I received this lovely, descriptive, unsolicited email message from Blue Nelson in April 2012:
Just this past week I set about servicing and polishing my Dad’s original, 1962 Porsche Roadster.
I did so in anticipation of surprising him, by driving it to my folk's home for a visit in Las Vegas this Easter Weekend.
3pm and I was slicing my way up through the Mojave desert somewhat pressured for time to my overnight destination by night fall- a desolate dirt road high in the Panamint Valley adjacent to Death Valley.
Bring and extra car battery, tools, pack food rations in the car. Nobody passing by, no cell phone service, just the occasional braying of a wild mule, descendants from the gold mining days 125 years ago.
With the convertible top down, (which according to my dad, has been up only a 4 times in 50 years), I found a level spot to park, reclined the passenger seat, slipped into my down sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep under a full moon.
At dawn the following morning, I put my heaviest jacket on then topped the bulky outfit with my old ski cap and headed out through Death Valley using remotely traveled back roads till I arrived at my parents house, unexpected. Oh and surprised he was.
We decided to take the Roadster to Easter lunch, but not before he placed a file down on the dining room table. From it, he pulled a single sheet of green paper which would become my favorite document from his car.
It was the original bill of sale, and it was signed and dated April 1962.
My dad had bought his Porsche 50 years ago to the month.
Two months later in June of '62, he would marry my mother while he (Gary Nelson) was filming Have Gun Will Travel. In two months, they will have been married 50 years.
The Porsche remained his daily driver.
He reminisced that frequently after filming “Have Gun” at the stages in Hollywood, he and the star Dick Boone would race each other down Sunset Blvd to the ocean, Dick in his Aston Martin DB5 and my dad in his Roadster until the studio found out and forbade both of them from doing so, citing too much was at risk for the TV show.
The day I was born in 1968 I came home from the hospital with my parents in this Porsche. I remember washing it as a kid for my dad for 50 cents, and he would take me to Bob's Boy where we would be served cheeseburgers on the tray on the window. I had my own tray on my side too sometimes.
As a kid I even remember visiting my dad (Gary Nelson) on the set of a film he was directing for Disney called Freaky Friday, where he parked his Porsche on the street in one of the scenes. . . that was cool. I would eventually learn to drive in it.
Of the small handful of these cars that were made, the Registry believes that he is the last remaining original owner.
I realize that we are merely custodians of these classics, but this past weekend's drive up and visit sure gives rise to the silly notion that the right car can feel like a member of the family.
... oh and I will be buried in this car- if my dad isn't.
