Dick Barbour Automotion Roadster #4
Under Don Trueblood’s ownership the Roadster was repainted to metallic blue and the number was changed to 88. Don raced the car in Southern California SCCA club races and is listed as participant with Porsche #88 in a September 1969 Orange County International Raceway program.
Don was successfully importing and selling Porsches when he and his wife Cita decided to move to Germany for an opportunity work with Porsche. Anticipating only staying in Europe for a couple of years, they kept their home in San Diego and stored the Roadster in their garage.
One European business opportunity lead to another, and another, and the Trueblood’s ended up living in Europe for over 30 years. All the while the Roadster sat in their garage in nice dry Southern California.
In early 2003 the Trueblood’s decided it was time to sell the Roadster and a deal was struck with a collector car dealer in Southern California. Initially the dealer planned to keep the car for himself and prepare it for vintage racing.
In the summer of 2003, while on a Southern California vacation, Jo and I visited the dealership. Everyone was out to lunch except the receptionist and she encouraged us to “just look around”. This seemed to me like an offer to go beyond just the showroom. As I made my way down the side of the building I peeked in a door and discovered the Roadster in a back storage room.
My (admittedly amateur) view is that vintage race cars come in one of three groups:
1. Period street cars, where the actual car in question has no race history, but has been built to be “just like” the old race cars. You see a lot of Porsche 911’s and 356’s, BMW 2002’s, Alfa’s, etc. in this group.
2. Cars with documented period race history. These are the actual cars that were raced in the day, usually in some type of club racing like SCCA.
3. Famous cars with race history. Same as #2 above, but these cars were either raced by someone famous or they won some famous races.
I inquired about the car and was initially told it wasn’t for sale, but I could talk to the owner when he got back. With further investigation we discovered the Barbour connection, which even got me more excited as I realized I’d discovered a #3 car. We were again told the car wasn’t for sale, but we were getting mixed signals from the staff as we were also told the car may be headed to the RM Auction during the Monterey Historics weekend.
Over the next few hours, and then days, I made several calls to Rod and Gary Emory in Oregon, trying to determine a value on the car. Simultaneously I was trying to get the dealer to agree to sell the car. After several days of negotiating, reviewing the ownership documents and just plain wondering if I was nuts, I agreed with myself that opportunities like this don’t come along every day, so we bought the Roadster (including a very rare Roadster hardtop)
At the time, I recognized the Roadster as a time capsule vintage race car with lots of patina (a #2 car above) with hand painted numbers, out of date tires and old mirrors. I was very excited as I had been talking a lot with Rod Emory, of Emory Motorsports, about finding an open cockpit 356 vintage race car to replace my 1968 911 race car. My preference was to find a #2 car with race history. But, I would have accepted a nice #1 car, while a #3 car never entered my mind as they are so rare.
We had the car shipped to Emory Motorsports and the consensus between Gary, Rod and me was the same – preserve the original character of the car. They will spray a clear low gloss protective sealant coat over the existing paint and numbers. Overall the body is in reasonably good shape for an old race car that has been rolled and t-boned. The car is virtually rust free and the cracks in the paint add a lot of character, so we have no plans to restore the body (except the hard top).
All of the mechanicals will receive a complete rebuild while staying within the strict “period correct” rules of the Northwest vintage racing group SOVREN. Best case is that the car will be back on the race track late in 2003, but more likely in the spring of 2004. Most of our racing will be in the Northwest, but we will make a few trips a year to California and hope for a slot in the Monterey Historics someday
I would like to pass on my great appreciation to the following people for helping make this story possible. Dick Barbour, Dieter Vongehr, Don and Cita Trueblood, Frank Sheffield and John Straub.
Do you have more to add to this story? I’d love to hear from you if you have additional information, corrections or photographs. Please contact me here, thank you!
