Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum

Of all the possible explanations, clearly pure luck is the most viable. This may sound like uncharacteristic modesty, but I believe the evidence is convincing. First of all, you have a dad who gives you, for your first car, a dilapidated Alfa Romeo 6C 2500, which he bought in a very shabby state. True, Dad’s motivation was to keep me off the road for two years longer than normal, because my mission was to get the car restored and running if I were to be a driver and have my own vehicle. The Alfa, which never ran properly and was an embarrassment on the numerous times that I had to walk my dates home from the stranded invalid, did indeed keep me off the road. This clunker, as well, kind of gave me a sense of technical incompetence, overcompensation for which may have been a factor in my chosen profession. But besides that bit of luck, think of this, if you’re not convinced. We found an old Duesenberg race car in a very poor part of town all apart. We brought it home disassembled where it lay in a pile for over two decades. Dad passed away and I simply reassembled the car and restored it without getting it running, more or less as an homage to him, simply because I knew that’s what he would want. One day when famed Duesenberg historians Randy Ema and the late Fred Roe were visiting the collection; there was a stir about its possible origin.