Memories of a Beautiful Showroom

Some 32 years ago, I was a 14 year old kid in love with cars.  Of all the cars I loved, none inspired and fascinated me more than Ferrari's.  I was lucky.  My father owned a small convenience store on 122nd east of Portland Oregon and I was literally just a 10 minute bike ride from the United State's first official Ferrari Dealer, Ron Tonkin.  I wondered what kids in small towns in Montana who loved Ferrari's did.  For me, I simply rode my bike down to his Gran Turismo showroom, parked the bike and quietly and respectfully gazed through the windows and meandered through the small Ferrari infested parking that surrounded it.

This became my Saturday routine.  After doing this three times, I remember that Mr. Tonkin himself once came up to the large windows of the showroom, rapped on them to get my attention, and summoned me to come inside (I had never had the courage to enter the showroom myself).  I was blown away.  This guy was a local automotive legend, he was on TV all the time and was worth likely more than $500 million even then.  He greeted me and even took time to give me a tour of the showroom.  He was kind, genteel and genuinely appreciated my fascination of these fine cars.  To this day, I remember every car that was in that showroom: a metallic blue Ferrari 512 BBi, a white and black Ferrari 308 GTSi, another 308 in yellow, a red 400i coupe and a red Alfa Spider Veloce and a deep metallic charcoal gray Alfa GTV6 2.5.

For a 14 year old car nut, Ron Tonkin's Gran Turismo was an oasis.

But that was then, and this is now.
As the city of Portland expanded it's locus of control to include 122nd which was unincorporated area back then, and then added the MAX light rail system, the quaint middle-class region that surrounded the Gran Turismo was slowly converted into a ghetto.  Now it is a crime-ridden dump where drug deals take place on every corner and most people I know don't even want to visit it.  My families' store has been owned by other people for years and it's a dump too. You can also thank the fine people of the Portland Development Commission (PDC) who spent untold millions of taxpayer dollars to move Portland's ghetto from North Portland (remember what Alberta used to be like) to East Portland.  Now they want to renovate East Portland (which begs the question; where will the ghetto go this time?)

I hung out at the Gran Turismo a lot when I was a teenager.  It was a great place to be.  In high school I wrote an article called "Memories of a Beautiful Lady" about my first experience in a Ferrari Boxer down at the showroom, it won a couple of writing awards as I recall.  Mr. Tonkin isn't responsible for what happened to the region around 122nd; neither am I.  The city of Portland (and the short-sighted PDC) should be ashamed of itself for letting a nice area turn into a cesspool of crime and drugs. 

I guess all we can do is remember what it used to be like.  I'm sure Mr. Tonkin does.  The last I heard he lived full time down in Arizona.  I'm not sure if he ever gets up to this cold climate to see the showroom anymore.  I'm sure he remembers the beauty and distinction of his award winning building, though.  I'm sure he remembers the excitement he and others must have felt as legendary car after legendary car were unloaded in front of the showroom to the amazement of people like me (and anger of people trying to drive on 122nd).  I'm sure he has lots of memories of that magical place.

I doubt he remembers me though.  I imagine I wasn't the only 14 year old car nut that stared through the windows of the Gran Turismo.

But I remember him.