Moonlight Reflects Off Lake Ontario 2010

Yesterday’s social at the Mimico Cruising (Yacht) Club was well attended. There must have been close to a hundred UCR members and guests there. The venue was wonderful. The food was great. I had the Grilled Swordfish, but the Rack of Lamb seemed to be the favourite at our table.

Our main guests for the evening were Dan Proudfoot, Canadian Motorsports Journalist and interviewer, and interviewee Horst Kroll, Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee. But before this took place, we had a pleasant duty to perform. Bruce Marshall was on hand from the Canadian Red Cross. Chris Ralphs, UCR’r and Concours Volunteer handed him a cheque for $1789 to be applied to Disaster Relief. This was the money left over from the 2010 Concours at Legendary Motor Cars in June. We had already presented Legendary with a cheque for Sick Kids Hospital in the amount of $410. Not bad for an event that we would have been happy for it just to break even.

The first Proudfoot/Kroll interview, at our March, 2009 Social at Artrax in Oakville, was fascinating. This one was too… Horst spoke of his early days in Leipzig (East Germany at the time) He recalled seeing his first Porsche in 1953. “What was this car, that came up to my kneecap?”, he thought. When he and his friend, also Horst, finally got permission to leave, his first sight of West Germany was the VW factory in Wolfsburg. He couldn’t have imagined that such a structure existed. The two Horsts, however, had loftier goals. They headed straight for Stuttgart. Porsche was their first choice, but they would have been happy with Mercedes Benz. Fortune smiled on them and they got interviews and apprentice mechanic jobs with Porsche. They must have looked a sight at for the interview because they were living out of their Morris Minor at the time. Horst worked in the factory garage that serviced family and VIP cars. One time he found a letter addressed to Ferry from a lover. He declined to go into detail about the contents. The two Horsts were always punching in late because of the distance they had to commute. Ferry Porsche (Father of the 911) called them into his office to reprimand them. They weren’t late after that. How’s that for a family run business?

After the interview, our own Dagmar Pegg handed out the door prizes, including some great Meguiars Detailing Kits.

When I stepped into the cool evening breeze, the light from the half moon was shimmering off the lake. The sound of Porsches driving off filled the air. Fabulous.

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