Stephen Mitchell GTO stories

I have just seen these great stories (in English) in the Portuguese forum, courtesy of Dinhossauro, and don't recall having seen them here. Take a look!

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=290968

 

He posts them in Rossa, for the most part.......

Along with some other really great rememberances......

 

Awesome! Stephen provides, with a number of other great characters from those times like Ed Niles, such a wonderful porthole into those days. I'm very grateful for these stories, it makes the cars come alive so much more.

But it also makes me jealous! In the UK magazine Motorsport of last month there was a story on Innes Ireland collecting GTO #3505 at the factory and gunning it to the UK over the Alps. No speed limits and a factory fresh GTO, can you imagine???

Jealous or not, I still love to read those stories. Keep 'm coming I say.


Onno

 

Innes recounted the same tale when that GTO was restored..

It was raced by a team here in Texas, then became the one "sitting in the field".....

Innes was a great writer, IMO......Stephen too of course.....someone must have lifted his whole post....

 

Stephen is an international man of mystery. Lives in L.A. and is telling stories in Portugal!

 

Different car, I think. Onno is referring to the Ken Gregory/BRP car, 3505GT. Now owned by Erik Hereema (sp?) and just freshened by Neil Twyman.

 

A big hello to all Ferrari enthusiasts.

My name is Fernando Cordeiro Filho, AKA Dinhossauro.

I'm a member of asmallworld.net

In this Private comunity I came across this beautiful stories by Stephen.

As a Ferrari lover, I send an e-mail to Stephen and we began to exchange some mails, and may I dare to say, we became "virtual friends"

I don't know Stephen personaly, one day I will meet him in LA or Paris, and hear those stories personaly.

His stories are full of emotion and I have taken the liberty to post His stories here In the Ferrarichat because I think that every one who loves Ferraris, will love to read this beautiful stories.

Enjoy, and best regards to all of you

 

As Stephen tells it, he saw a french film in his youth, and decided on his career at that point! (Hell, at 85 I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my life!). He is now, and has been as long as I can remember, a film-maker, with residences in SoCal and France, and of course is fluent in French as well Murican. Yes, he is a very good writer and story-teller, and very nice guy in a soft-spoken way. You must like him!

 

Welcome, Fernando..........

 

Eric Heerema.


Onno

 

^

Thanks, Onno....I misplaced the "e"s!

 

I just heard Stephen Mitchell passed away a few days ago. Rest in Peace.

 

I’m very sorry to hear this.

 

Very sad news...RIP Mr Mitchell.

 

Very sad. I talked to him about the Carrera Pan Americana many times. Interesting person. RIP...

 

RIP. Colorful guy.

 

Always enjoyed his stories and cool clips ...

 

RIP
had great cars at a great time.
his age?

 

His user name was "krasnavian" and if you search on that, you can find lots and lots of stuff in the forum.

RIP, Stephen-- I never met him personally, but from his postings and others' descriptions of him, he always sounded like an interesting character.

EDIT: I see his last blog post was in August... what happened?

https://emcpb.blogspot.com

 

In the 2nd video above he said it was filmed by Peter Helm in 1969 or 70 then added he was 19 or 20 at the time so he was pretty young in his late 60's or early 70's when he passed

 

20 yrs old w a GTO? did he come from money?

 

250 GTOs in the 1960's were just more expensive used cars in the single digit or very low two digit thousands.

 

Stephen was diagnosed with stage 4 Cholangiocarcinoma in July. One more very special person who leaves us in an incredibly dense period of losses.

The first time I met him was when he wanted to do an interview about my Breadvan book so it must have been 2010 or 11. I took the TGV from Burgundy up to Paris and we did the interview in the suite of the Georges V he and his gf Jeanette used. We then had lunch downstairs and headed to Le Louvre to see the Ralph Lauren collection exhibit and in particular Stephen's ex GTO. We recorded his comments about what was different on the car compared to when he had it and his memory and attention to detail was astonishing.

I then got arrested in the metro (subway).

Sounds like a Stephen Mitchell story right?

Not arrested but as I rushed to the metro to get back to the TGV train station just in time I found that a metro ticket did not work, the turn stile machine refused it so I tried another (I had bought a carnet of ten) and then another and another so finally, dejected, I jumped the gate like a trespasser...and a guy who had been observing me said stop ticket control! He was soon joined by two others...thankfully he had seen me try tickets so said what is in your pocket? I showed my digital recorder and he said ah that demagnetized your tickets. So he wrote a note on my ticket and let me go...but with all that I had missed my train and had to have a family friend pick me up at the other end at a more distant train station...Only on a Stephen Mitchell day!

Then I met him again in Los Angeles in April of 2013 when I attended one of his dinners on Sunset, there I enjoyed seeing him again and meeting his group of friends...including Ed Niles who also just left us...now they are sharing tales again up there, may they do so happily and forever...

 

In his own words:

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/index.php?posts/142034293

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

I never quite bought his story about where the money came from. If you read the linked post about his accident, he and his dad were driving a Cadillac, so I'm pretty confident that his dad had some money.

It seems some people on here had some negative interactions with him as well, and I was never quite sure what to believe. But no matter what, his stories were amazing-- RIP, Stephen.