Loading CD’s into iTunes, a potentially mindless job yet a fun way to reflect what different songs have meaning to you at mileposts in your life. I now own not one but two iPods, perhaps a reflection on what music means to this tone deaf and untrained ear. Lots of songs that marked a milestone in my life, High School, College, bachelor years, married life. Cars, like music, mark a passage. I guess that accounts for some of the popularity of cars that were a part of our lives at certain points, the one we had (or the one we wanted) when we were on our first date, learned to drive, drove off to college, bought with money from our first job.
This past weekend took me to Raleigh, North Carolina for the Worldwide Group auction. What a sale – prices like I have never seen on a number of cars, and some new ideas about how an auction should be run (you have to wait to read the details in Sports Car Market magazine, I assume the February or March 2006 issue). Dinner at the Angus Barn restaurant with my friends Charlie and Rob. I had the best chateaubriand ever – as tender as any beef ever, better than the Kobe that I had in Las Vegas last summer. Five stars from this beefeater – worth the trip out of the way, even if it means, oh say100 miles. A less than productive day in the office, my new notebook computer has developed a virus, a very disconcerting (as well as expensive) development. I do not understand what would cause a person to write a virus – I guess it’s the same gene that would make someone take a key to the side of a car just to create havoc. As a small office, I am my own “it guy” a scary thought if there ever was one. I am now officially glad I bought the extended warranty with the Vaio, the first time I have ever done so. Yesterday, a trip to Richmond Va. for a diminished value appraisal, a Jeep that took a hit on both ends in one accident. I have put my new truck into service, a 2006 Ford F-150. loaded to the gills with equipment, my first vehicle with satellite radio. So far, I’m in heaven. My drug of choice is and has always been new car smell, I admit, I’ll follow it anywhere. It’s nice when I get to take it with me…

Welcome to what I do. It’s Sunday morning, December 4th, 2005 and I am in a hotel room in London. The weather is typical December London, a hint of sunshine trying to break through, but the clouds are winning the battle. Chilly, but not cold, Dry, but not for long, according to the news reader on the BBC.
I’m heading just a few steps away to Olympia, a large venue where the Bonham’s auction is having a preview of tomorrows event. The catalog is a thick tome of perhaps 500 pieces of automobilia combined with perhaps 75 cars for sale. The potential “stars’ of the show are a beautiful Mercedes 540 and a one-off Lamborghini known as the Lamborghini Monza. It’s styling is a bit controversial, I like it but some don’t. It reminds me of a Bizzarini, long hood, quite low, with a bit of a cam tail look to the rear end.
My assignment is not the Bonham’s auction (SCM other senior auction analyst and friend Richard Hudson Evans will be covering this) but rather the Christie’s auction across town at the Jack Barclays showroom at Nine Elms, near Vauxhall and next door to New Covent Gardens, the flower market for London. The Christies sale is smaller, perhaps 20 cars, some of them Vintage and what the Brits call Veterans. I’ve already been out with some friends enjoying some room temperature Guinness, something I must say I have a bit of a taste for. Guinness tastes great in the UK, let’s leave the stuff they sell in the US alone, however. It just does not do well after an Atlantic voyage, I guess. Time to head out and make the rounds, this time by Tube throughout the day. It looks to be a great day of friends old and new.