Beach Boys' cars

[buddhahat]

What are your favourite cars owned by the Beach Boys?

I love this yellow Porsche that Brian is driving. Is this a 912 or a 911? I read somewhere recently that Tony Asher drove a yellow 911 (might be misremembering this though). Is there a chance Brian is driving Asher's car here?

[buddhahat]

Also found this interesting site dedicated to Dennis' ferrari 275 GTB!

http://www.ferrari275gtbc.com/index.html

[SloopJohnB]

Probably Mike's Bentley Continental S2 coupe:



There's an interesting article from 2008 about his previous and then-current cars: click here

[buddhahat]

Probably Mike's Bentley Continental S2 coupe:



There's an interesting article from 2008 about his previous and then-current cars: click here

Thanks for that - interesting read.

[Mikie]

http://hooniverse.com/2014/12/16/rock-and-radio-the-classic-craig-ads-of-the-1970s/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hooniverse%2FRrVl+%28Hooniverse%29

1948 MGT1948 MGTC - Mike
1935 Ford Model 48 convertible - Dennis
Cadillac Sedan deVille Limo - Brian
Bentley Continental S2 - Carl
Chevy C/K truck  - Al

[Jukka]

Didn't they buy Rolls (was it silver phantom) for Brian when they were in London back in 1966?

[buddhahat]

http://hooniverse.com/2014/12/16/rock-and-radio-the-classic-craig-ads-of-the-1970s/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hooniverse%2FRrVl+%28Hooniverse%29

1948 MGT1948 MGTC - Mike
1935 Ford Model 48 convertible - Dennis
Cadillac Sedan deVille Limo - Brian
Bentley Continental S2 - Carl
Chevy C/K truck  - Al

Cool ads, thanks. How do you know which car is whose?!

[guitarfool2002]

   Corrections welcome as always...

I wanted to clip the original photo of Brian with the Porsche into this for an A/B comparison but it was too large, maybe trimming it down to 3 individual photos would be cool if necessary to see them side-by-side.

BUT - Here is what I'm 99.999% sure is that very same car Brian is driving in the home movie clip, as it appeared after being restored and as it looked in 2006.

This is a 1968 Porsche 911 L, important to note the "L" because that was at the time the most expensive version of this car offered in the US. It was and is a rare car, there were apparently 449 produced as the 1968 model, and that was the only year it was made. So when you see either a modern or a vintage photo of one, as with the Brian film and the 2006 shots, there isn't much doubt what it is because there are/were less than 500 made, ever.

As of 2006, it had been restored to original condition and specs, had 70,000 original miles (according to those posting the info back then), and had all original paperwork...which means you could trace the title and ownership back to the original owner.

And a previous owner of this 1968 Porsche 911 L ?

David Anderle.  

Now the question is, and of this I have no idea, was Brian driving David's Porsche in the original film? Or was it Brian's car? In the vintage car market, if it were ever Brian's car his name would be signed on the original title and anyone owning the car as a collector would make sure to point out that this was Brian Wilson's 1968 Porsche with his name on the title, if that were the case. In this case, David is listed as the previous owner, so I'd bet without knowing for sure that Brian was filmed driving David's car.

The restored car as it looked in 2006:

[buddhahat]

 Corrections welcome as always...

I wanted to clip the original photo of Brian with the Porsche into this for an A/B comparison but it was too large, maybe trimming it down to 3 individual photos would be cool if necessary to see them side-by-side.

BUT - Here is what I'm 99.999% sure is that very same car Brian is driving in the home movie clip, as it appeared after being restored and as it looked in 2006.

This is a 1968 Porsche 911 L, important to note the "L" because that was at the time the most expensive version of this car offered in the US. It was and is a rare car, there were apparently 449 produced as the 1968 model, and that was the only year it was made. So when you see either a modern or a vintage photo of one, as with the Brian film and the 2006 shots, there isn't much doubt what it is because there are/were less than 500 made, ever.

As of 2006, it had been restored to original condition and specs, had 70,000 original miles (according to those posting the info back then), and had all original paperwork...which means you could trace the title and ownership back to the original owner.

And a previous owner of this 1968 Porsche 911 L ?

David Anderle.  

Now the question is, and of this I have no idea, was Brian driving David's Porsche in the original film? Or was it Brian's car? In the vintage car market, if it were ever Brian's car his name would be signed on the original title and anyone owning the car as a collector would make sure to point out that this was Brian Wilson's 1968 Porsche with his name on the title, if that were the case. In this case, David is listed as the previous owner, so I'd bet without knowing for sure that Brian was filmed driving David's car.

The restored car as it looked in 2006:

Haha! - it's funny because I was thinking if anyone would engage in my question it would be Guitarfool and, lo, you've excelled yourself here!

Out of curiosity -  How did you find out about this restored once-Anderle-owned Porsche?

Oh, to have the readies to buy that ...

[buddhahat]

Hang on though - if the car was made in 68, then are you sure it's the same one? Surely that's earlier footage of Brian in the yellow Porsche?

The footage appears in Art That Shook The World (about 12m.20s)

http://youtu.be/sX-kFyt73Uw

Maybe it is 68. Which house is that? Brian's hair looks more 66 to me but that is a pretty psychedelic shirt.

Am I wrong thinking the porsche in the footage is yellow? Maybe it is gold like the 2006 photos ...

[Mikie]

Cool ads, thanks. How do you know which car is whose?!

I'm smart.

[Mikie]

Didn't they buy Rolls (was it silver phantom) for Brian when they were in London back in 1966?

Yeah, I heard it was ordered for him but he never got it. Or he had it for a very short period of time.

[SMiLE Brian]

Cool ads, thanks. How do you know which car is whose?!

I'm smart.

Bgas is alot smarter.

[Mikie]

Cool ads, thanks. How do you know which car is whose?!

I'm smart.

Bgas is alot smarter.

Bgas doesn't know sh*t from Shinola. 

[Debbie Keil-Leavitt]

Brian had a pale yellow Mark III (I'm pretty sure - not a car girl even though my family sold them, may have been Mark IV - it was in 1969).  It was a really pretty car and Brian looked great in it.  

[guitarfool2002]

Hang on though - if the car was made in 68, then are you sure it's the same one? Surely that's earlier footage of Brian in the yellow Porsche?

The footage appears in Art That Shook The World (about 12m.20s)

http://youtu.be/sX-kFyt73Uw

Maybe it is 68. Which house is that? Brian's hair looks more 66 to me but that is a pretty psychedelic shirt.

Am I wrong thinking the porsche in the footage is yellow? Maybe it is gold like the 2006 photos ...

The info I gave isn't 100% confirmed (besides the ownership and what the car is, which is 100%), there is some speculation involved, just to make that clear. And to explain my "corrections welcome" disclaimer.    But I saw I got some info on the production totals wrong for the 911L, I was listing European numbers while the US totals were more like 11,000 for that particular model. My bad! Still a rare car and the more expensive version for sale.

That film is later than 1966, I'm pretty sure. The car's color may be deceiving in how the film is washed out by the sunlight, or how it was processed, but the car in the film looks like the Anderle car from 2006, with that light gold color.
Those psychedelic shirts can sometimes tip off when the photo or film was shot, those were more of a 67-68 thing, it would seem.

There are details on the car, very minute differences, that could ID the original film's Porsche as something other than Anderle's 911L (it could have been an earlier S model, or whatever the case), but putting all the pieces together from the 2 photo sets, the colors match, the model seems to match on the surface, and one was owned by someone very close to Brian from that era.

Borrowing a line from Woodward and Bernstein in "All The President's Men"...If you go to bed, wake up and see snow on the ground the next morning, you can confirm that it snowed overnight. You didn't actually see it snow, so you can't actually prove that it snowed, but you can confirm and conclude that it did in fact snow...or something like that.  

So in this case, connecting David Anderle to Brian, connecting a gold Porsche 911 in a film from 67-68 vintage to a car previously owned by Anderle, connecting the color and features of the 2006 Anderle Porsche to the original film...circumstantial evidence but pretty solid as well. I'll go out on a limb and say in this case, it snowed overnight.  

And I'll gladly stand corrected if that's not the case!  

[buddhahat]

Hang on though - if the car was made in 68, then are you sure it's the same one? Surely that's earlier footage of Brian in the yellow Porsche?

The footage appears in Art That Shook The World (about 12m.20s)

http://youtu.be/sX-kFyt73Uw

Maybe it is 68. Which house is that? Brian's hair looks more 66 to me but that is a pretty psychedelic shirt.

Am I wrong thinking the porsche in the footage is yellow? Maybe it is gold like the 2006 photos ...

The info I gave isn't 100% confirmed (besides the ownership and what the car is, which is 100%), there is some speculation involved, just to make that clear. And to explain my "corrections welcome" disclaimer.    But I saw I got some info on the production totals wrong for the 911L, I was listing European numbers while the US totals were more like 11,000 for that particular model. My bad! Still a rare car and the more expensive version for sale.

That film is later than 1966, I'm pretty sure. The car's color may be deceiving in how the film is washed out by the sunlight, or how it was processed, but the car in the film looks like the Anderle car from 2006, with that light gold color.
Those psychedelic shirts can sometimes tip off when the photo or film was shot, those were more of a 67-68 thing, it would seem.

There are details on the car, very minute differences, that could ID the original film's Porsche as something other than Anderle's 911L (it could have been an earlier S model, or whatever the case), but putting all the pieces together from the 2 photo sets, the colors match, the model seems to match on the surface, and one was owned by someone very close to Brian from that era.

Borrowing a line from Woodward and Bernstein in "All The President's Men"...If you go to bed, wake up and see snow on the ground the next morning, you can confirm that it snowed overnight. You didn't actually see it snow, so you can't actually prove that it snowed, but you can confirm and conclude that it did in fact snow...or something like that.  

So in this case, connecting David Anderle to Brian, connecting a gold Porsche 911 in a film from 67-68 vintage to a car previously owned by Anderle, connecting the color and features of the 2006 Anderle Porsche to the original film...circumstantial evidence but pretty solid as well. I'll go out on a limb and say in this case, it snowed overnight.  

And I'll gladly stand corrected if that's not the case!  

All seems like pretty sound reasoning to me and agree, that car could well be gold and not yellow as I originally assumed.

I guess one way of ruling out whether the footage is/isn't pre-68 would be whether that's Brian's Bellagio house - anyone?

Thanks again for the fascinating info.

[bgas]

Couple of car quotes : 

>>"My favorite drive ever was Sunset Boulevard, between the house that Brian [Wilson] had in Beverly Hills and my place in Brentwood. In the early 1970s, we would record at Brian's house and that drive back and forth, that was my break from work, my escape.
 
"There's that great curve there. I used to get my quota of tickets every year right there. I had my little 1967 XKE, the most beautiful European sports car ever made. The afternoon sessions, that's when I would get a ticket. But if we went into the late hours, which we did a lot, then I could really cut loose. It was like our private Laguna Seca speedway. Those were great days. You know, it hasn't changed a bit either."
 
— Al Jardine  << 

>>Dennis still feels somewhat vengeful toward the people in Hawthorne who snickered at the group. "I like showing them that we've got a lot of cash," he says. "When I visit my mother there, I drive my Ferrari down Hawthorne Boulevard, go home, drive the Cobra along the same street, and do the same thing with the Aston-Martin and my brother's old T-Bird." 

--Linda McVeigh 1965 << 

[Mikie]

Brian owned a 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix (cover of Hawthorne CA. CD). Carl owned a 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix (cover of Shut Down II). Dennis owned a 1963 Corvette Stingray (Cover of Shut Down II), then a Ferrari, Cobra, and Astin Martin.

I always thought the white T-Bird on the Shut Down II cover (seen better in photo shoot outtakes) was Murry's. But now I'm wondering who Dennis was talking about when he says above that he borrowed his "brother's T-Bird." If it wasn't Brian's and Carl's, it musta been Murry's T-Bird.

[The 4th Wilson Bro.]

Wasn't it Carl whose first new car was hit and possibly totaled by another driver when Carl was driving it home from the dealership?

If so, what make/model was the car?

[guitarfool2002]

This is a great topic, I want to add a few visuals to some of what has been mentioned already. And I hope anyone who has more info can fill in some of the gaps of info, as there are still questions about some of the details of these cars even today.

These are stills I captured from the Little Honda film which Dennis shot and which featured Carl. Some of the cars we've been discussing:

This shows a silver Corvette convertible, obviously not the one Dennis owned from the Shut Down vol.2 cover. Anyone able to tell whose Vette this was? Next is a red 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso, by many accounts this is the car previously owned by Sam Cooke which Dennis acquired after Cooke's murder in 1964. More on this one to come. In the background is the Jaguar XKE.



This is where it gets interesting. Here is a 60's Aston Martin DB5 convertible, this would most likely have been Carl's as he's said to have owned one. Does that sound right?



In the film, Carl wrecks into some trash cans and the silver Vette convertible pulls up next to him. There is a man driving who you can't see at all for identification, and there is a woman in the passenger seat as shown in this shot. Can anyone ID her?



And this is the Sam Cooke-Dennis Wilson Ferrari 250 Lusso seen at a modern car show.



One of the questions that was lingering about the Cooke-Wilson Ferrari was the color. It was apparently shipped from the factory in a different color, yet reports mostly say it was red when Cooke owned it, and it's obviously red as Dennis owned it too, again assuming the info is correct that this was the Sam Cooke car. So there are still gaps in the details, despite some assumptions that connect the dots.

Anyone with more info and corrections on any of this, please add to the discussion!

[joe_blow]

http://hooniverse.com/2014/12/16/rock-and-radio-the-classic-craig-ads-of-the-1970s/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hooniverse%2FRrVl+%28Hooniverse%29

1948 MGT1948 MGTC - Mike
1935 Ford Model 48 convertible - Dennis
Cadillac Sedan deVille Limo - Brian
Bentley Continental S2 - Carl
Chevy C/K truck  - Al

Cool ads, thanks. How do you know which car is whose?!

Is that the car Brian emerges from at the 6:18 mark in The Real Beach Boy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoeD1G6dpE

[Mikie]

Is that the car Brian emerges from at the 6:18 mark in The Real Beach Boy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoeD1G6dpE

Yep, that's the one.  License plate said "Love 1".  Stan Love chauffeured Brian around in it.

[Mikie]

Wasn't it Carl whose first new car was hit and possibly totaled by another driver when Carl was driving it home from the dealership?

If so, what make/model was the car?

1964 Pontiac Grand Prix. On the way home from the dealership on the day he bought the car, he was broadsided at an intersection near his home in Hawthorne, and the car was totaled. I assume he bought another one just like it, as shown on the Shut Down II cover. Either that or he bought it before the photo shoot and totaled it afterwards! I think the former.

Carl also owned an Aston Martin DB5 and a green Bentley in the mid-1960's.

[The 4th Wilson Bro.]

Wasn't it Carl whose first new car was hit and possibly totaled by another driver when Carl was driving it home from the dealership?

If so, what make/model was the car?

1964 Pontiac Grand Prix. On the way home from the dealership on the day he bought the car, he was broadsided at an intersection near his home in Hawthorne, and the car was totaled. I assume he bought another one just like it, as shown on the Shut Down II cover. Either that or he bought it before the photo shoot and totaled it afterwards! I think the former.

Carl also owned an Aston Martin DB5 and a green Bentley in the mid-1960's.

Thanks, Mikie.  That's how I remembered the story, just wasn't certain my memory wasn't tricking me.  Also, wasn't it reported in the Gaines book that the Boys ordered four new Rolls Royces when they were in England in (again, I think) 1965?  One for each Wilson brother and one for Mike?  And wasn't that supposedly done to celebrate being voted by fans as the No. 1 group in England?