Classic Cars With Bob Gelber

People collect cars for many different reasons, but the personal element is often the basis for the selection. Was it the one your Dad owned? How about the model in which you learned to drive? It could have been the Aston Martin that Tippi Hedren drove in Hitchcock's The Birds, or Grace Kelly's Sunbeam Alpine in To Catch a Thief. Here is my personal garage of dreams.

1949 MG-TC - This was actually a prewar car that sold for many years after the war with the same look. After the war, many small British automobile manufacturers simply didn't have the factory design capacity or money to produce a new car, so many of them took their prewar designs out of mothballs and sold them to the public. Fortuitously, Morris Garages had the beautiful TC to sell. To this day, it is the best looking of all the "T" series MGs and is accredited with starting the sports car movement in the United States.

1949 Jaguar XK-120 - Considered by many, including myself, to be one of the most beautiful mass-produced cars ever made. After the war, Jaguar was one of the first British car companies to introduce a new line of automobiles. The XK series of sports cars were simply sensational in every way. Just go look at one and study it's sensuous lines, you'll understand.

1954 Austin Healy 100 - This is a pretty little sports car. I've always liked this four cylinder model better than the larger "3000" six cylinder model that soon followed. It was a purer design and the snap-in side curtains and uniquely designed fold down windshield give this relatively modern car a touch of prewar thinking. The same can be said of the 1955 MG-A. A giant leap for MG, aesthetically, this car keeps getting better looking as the years go by.

1955 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spyder - While the British were selling delightful little bolides with sexy bodies but rather mundane engines and transmissions, the Italians were not sleeping. The PininFarina designed Guilietta series of sports cars were mechanically light years ahead of the British competition. Every one of these entry-level sports cars had an all aluminum twin-cam engine and a five-speed transmission. Oh yeah, they were also fabulous looking rides.

1955 Porsche Speedster - To compete with the above mentioned automobiles, Porsche down marketed its cabriolet model by removing the expensive top and wind-up windows, spartanizing the interior and voila, the el cheapo, by Porsche standards, Speedster. Today, it is the most valuable of the 356 series of motorcars. What car enthusiast doesn't like or respect the Porsche marque?

Early Jaguar XK-E - My favorites are the first 1963 models, with the simple interiors and metal facias, but the later '65-'67 models are more developed and better drivers. Everyone who loves automobiles should someday just sit in an XK-E. Visually, this is as good at it gets. You look down an impossibly long hood on which there are large louvers. Upon careful inspection, you can actually see the tops of the aluminum twin cam engine. You have to understand that when this car was introduced at the London motorcar show in that early 60s, there was simply nothing like it for the price available anywhere in the world. It was a fantastic bargain.

1954 Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing coupe -I consider this to be the most important sports car of that era and possibly of any era. It was so special and so advanced that its technical specifications dwarfed every current production automobile. With those wonderfully designed doors and foot wide sill, just easing into the Gullwing was an adventure. Entrance was further facilitated by a steering wheel that tilted out of the way. The build quality of the car put mere mortal cars to shame. When I dream of classic cars, this is the one machine that haunts me.

Ferrari - What can I say about Ferrari? For the last 50 years they have been making the most desirable motorcars the world has ever seen. Give me any one, even a four seat 1964 250 GTE. I don't care if it's a frumpy four seater powered by that V-12, which sounds like no other engine in the world. Everything good and beautiful about Italian automobile design is wrapped up in every Ferrari. More automobiles have copied design details from Ferrari than any other make. Trend setting, deliciously fast, Italy's proudest product and rightfully so. Put any Ferrari in the dream garage. I'm out of space. Many more cars for the dream garage next week.

Bob Gelber, an automotive journalist living in the Hamptons, appears regularly on television as an automotive expert. You can email him at bobgelber@aol.com

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