John Connolly | June 21, 2008
GIVEN all that's been going on you probably haven't had time to read the six volumes of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and compare it to the US today.
A 1923 Miller, which cost about $850,000 in today's terms
A study, just out, confirms that Ed was right about the Romans and the Americans.
According to research conducted by the US Department of Energy and General Motors, nearly nine out of 10 women (88 per cent) say they'd rather chat up someone who owns the latest fuel-efficient car versus the latest sports car. It gets worse. Eighty per cent of American car buyers would find someone with the latest fuel-efficient car more interesting to talk to at a party than someone with the latest sports car. And, more than 4 out of 10 (45 per cent) 18- to 43-year-olds say it's a fashion faux pas nowadays to have a car that's not green or environmentally friendly.
Readers, you can see where this is heading.
If our young men read this sort of American propaganda the next thing you know they will be trading in the Monaro, WRX, FPS ute and Ducati for a Toyota Prius or Honda Hybrid. I know if the enemy started coming into Darwin again you'd be joining me, putting on the khaki, getting out the 303 and begging to get on the front line. But would our younger folk be joining us? No. They'd be insisting on hybrid tanks, environmentally friendly guns and bombs that didn't hurt trees.
I tell you what, it's lucky my mate Joe MacPherson died before this survey came out. You'd know MacPherson from Joe's Garage Automotive Museum, just up the Santa Ana Freeway, in Tustin, California.
MacPherson started life as a Scot, an actor and then a magazine salesman. He turned his sales skills to cars, building up the first mega dealership in California, if not the US.
"I'm a short guy with red hair and a big mouth," MacPherson used to say to me. "People remember me." What most people remember MacPherson for is his car collection, which RM Auctions sold last weekend for $11 million. MacPherson's Garage was the Sistine Chapel of hot cars.
RM sold a 1923 Miller 122 $US2.1 million ($2.21million), which was nearly $US1 million over estimate, and a legendary 1954 Chrisman Bonneville Coupe for $US700,000. The late Dale Earnhardt's championship-winning Winston Cup 1994 Chevrolet Lumina brought $US220,000 and an ultra-rare 1939 Crocker Big Tank V-Twin Motorcycle fetched $US320,000.
While you may be thinking Australian show business, the Harry Miller who designed the Miller 122, was, according to racing historian Griffith Borgeson, "quite simply, the greatest creative figure in the history of the American racing car". While never as famous as Enzo, Lambo or even Wocka Bentley, Miller's cars and engines had more than a 50-year winning streak; the last Miller derived engine competed in Indy in 1980. His cars were better built and finished than any car of that time and probably any time, but they cost.
In the late 1920s, one of his race cars cost an amazing $US15,000 (equivalent to $US850,000 today) but as someone said "it was the price of admission".
Between 1926 and 1929, up to 85 per cent of the Indy starting field were Millers. Miller built just seven 122s before the 1923 Indianapolis 500 race. Cliff Durant, the son of the unfortunately named G.M. founder, William Crapo Durant, bought five. MacPherson's car was one of these and on my estimates he would have spent close to $US1million restoring and rebuilding it.
Meanwhile, back in Australia, Bonhams and Goodman sold some better-known classics for reasonable prices. A 1957 Mercedes-Benz 190SL Roadster (left-hand drive) brought $103,000, a 1933 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental Sports Saloon fetched $136,000 and a lovely 1931 Cadillac V12 Dual Cowl Phaeton (left-hand drive), sold for $125,000.
* FROM the email department: A Melbourne reader who earlier wanted me to launch a jihad against BMW because his 1 series lacked power explains that his wife had been using standard petrol. The car is now going better since he filled it with premium.
And one from a reader who said she didn't believe I was right last week when I said Kimi and Lewis Hamilton were stopped at a pit lane red light sharing a smoke. "You can't smoke during a F1 race." Dear reader, you're right.
