When I was a teenager my father used to recycle the same couple of thousands of dollars, and he purchased a series of fun, little, used sports cars. He had an Austin Healey Sprite, and then a Triumph TR6, and then an MGB-GT. I decided then that I was going to work hard enough in school and later at a job to be able to afford someday a red Ferrari convertible.
In college I felt like I needed some additional incentive to maintain my academic discipline to get “A”s while most people were going to parties and having fun. During a school break I asked my father to take me to Wide World of Cars in Spring Valley, NY, our nearest Ferrari dealership. It must have been a slow day at the dealership because the sales manager there, Joan Milano, offered to have a salesman take me out for a test drive in a Ferrari 308. Of course driving a Ferrrari for the first time was for me a religious experience!
After the unbelievably exciting experience of sitting in a Ferrari convertible — let alone driving one! — once back at the dealership I told Joan that someday I would return to Wide World to order a red convertible. She shook my hand and said “sure kid, good luck.”
In 2001, twenty (20) years after the test drive, I went back to Wide World of Cars in Spring Valley, NY. Joan Milano was still the Sales Manager. I introduced myself, and reminded her of my visit twenty years earlier. She remembered me, or so she claimed. I ordered a red 360 Spider with tan interior and red piping on the seats.
Bellini was born in July of 2003. I will never forget the day, almost two years after I placed the order, that I returned to Wide World to pick up my car. I saw the 360 gleaming in the distance. I experienced sensory overload. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
It wasn’t until many years later that I had a proper private garage at a house in Los Angeles, and I was able to move Bellini to her natural habitat.
In college I felt like I needed some additional incentive to maintain my academic discipline to get “A”s while most people were going to parties and having fun. During a school break I asked my father to take me to Wide World of Cars in Spring Valley, NY, our nearest Ferrari dealership. It must have been a slow day at the dealership because the sales manager there, Joan Milano, offered to have a salesman take me out for a test drive in a Ferrari 308. Of course driving a Ferrrari for the first time was for me a religious experience!
After the unbelievably exciting experience of sitting in a Ferrari convertible — let alone driving one! — once back at the dealership I told Joan that someday I would return to Wide World to order a red convertible. She shook my hand and said “sure kid, good luck.”
In 2001, twenty (20) years after the test drive, I went back to Wide World of Cars in Spring Valley, NY. Joan Milano was still the Sales Manager. I introduced myself, and reminded her of my visit twenty years earlier. She remembered me, or so she claimed. I ordered a red 360 Spider with tan interior and red piping on the seats.
Bellini was born in July of 2003. I will never forget the day, almost two years after I placed the order, that I returned to Wide World to pick up my car. I saw the 360 gleaming in the distance. I experienced sensory overload. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
It wasn’t until many years later that I had a proper private garage at a house in Los Angeles, and I was able to move Bellini to her natural habitat.
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