[DeTomaso] Supercar collection

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/29/08 13 02 45, morganuci at gmail.com writes:


> Don't know if this video has already been posted, but it does have Pantera
> content:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO6COXL2l24&feature=related
> 
> The guy has an unbelievable collection of cars!
> 

That's Peter Saywell; I've known him for about 15 years.   He is a hell of a 
nice guy, and as you can see, he has a complete fetish for supercars.   His 
first supercar was a De Tomaso Pantera and he is still an active member of the 
UK De Tomaso club; in fact I don't know if he hangs out with any of the other 
marque clubs whose cars he owns, which says something.

He is obviously enormously wealthy, but he is the most unpretentious guy 
you'd ever want to meet, preferring jeans to more formal garb.   I'm fairly 
certain he is a self-made billionare.   He has carved himself a very nice niche 
business.   He has warehouses all over Africa and Asia filled with spare parts for 
airliners.   The airlines can't afford to keep huge stocks of parts at all 
the airfields they fly to, but when an Air France 767 suffers a cracked pilots 
window in Dakar, Senagal for example, he is the guy who gets the call.   He get 
the necessary part there as rapidly as possible, and they gladly pay a 
substantial amount for it.

That's why all of his cars have personalized number plates with "AOG" in 
them; that stands for "Aircraft On Ground".   The "AOG" code sets off alarm bells 
in airline operation centers around the world, and that is what has funded his 
entire collection.

The thing is, he is literally working himself to death.   He goes to work 
every day at 4:00 a.m. and works until 10:00 p.m., weekends too.   It is all that 
anybody can do to tear him away from his job to go spend a day enjoying his 
cars.

In fact, he occasionally forgets that he bought a car!   Sometimes the phone 
will ring, and it will be the Ferrari dealer telling him that his new 430 
Scuderia (that he ordered six months ago) has finally arrived; by that time he's 
forgotten all about it!   "Oh, okay, just send it over then" he tells them, and 
they dutifully truck it over to his house and drop it off.

On another occasion, he ordered the latest Porsche Carrera GT, the 
super-duper car with the V-10.   He ordered it in silver, and six months later, his 
phone rang.   It was the Porsche dealer, who was mortified because when his car 
arrived, due to a mix-up it was painted black instead of silver.   The dealer 
called back to the factory and there simply wasn't another silver RHD car to be 
had, and it would be at least a six-month wait before they could build one for 
him.

So, he just had them send the black one, but he told them to get him a silver 
one too!   And now the two of them sit side-by-side in his garage, both 
probably with less than 200 miles on them.

Quite a few of the cars in his garage he has either never driven, or has only 
driven once or twice.   He seems to favor driving the Pagani Zonda, 
Konoenigsegg, Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM AMG, and the Pantera, and he doesn't drive the 
others very much.   (Although he was the first person in the UK to get a new 
Ferrari 599 Fioriano, and that's what he chose to drive to Le Mans, one of the few 
holidays he allows himself each year).

He is exceptionally generous with his cars.   Several times a year, he has 
several of his cars brought to the Goodwood race circuit (which is only about 15 
minutes from his house) for their periodic Charity Track Days.   There, 
people come and make big donations to charities in exchange for rides around the 
track in various supercars.   By lending his cars to the cause, he helps the 
organizers raise substantial amounts of money.   He's usually too busy to drive 
the cars himself, and instead lets his son-in-law, and various friends in the 
Pantera club do it for him.

I just wish he would throttle back on work a little (or a lot) and enjoy his 
cars more.   While he buys them principally because he likes looking at them 
(he freely admits that he's not capable of approaching their limits, and in 
fact he's a rather poor driver overall), it's sad that they aren't used more, and 
most of us in the UK club feel that he is going to work himself into an early 
grave.   Such a shame, because he really is such a terrific guy....

Mike


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