OnMa Therketplace Ronny’s Garage • Maintenance • Repair • Inspection • Restoration Specializing in Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Jaguar and Classic Automobiles 1111 West 1st St. Santa Ana, CA 92703 714-953-0896 - [email protected] Owners: Robert and Nancy Ratinoff 1952 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Hooper Touring Limo (WOF44) Since 1995 this elegant motor car has been a shining star in their car collection. The Royal Coachbuilder’s razor-edge Pre- Family owned since 1979. War styling and Hooper’s signature teardrop quarterlites reflect light-years of sophistication far beyond her magical R100 We take pride in our work. headlamps. Nancy is fond of calling her “Our car, the movie star.” Her resume encompasses many film credits including “The Odd Couple II”, “Princess Diaries II”, “The Marlene Dietrich Story”, and “James Dean”, as Jack Warner’s limousine. Call for an appointment – 714-953-0896 Robert’s mother Paula adored this car and enjoyed being chauffeured in the luxurious backseat. One of her last wishes was that this beloved motor car would lead her funeral procession. This commanding, yet dear Rolls-Royce will always hold a special place in their collection and in their hearts. VOLUME 48 ISSUE 7 JULY 2012 8 RROC-SOCAL.COM July The Nethercutt Collection There are car museums and car museums and then there’s the Nethercutt. Starting with the restoration of just two cars in the 1950’s, the Nethercutt collection now showcases more than 130 of the world’s greatest antique, vintage and classic automobiles. July 14th marks the date for our visit to this jewel, followed by a lavish buffet at the well-known Odyssey restaurant. The Nethercutt family founded Merle Norman Cosmetics, and in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the company, have recently opened a cosmetic boutique on site. Come early at 9 a.m. and stroll through the car museum on your own or browse the cosmetics and get a makeover. Our docent-led tour of the Nethercutt Collection begins at 9:45 a.m. Across the street from the museum, the collection features two grand salons displaying the finest examples of cars of their day in showroom settings. Our tour continues with the Nethercutt’s extensive collection of hood ornaments and antique furniture. The top floor of the collection houses mechanical musical instruments ranging from nickelodeons to music boxes and a Wurlitzer organ. Following our tour we will lunch at the Odyssey Restaurant in Granada Cell Phone: (949) 439-0465 Hills, just a few miles from the Nethercutt Collection, where we will enjoy an amazing panoramic view of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles. The ample buffet is sure to satisfy everyone. Host: Pierre Lemieux Date: Saturday, July 14, 2012 Time: 9:00 a.m. - Self-guided museum tour 9:45 a.m. - Docent tour of the collection Location: Nethercutt 15200 Bledsoe Street, Sylmar, 91342 Odyssey Restaurant 15600 Odyssey Drive, Granada Hills, 91344 For more information on the Nethercutt Museum and Collection, visit their website at nethercuttcollection.org. Where’s Freddy? Be on the hunt for the foxy character! JULY 2012 2012 2012 July 14 The Nethercutt Collection Tour $48 Host: Pierre Lemieux August Chairman’s Corner 26 The Lyon Car Collection $65 I want to thank and acknowledgeWilly Hugron Tony Handler Hosts: Bob and Nancy Ratinoff and Santos Guerra for putting on a well- attended and informative restoration seminar on Santos’ award-winning Bentley. The information shared was invaluable for anyone considering a major restoration. Approximately thirty members attended the seminar September and the knowledge gleaned should be very helpful in 22 Board Meeting their restoration endeavors. Hosts: Tom Holland and Doug Roth Chairman’s The San Marino CarCorner Show was also a successful event and enjoyable for bothW illythe Hugronmembers who 30 Temecula Wine Tour $43 showed their cars and those who attended the event. Our own member Aaron Weiss was the event Host: Harry Clark chair and participation by RROC members was appreciated. The car show was very well organized and we took away a few tips for some of our future concours. I encourage you to consider showing a car and/or attending this event next year. The level and October variety of cars shown was well worth seeing. 26 Santa Barbara Tour and Conoours Hosts: Ray and Faith Stazzoni I want to congratulate Tom Wright from the San Diego Region and Barbara Kilburn from the Northern California Region for being elected to the National RROC board. Now that we have two California Board members on the National Board we November may have better western area representation. I look forward to working with both of them. Some of you 17 Board Meeting may remember Barbara as one of the chairwomen of Hosts: Tom and Terri Mercurio the Squaw Valley National Meet last year. She did an outstanding job and the meet was a great success. 18 Fox Hunt We are mid-year and we have several events Hosts: Willy Hugron, Andy Lachina and scheduled that you will not want to miss. First we Mike Gormley will be going to the Nethercutt Collection on July 14th. After many requests from our members and many years of trying to coordinate a visit, we will be going to the General Lyon Collection in Coto de Caza on Saturday August 25th. We are limited to 70 guests and this event will be sold out. Please mail December in your reservation early if you intend on attending 16 Holiday Party this unique event. We may be one of the last groups allowed to visit this collection and there may never Host: Karen Perrault be another opportunity. I am looking forward to seeing you at this event. Pierre has a full schedule of events planned for the rest of this year and well into next year. Pierre’s January events are always well planned and organized. He usually calls in his markers with his business TBA Awards Event connections. September finds us in Temecula on a Hosts: Willy and Joan Hugron wine tour. Don’t forget Santa Barbara in October and the Fox Hunt in November. The Fox has been busy trying to identify some interesting points of interest 6 RROC-SOCAL.COM forRROC-SOCAL.COM its hunters. I look forward to seeing you at our next events. We are looking for volunteers to run for next year’s board and officer positions. Feel free to contact any Your Chairman, board member or officer for information on what is involved. Willy Hugron 6 RROC-SOCAL.COM RROC-SOCAL.COM JULY 2012 What a beauty! The May Ghost Tech Meet By Willy Hugron A portion of David’s exquisite collection We would like to give Dr. David Morrison a special thank you for opening his collection of Rolls-Royce Ghosts and vintage race cars to our members. David is passionate about older Rolls-Royces and race cars and on May 5th he provided a guided tour of all of his cars, complete with the background and stories about each car, for the approximately fifty members who attended this event. The stories added to the tour and made it more meaningful. The collection is divided between two adjoining warehouses; one for the Rolls-Royce Ghosts and the other for the race cars. One member commented that the lay-out of the space was very nice because it encouraged the members to mingle, especially because at times it was standing room only. Many of us were surprised to learn that Dr. Morrison also has a vintage race car collection that he drives on race tracks. He David sharing his National presentation with works on his own cars and has personally completed many members restorations. David presented an educational PowerPoint presentation on Ghosts that he gave previously at a National event. We gained a wealth of information, appreciation and knowledge of older Rolls-Royces from the presentation and also through Dave’s stories about his cars. If you missed this opportunity to experience this collection, you really missed a fun day. However, our Webmaster Steve Power-Fardy captured one of the highlights of the day: a vivid presentation of one of the gems in David’s collection – a very rare 1913 British Silver Ghost. Steve made a private video of the event available on YouTube. In order to view the video, please send an email to Steve at [email protected] requesting the youtube.com link. He will notify you via return email. Cars, Cars, Cars! I have gained a much greater appreciation of Ghosts and would like to own one someday. Again, many thanks to David Morrison for graciously allowing us to view this very special and unique collection. Silver Ghost Tech Meet Video on YouTube If you were unable to attend David Morrison’s lively esentation of his stunning Silver Ghosts at the club’s May Technical Seminar, you now have another chance to see this incredible collection. David has graciously allowed us to post an online video of one of the gems in his collection– a very rare 1913 British Silver Ghost. The video on YouTube is a private video. To see this 7-minute presentation, simply send an e-mail to our webmaster and videographer Steve Power-Fardy at spowerfardy@yahoo. Another happy member seeing Ghosts com requesting the YouTube link. This is really one video you do not want to miss. JULY 2012 The General William Lyon Car Collection There has been an important change of venue for the August meet. We were originally going to go to the Lyon Air Museum and the Crevier Classic Car Collection. We will be having this exciting meet sometime next year.