A wide eyed drooling Sunday.....

[alriclam]

Hey all,

I just put up some pics from a trip I went on this Sunday. Members of the racecar team at my school were treated to a private showing of some of the most rare and expensive cars in the world at the restoration facilities of Paul Rusell in Essex, MA. While we tried to keep the drool off our faces, we were treated to closeup looks of assorted Ferraris, Bugattis, Jaguars, Mercedes, Porsches, as well as a Can Am McLaren M1C and some other delights. Plus, there were some sweet bikes there, in the private collection of the guy who owns (or started?) APC, the battery backup company (the name escapes me at the moment). Even a vehicle owned by Seinfeld was there getting worked on. But the main reason we went down were to look at 6 of Ralph Lauren's cars which are going on exhibit in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts:

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/cars/default.html

You can see all the pics here:

http://www.industrial.mu/alriclam/Paul%20Russell%20Pics/

They have been resized to allow for quick viewing, but if for any reason you want the full version of any pics, let me know and I'll send them to you.

Here's just a taste:

[bigpapac]

Is that an old CBX in the background... Those are cool bikes.

[WildKat]

wow, look at the headers on that old CBX!!

[bigpapac]

wow, look at the headers on that old CBX!!

There's a few isn't there?

[Katgirl]

I was positive I had posted in here already?????

Is that first car the Seagull? A friend of my fathers in Montreal has one, its dreamy

[Hitman]

Excellent pics! I love that old mercedes!!

[WildKat]

We have a similar museum not to far from my place as well. the folks there have everything from rolls, benz, jags, model t's, to busa's and hogs ! Way Cool !

[Haggisman]

some great lookin cars there!!!

[tzortn]

I was positive I had posted in here already?????

Is that first car the Seagull? A friend of my fathers in Montreal has one, its dreamy

It is a Mercedes SL class from the 50's. I think that it is a 320SL, but I am not sure. The doors are know as gullwing doors They are really nice cars. I got to check one out up close because my father's friend was restoring one for a customer. That was more than 15 years ago and it was estimated to sell for ove $200K.

I love the second car. Is that a Bugatti Phantom?

[Blacktog]

ooohh really nice cars!! 8)

[alriclam]

That gullwing is the 300SL, forgot what vintage. The Bugatti is the Formula Atlantic, circa 1938? The interesting thing is they made the body out of magnesium, but since in those days they had no way to weld that material, they made the body panels so they could be riveted together (look for the fin that rides over the middle of the car). That car they said was worth 5 or 10 mill. There is a body of a red Alpha that is in the the website with all the pics that was worth 20 mill. Ralph Lauren traded another Alpha, a Bugatti, and another car for that one....... But my favorite was a Phil Hill racer, a beautiful 60's Ferrari Testa Rossa. The fastest car there by far tho, was the Porshe 959, the one from the 80's that had AWD and was banned for a while from the States while the govt tried to figure out what to do with it....

I found this site with info on the 959. It was so fast just sitting there.....

http://erntheburn.tripod.com/autos/959/