for his story in the current CP magazine listed Armando's racing record in this issue (great article, thanks Johnny) and he was a big part of the race's history over the last ten years or so in the 60's and 70's. The Targa was becoming too dangerous as the cars were enormously fast for a 'non race' circuit with the crowds just literally feet away from the cars. The lap record had dropped to something like 33 minutes for a 72 kilometer road that Brendan and I had taken most of the day to complete! So, I was overjoyed to say the least when I realised that my RS had been sold by the guy who had won the penultimate Targa in 1976.

But there was more........

Regards
Mike

[23e Heure]

I had tracked the owners name of the dealership and at the time it meant nothing to me. Armando Floridia. I thought just a regular Sicilian businessman

So you need to understand that Mike and I have been talking about taking his car to Sicily for almost 10years.
Why he had never mentioned the name of the dealership until a month before our trip, I have no idea!

Soon as he told me, I just knew it must be connected to Targa winner Armando.

To reveal this news to Mike, I knocked something up quick and dirty in photoshop and emailed it to him:

"Half close your eyes and you might imagine "Ypsilon" himself driving up and out of the ramp at the back of the dealership, at the wheel of his Strahle liveried 914/6 GT.
He is careful not to scrape the widened arches on that stonework, as he heads off out of Palermo, then east along the coast, before heading inland at Termine Imerese.
The year is 1972, and this evening he is getting in some pre-race practice on the Piccolo Madonie, a few weeks before the race..."



... And the whole thing went right over Mike's head
His reply was confused, so I had to explain it all again... You really have to spell things out clearly to opticians!


When Mike got to Palermo, he couldn't help but reproduce that for himself:

[23e Heure]

Aramado and Mike hit it off from the get go.




They rifled through all the history records, with a number of "Aha!" moments about a few of the first owners in Sicily:






Armando: "Ah yes, still some signs of chartreuse. I never sold a black one"




Armando: "Wait, no... one of my old dealership stickers! Is it original!?"




Mike: "Don't worry. We printed one for you too"




Armando: "You must come back to our island next year, I invite you!"...

[KS]

"Hey, you do this? You no ask my permission. Tomorrow you swim with the fishes..." (in best Tony Soprano accent)

[bjmullan]