Stories Published in Highline Autos

Mike Lovell: Blue Collar, Blue Chip Collection

Highline Autos, November 2020

Mike Lovell is similar to many car lovers whose collections we’ve featured in GreatGarages. The vehicles aren’t just high-dollar valuables: They represent childhood, dreams, aspirations and treasured joys. For example, the passion meant reclaiming at least two automobiles. One is a 1967 Camaro he had to sell to go off to college; his dad reacquired it and had the classic pony car restored by friends. Now it sits in the purpose-built garage just south of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. Another is a 1987 Buick Grand National, which he sold shortly after buying it. But America’s quarter-mile production-car king that year had engaged his daughter’s interest; she chided him for the sale without her sign-off. Now, with velvet stanchions guarding it, the GN is safe at home. When she’s 16, it’s hers. A classic joy.

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Bentley: A Century of Class

Highline Autos, July 2019

In this GreatGarages, to honor the 100th anniversary of Bentley, I worked with a variety of gracious marque experts and fans worldwide for about five months. The home office of Bentley in England connected me with Frank LaVerda, Customer Relations and VIP manager, and Jon Simons, Product Marketing manager, for Bentley Motors-USA. Here, in Scottsdale, Beli Merdovic, general manager of Aston Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, a Penske Automotive Dealership, was also helpful. Thanks as well to Phil Brooks, Williamsburg, Virginia; Graeme Cocks, Australia; Simon Hope and Julian Roup, England; Colin Dougherty, Keswick, Virginia; and Bostonian Bruce Male. Cheers!

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Apollo 11 at 50: One Giant Leap for Corvettes

Highline Autos, June 2019

“We all watched in wonder, with Walter Cronkite.” But I watched my father, too, July 20, 1969. Outside it was a muggy evening, and everyone had vacated the rowhouse stoops, where neighbors gathered on summer nights to chat and listen to Philadelphia Phillies games on transistor radios. Tonight, they were watching black-and-white TVs as window air-conditioners whirred. I watched him: the sense of amazement and awe (a Great Depression boy, he was not easily overwhelmed) at Commander Neil Armstrong’s historic hop out onto the moon. This was Jules Verne, Flash Gordon, H.G. Wells, Tom Swift and Commando Cody and the fulfilment of World War II victory. This July 20, I will be thinking of the moon, the stars and the look in my father’s eyes that magical summer night.

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The Home on Camino Sin Nombre

Highline Autos, June 2019

This magnificent has been completed in stellar Paradise Valley. With mountain views, the one-level will provide its new owners with spaces which exemplify the contemporary Southwest desert lifestyle. A commercial-size kitchen provides an expansive area for entertaining. Outside is an infinity-edge lap pool. Extensive hallways will showcase artworks. A large master suite is on one corridor and the family bedrooms and guest quarters on the other. The six-bay car garage has storage and work space for man-cave joy. On two acres, this 12,000-plus-square-feet home has space for even more bays, a she-shack, reading house or even a stand-alone casita.

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Remembering June 6, 1945: D-Day at 75

Highline Autos, June 2019

Speaking with Harry Swartz of Fostoria, Ohio, was one of a number of highlights working on this 75th-anniversary D-Day story with our friends at the World War II Museum in New Orleans. I was able to find Harry through the kindness of Lee Adams, whose grandfather is a Normandy veteran and who helps coordinate the D-Day re-enactment every August in Conneaut, Ohio, on Lake Erie. Please consider visiting both the museum and that event. Harry was there as a scout on the shores of western France early June 6, 1944. Speaking with him viscerally connected me to those hours: the incessant German machine guns on the ridges, the beach barricades set by Rommel’s Atlantic Fortress crew, the swirling cold water. His heroic fight for survival that morning, and that of his comrades, ensured the survival of democracy, of us and our children.

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